Partnerships for Adaptation, Implementation, and Dissemination (PAID): Successfully Navigating Your Career - Advancing Women Faculty in Engineering and Technology at HBCUs

Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, College Station TX

Investigators

Abstract

The proposed ADVANCE PAID project from the Texas Engineering Experiment Station at Prairie View A&M University will create a well-designed program focused on assisting women faculty in successfully navigating and advancing through the professoriate ranks and entering into academic administration at Historically Black College and Universities (HBCU) in Colleges or Schools of Engineering and Technology. The multi-faceted project will offer an array of activities including professional development and leadership workshops, mentoring/networks, professional Coaches, seed grants, and a female faculty repository. Participants will be provided with customized and relevant materials aimed at promoting professional development through the academic pipeline. Intellectual Merit. The quintessential goal of this ADVANCE PAID project is to generate a toolkit for the different stages of an academic career path and provide a new base of information regarding effective strategies and promising practices for women faculty at HBCUS. The specific objectives of the proposed project are: 1) to develop a continuum of activities that will assist women faculty in their professional development and growth while retaining them within the academic and administrative ranks at HBCUs in Colleges or Schools of Engineering and Technology, 2) to establish Professoriate Affinity Communities (PAC); 3) to explore the perspectives of key stakeholders (i.e. Deans, Department Chairs/Heads, etc.); 4) to establish communication mechanisms for life-long engagement; and 5) to disseminate Best Practices to HBCU Engineering Administrators. Broader Impacts. The project will increase the retention and advancement of women engineering faculty at HBCUs which will provide more women and minority role models at HBCUs and potentially increase the pool of women and minority graduates at HBCUs. Also, the emphasis on women engineering administrators at HBCUs will change the institutional culture by changing the face of the decision-makers. In addition, the findings from the project will be disseminated as recommendations to HBCU administrators on best practices for advancement and retention strategies for women engineering and technology faculty at HBCUs.