ADVANCE Leadership Award: Collaborative Research: Leadership Skills and Community Building Program for Junior Women Engineering Faculty in Engineering

University Of Virginia Main Campus, Charlottesville VA

Investigators

Abstract

The goal of this proposed work is to establish a regionally-organized, self-sustaining leadership training program for junior women faculty in engineering disciplines. By simultaneously training women engineering faculty in leadership and constructing a regional peer-mentoring network, the investigators hope to increase job performance and satisfaction for academic women in engineering, thus increasing both retention and advancement. The proposed activity is based on a pilot program conducted in the Northeast and will fund a three-year series of regional meetings in the mid-Atlantic that will provide leadership training, facilitate networking, and will be used as a model for other regions of the country. The specific objectives of this proposed program are to: 1. Train junior women engineering faculty in leadership, communication and conflict management through an experiential learning program; 2. Educate women about the academy through an "insider's perspective" from a senior woman academic engineer; 3. Enable and foster peer-mentoring and regional networking among junior women faculty in engineering; and 4. Promote the expansion of the program throughout the United States.