Promoting gender diversity in STEM faculty through leadership development. From local and national leadership workshops to the online LEAD-it-Yourself! toolkit

• Date: 15 April 2019
• Pages: 382-398
• Published date: 15 April 2019
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-09-2017-0181
• Author: Joyce Yen,Eve A. Riskin,Cara Margherio,Jan H. Spyridakis,Coleen M. Carrigan,Ana Mari Cauce
• Subject Matter: Hr & organizational behaviour

Promoting gender diversity

in STEM faculty through

leadership development

From local and national leadership workshops

to the online LEAD-it-Yourself! toolkit

Joyce Yen

ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change, University of Washington,

Seattle, Washington, USA

Eve A. Riskin

College of Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

Cara Margherio

Center for Evaluation & Research for STEM Equity, University of Washington,

Seattle, Washington, USA

Jan H. Spyridakis

Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering,

University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

Coleen M. Carrigan

Department of Social Sciences, College of Liberal Arts,

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California, USA, and

Ana Mari Cauce

Office of the President, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

Abstract

Purpose –The advancement of equity, diversity and inclusion in higher education is dependent on

institutional culture changes in academia. Faculty equity, diversity and inclusion efforts must engage

departmentalleadership. The purpose of thispaper is to describe the growthand expansion of the ADVANCE

leadershipprogram at the University of Washington (UW)for department chairs that was designed to provide

department chairsthe skills, community and information neededto be agents of change within the academy.

Design/methodology/approach –The paper chronicles the program’s growth from a campus-based

workshop program to national workshops (LEAD) to a web-based toolkit (LiY!) to support institutions in

running their own UW ADVANCE-inspired leadership workshops.

Findings –The paper demonstrates the success of each growth stage and the expansion of program impact.

Practical implications –The paper offers recommendations for growing a model from a local to national

scale and adapting the described leadership development model at other institutions.

Originality/value –The paper shares a successful model for equipping department chairs to be advocates

of gender equity, diversity and inclusion in STEM and to be change agents in higher education.

Keywords Women, Diversity, Leadership development, STEM faculty, Department chairs,

Faculty professional development

Paper type Case study

Introduction

Advancing equity, diversity and inclusion in higher education depends on changing

institutional culture. Culture change requires significant change in attitudes, practices and

policies throughout the university community. When programmatic interventions succeed

in transforming local context, it may be desirable to extend those practices to create change

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 38 No. 3, 2019

pp. 382-398

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-09-2017-0181

Received 13 September 2017

Revised 22 February 2018

26 July 2018

Accepted 17 August 2018

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

382

EDI

38,3

throughout the higher education landscape. In this paper, we detail how a successful

workshop model for leadership development has been propagated and expanded into an

online toolkit with a goal of maximizing impact and increasing gender diversity.

Since 2001, the USA National Science Foundation’s (NSF) ADVANCE program has

funded numerous US organizations and institutions of higher education to engage

in this type of institutional transformation (NSF, 2017). Specifically, NSF ADVANCE

seeks to advance female faculty in science, technology, engineering and mathematics

(STEM) fields and promote gender equity at the faculty level (NSF, 2017). In 2001, the

University of Washington (UW) was among the first nine institutions to receive an

ADVANCE Institutional Transformation award from the NSF. To increase the

participation and advancement of female STEM faculty at UW, the UW ADVANCE

program embarked on a multidimensional approach that generated support and

engagement at all levels (see https://advance.washington.edu/camps/index.html). New

strategies included creating mentoring programs and professional development

workshops for STEM faculty (Yen et al., 2005, 2007); providing transitional support

funding for STEM faculty undergoing significant transitions that were impacting their

professional progress (Riskin et al., 2007); improving understanding, communication and

utilization of policies, such as tenure-clock extensions, that are particularly impactful to

female faculty (Quinn et al., 2007); problem solving with individual faculty; and engaging

department chairs as partners in creating a more inclusive and welcoming culture and

climate for female faculty (Yen et al., 2004).

The UW ADVANCE program has sought to increase the number of female faculty in

STEM at UW. The percentage of female faculty in the UW ADVANCE’s 19 target STEM

departments almost doubled in 15 years, increasing from 12.6 percent in Fall 2000 (n¼58) to

22 percent in Fall 2015 (n¼112). The number of male faculty in these same departments

slightly decreased during this same time period, going from 402 in Fall 2000 to 397 in Fall

2015. Moreover, not only has the number of female full professors more than doubled (from

26 to 57) in that same time frame, but also over half of the female faculty in the 19 STEM

departments is full professors.

The American Society for Engineering Education reports that in 2016 UW had

22.9 percent female faculty in engineering compared to the national average of 16.3 percent

(Yoder, 2017). Further, UW has the highest percentage of female faculty representation in

the top 25 US Colleges of Engineering, as ranked by US News & World Report (Best

Undergraduate Engineering Programs Rankings (Doctorate), 2016; Yoder, 2017). Because

female faculty inspires the next generation of female PhD students, leading to greater

diversity in future faculty candidate pools (Carrigan et al., 2011; Carrell et al., 2010; Diekman

et al., 2010), our success in increasing the number of female faculty contributes to lasting

institutional change in higher education.

A crucial element of UW ADVANCE’s goals and success in advancing female faculty in

STEM has been to provide department chairs with tools, resources and best practices to

address faculty gender equity, diversity and inclusion. This paper describes the evolution of

the UW ADVANCE leadership development program to support department chairs in being

change agents. First, we examine why department chairs are important to cultural change

efforts in higher education and how they usually are not well prepared to do such work.

Then, we chronicle the growth and expansion of the UW ADVANCE leadership program

from a local UW program to a national workshop called Leadership Excellence for

Academic Diversity (LEAD) to an online toolkit called LEAD-it-Yourself! (LiY!) that guides

others in creating similar department chair leadership development workshops at their own

institutions. The paper ends with a discussion of some conclusions, challenges and future

research possibilities and recommendations for adapting the department chair leadership

development workshop model to other institutions.

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Promoting

gender

diversity in

STEM faculty