ADVANCE Leadership Award

University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln NE

Investigators

Abstract

The PIs propose to educate women geoscientists on the barriers to their progress in academia and on strategies to overcome those barriers. Their goal is to increase the proportion of women in geoscience tenure track and tenured positions in academia in the United States. Project objectives are to: 1) determine the current status of women in academia through a survey of geoscience departments in the United States, 2) conduct focus groups and surveys of students, tenured and untenured faculty and non-tenure track faculty at national geoscience meetings to determine what is the perception of barriers to women's progress in the field, 3) hold a 1-day workshop to investigate the causes of the low representation of women in academic geoscience positions in the United States, and 4) Disseminate the information to geoscience students, junior faculty and to academic administrators to educate women students and faculty on strategies to overcome barriers, encourage women to pursue academic geoscience careers and teach administrators how to recruit and retain qualified women in geoscience. This approach to increasing women's representation in the geosciences takes a 'supply-side' or mentoring approach, with a focus on teaching women what they need to know to become (i) educated in the field without discrimination, (ii) to negotiate salaries and contracts, and (iii) to find out what is required to achieve tenure at their institutions. This project is supported by the NSF ADVANCE Program. The overall mission of the ADVANCE Program is to increase the participation of women in the scientific and engineering workforce through the increased representation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers.