PGE/PLN -- Coupling Assessment with Organizational Change Strategies: A Fresh Approach to Promoting Gender & Racial Diversity in Undergrad. Physical & Comp. Science & Engineering

National Council For Research On Women, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

The National Council for Research on Women (NCRW) proposes a 12-month planning project to design a multi-site three-year project aimed at improving the recruitment and retention of undergraduate women students in selected physical and computer science departments, and engineering disciplines. The larger project will focus on women students of color, who are severely under-represented in these fields. The fields that will be encompassed in this project are all areas in which there are increasing opportunities, given the ways technology is transforming whole sectors of the world economy and increasing demands for scientific and technological expertise to extend knowledge and capacity. NCRW will draw on its 95 member centers, and specific SMET departments representative of a wide range of racial and ethnic diversity, where a base of institutional support for such an approach is present. Its aim will be to develop fresh approaches to assessing environments and implementing strategies for change in specific SMET institutions and/or departments through partnerships with women's research centers, and its methodology will focus on the development of assessment protocols and change strategies by the project's partners on each campus. The innovative emphases are: intersections of race, gender; assessment tools and institutional change across a wide range of undergraduatel environments; and partnerships for change across campuses. This project will build on the findings and recommendations of the recent NCRW report Balancing the Equation: Where are Women and Girls in Science, Engineering and Technology?, roundtables and convenings sponsored by NCRW, and on the work of its centers engaged in work on issues related to women and girls in the sciences.