ADVANCE Adaptation: UMass Boston CARES: Communities, Acknowledgment, Recognition and Equity through a Culture of Sponsorship

University Of Massachusetts Boston, Dorchester MA

Investigators

Abstract

This project addresses issues related to lack of recognition and value for community engaged research and caring work, along with inequitable service loads shouldered by women faculty and faculty of color. Importantly, these issues are widespread in higher education and have been demonstrated to lead to inequities in the experiences and career advancement of women faculty and faculty of color in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. To address gender and racial inequities, the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Boston Communities, Acknowledgment, Recognition and Equity through a Culture of Sponsorship (CARES) will implement two major sets of strategies, the policy core and the training core. The policy core will focus on increasing the equitable recognition of service, community-engaged research, and caring work in tenure and promotion reviews for tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty. The training core will center theater-enhanced bystander training to address and mitigate gender and racial bias in faculty personnel reviews. The project will also develop gender and racial equity-focused guidelines for personnel reviews, bystander interventions and behaviors, sponsorship, and co-conspirator tools. In addition, the project seeks to develop an institutional culture that values caring work, service, and community-engaged research which will lead to systemic change at UMass Boston. Grounded in the findings of UMass Boston’s National Science Foundation ADVANCE Catalyst institutional self-assessment, the UMass Boston CARES project’s goal is to use an intersectional lens to adapt and implement campus wide policy and bystander interventions to promote structural and cultural changes that increase gender and racial equity for STEM faculty. The specific objectives of the project are to implement equity-minded policies and practices related to tenure-track and nontenure-track faculty personnel reviews and to shift the culture of the university toward centering recognition and rewards for community-engaged research, service, and caring work. The project focuses on two cores of strategies, the policy core and the training core. The aim of the policy core is to create equitable faculty personnel reviews through a working group process that will develop and implement equity-minded operational personnel review guidelines. The aim of the training core is to provide theater enhanced bystander interventions for faculty and leaders involved in faculty personnel reviews. The bystander program focuses on issues of implicit bias in personnel reviews related specifically to the evaluation of caring work, service, and community-engaged research. The project is also expected to provide clarity about community-engaged research and caring work, and how those faculty activities are recognized and rewarded to support the experiences and career outcomes of women faculty and faculty of color in STEM fields. The project will lead to systemic change that significantly shifts the structures and culture of UMass Boston to center equitable personnel review policies, practices, and processes. 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.