ADVANCEing women faculty in STEM: empirical findings and practical recommendations from National Science Foundation ADVANCE institutions

• Pages: 122-130
• Date: 11 March 2019
• Published date: 11 March 2019
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-03-2019-295
• Author: Stacie Furst-Holloway,Kathi Miner
• Subject Matter: Hr & organizational behaviour

Guest editorial

ADVANCEing women faculty in STEM: empirical findings and practical

recommendations from National Science Foundation ADVANCE institutions

Since its foundation in 2001, the US National Science Foundation’s (NSF) ADVANCE

program has invested over $315m to support initiatives at more than 175 institutions

of higher education (IHEs) and STEM-related nonprofit organizations. ADVANCE is a

cross-disciplinary program focused on broadening the participation (BP) of diverse people

and institutions. Programs within the ADVANCE portfolio focus on increasing the

representation and advancement of women and underrepresented minorities (URM) in

academic STEM careers, developing mechanisms to promote gender equity in the STEM

academic workforce, and aiding in diversifying the science and engineering workforce.

ADVANCE also seeks to contribute to the general knowledge research based on gender

equity in academic STEM disciplines, encouraging IHEs to identify and address aspects of

STEM academic culture and institutional structures that negatively affect women faculty.

A seminal program within the ADVANCE portfolio is the Institutional Transformation (IT)

grant, which provides large scale, multi-year funding to IHEs focused on fundamental

organizational changes that should BP over the long term.

Consistent with the goals of the NSF ADVANCE program, a vibrant research community

has emerged to explore the factors that facilitate or hinder BP efforts. This research, broadly

categorized as the Science of Broadening Participation (SoBP), identifies a range of

structural and systemic factors (e.g. bias in recruitment and promotion decisions, the

absence of peer networks and mentoring opportunities) contributing to the slow pace of

change. Yet, broad dissemination of knowledge and adoption of best practices from the

SoBP literature is challenging, which limits opportunities for the academy and larger STEM

workforce to realize more consistent and widespread gains in BP. We describe four specific

challenges below.

First, substantive work in the BP literature describes organization-centered models for

change that target specific organizational structures, cultures and practices that can

produce or relieve inequities (Bird, 2011; Laursen and Austin, 2014; Morimoto et al., 2013).

Because these models are institution specific, they do not translate readily across

institutions that vary in mission, size, student population, reward structures, leadership and

various other characteristics. Instead, transferring best practices or policies across

institutions requires a more nuanced understanding of and adjustment to the local

(Bilimoria and Liang, 2012).

Second, the academy is marked by strong and highly demarcated disciplinary cultures.

These cultures, or academic tribes (Becher and Trowler, 2001), reflect norms and values

developed and internalized over time that govern how faculty in those disciplines interact,

allocate their time, conduct their research and evaluate success. Differences between those

disciplinary –and thus departmental –cultures often result in resistance to the adoption of

institution-wide practices that might advance BP goals in favor of localized approaches that

may or may not yield desired outcomes. Thus, many studies of ADVANCE-funded efforts

report that IHEs often see advances in BP in some departments but not others (Bilimoria

and Liang, 2012; Morimoto et al., 2013). In these cases, BP gains may reflect the people

within those departments rather than the practices or policies being used that could be

replicated elsewhere.

Third, efforts to disseminate empirical findings relating to the SoBP in mainstream

outlets may be hindered by methodological constraints. Because of the institutional and

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 38 No. 2, 2019

pp. 122-130

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-03-2019-295

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