ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Award: ADVANCE-US: Applying a Business Model to a University

Utah State University, Logan UT

Investigators

Abstract

National data show that women are under-represented in academic positions, particularly at full professor and in administration; further analyses reveal that negative campus climates are often to blame. Previous funding initiatives have focused on educating or boosting the careers of individual women faculty members, either by providing differential funding opportunities or competitiveness training. Rather than .fixing under-represented individuals, this proposal seeks to improve recruitment, promotion, and retention of women faculty in sciences and engineering at Utah State University by transforming: 1. Departmental Climates. Working at the department level to reduce assumptions and stereotypes that adversely affect women including minority women faculty. 2. Policies and Procedures. Updating university policies to provide support for gender-related conflicts and to provide training for administrators and faculty committees to eliminate biased decisions and procedures. 3. Faculty Support Infrastructure. Creating university-wide structures to foster collaborative research, reduce isolation, improve data collection and reflective evaluation. To achieve these objectives the PIs propose two novel strategies: Dual Agenda Approach. The Dual Agenda Approach is a business model for creating sustainable change by engaging work units in creative dialogs to identify how gender equity and work effectiveness can improve simultaneously. This approach has not been applied in academic settings, and experienced private-sector consultants will help USU adapt dual agenda procedures. Targeting Critical Structural Problems. Faculty encountering junctures where advancement is stymied can most clearly identify needed changes. The PIs interviewed 43 of 50 current and prior women faculty to locate where institutional change is needed, including policies that differentially impact under-represented faculty and critically absent infrastructure, which limit advancement. They will supervise changes to critical structural problems and full adoption by the university. The success of these two approaches in achieving gender equity will be judged in three ways: statistical analysis of faculty representation and survey data, qualitative data collection, and a population modeling approach revealing significant effects of subtle biases.