NSF ADVANCE INITIATIVE: INSTITUTIONAL TRANSFORMATION TO ACHIEVE FACULTY DIVERSITY

The NSF ADVANCE initiative is designed to enhance gender equity in academic science and engineering faculty. One of its components – Institutional Transformation – has the goal of establishing strategies and policies that will revolutionize institutional climate so that diverse faculty flourish. The University of Texas at El Paso is one of 19 institutions to currently hold a 5-year grant under the Institutional Transformation program. This poster presentation highlights practices from the participating institutions. Two general aspects of the program are: 1) co-principal investigators are a blend of administrators and active researchers. This blend ensures a bottom-up, top-down approach to presenting gender equity to faculty. 2) Many of the investigators have diversity as their research focus, which is intended to result in rigorous, peer-reviewed dissemination of institutional results. Specific efforts for all institutions relate to recruitment, retention, and advancement of female faculty and, by establishing equitable conditions, to improvement of the workplace for all. For recruitment, institutions have committed faculty involved in the search process, from the training of search committees in diversity strategies to interaction with candidates. A close working relationship with the campus EO officer is essential. Retention strategies center on mentoring, monetary support for research, and policy implementation. Policies focus on work-family balance. Advancement of females to important administrative and non-administrative positions is the third focus. Workshops and seminars on leadership skills are common in the various institutions. A central theme is that, in addition to specific strategies, the institution reflects on its core values and means to modulate these to reflect a value for diversity. More information on the ADVANCE program, including links to the Institutional Transformation grantees and initiatives other than Institutional Transformation, may be found on its webpage.