ADVANCE Adaptation: American University Creating Gender and Racial Equity Among STEM Faculty

American University, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

The American University (AU) ADVANCE Adaptation project will improve the professional and academic environment for all faculty with a focus on the retention of women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minority (URM) faculty in STEM fields. This focus is informed by prior work done with an ADVANCE Catalyst grant, which showed that changes to faculty hiring practices were achieving increased diversity in new faculty, but departures of diverse faculty, particularly URM women was a major issue. The Catalyst work also found inequitable experiences and support for faculty on term and tenure-track career pathways. Thus, the ADVANCE AU project focuses on improving the overall academic climate for women and URM faculty in STEM including tenure track, tenured, and term faculty. The goals of the project are to: 1. Enhance faculty mentoring through training for both mentors and mentees; 2. Review and revise department level policies with “Boyer-inspired” tenure, promotion, and reappointment reforms; 3. Elevate, recognize, and reward the diversity, equity, and inclusion work done by AU faculty through various strategies; and 4. Create an institutional administrative position with responsibilities for faculty diversity and equity in the provost office. The ADVANCE AU project will clarify existing policies and develop and execute new tenure, promotion, and reappointment guidelines that integrate inclusive and antiracist principles. This and other aspects of the project are expected to increase STEM faculty feelings of belongingness in their departments and at AU. The Boyer-inspired framework, selected to combat the “teaching versus research” dichotomy, categorizes faculty work into four distinct but overlapping functions: 1) the scholarship of discovery; 2) the scholarship of integration; 3) the scholarship of application; and 4) the scholarship of teaching. The utilization of the framework is expected to increase the visibility of non-traditional faculty work and to expand the definition of faculty work as related to tenure and promotion. Findings from the project are expected to shed light on how to engage academic leaders in important and “difficult conversations” about the perpetuation of racial and gender inequities via policies and practices in programs and departments. 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 institutions 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.