ADVANCE Adaptation: Achieving Excellence and Equity through Academic Leadership Development

Cleveland State University, Cleveland OH

Investigators

Abstract

Cleveland State University will implement a NSF ADVANCE Adaptation project to create comprehensive chair training focusing on: 1) improving faculty work-nonwork balance through practices such as Family-Supportive Supervisor Behaviors; 2) improving departmental culture for work-nonwork balance by addressing key assumptions and language surrounding work; and 3) improving advocacy for women faculty by addressing implicit bias, providing stronger letters of recommendation, and encouraging faculty to promote themselves more strongly. The ADVANCE project will complement many other on-going efforts at CSU to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion within the STEM faculty including participation in past ADVANCE partnership project with Case Western Reserve and participation with the INCLUDES ASPIRE center. The CSU Adaptation project draws on evidence-based practices both outside and inside academia, including previous ADVANCE awardees. Specifically, the project draws from empirically supported work of previous ADVANCE projects (University of Washington) and research on non-academic organizations (the Work, Family, and Health Network). These strategies will be adapted to be effective at CSU as well as include focuses on issues of intersectionality such as national origin and age. The project has the potential to show how these techniques may need to be adjusted depending on the context, national origin, age, or other characteristics. The NSF ADVANCE program is designed to foster gender equity through a focus on the identification and elimination of organizational barriers that impede the full participation and advancement of diverse faculty in academic institutions. Organizational barriers that inhibit equity may exist in policies, processes, practices, and the organizational culture and climate. ADVANCE "Adaptation" awards provide support for the adaptation and adoption of evidence-based strategies to academic, non-profit institution of higher education as well as non-academic, non-profit organizations. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.