Low Cost High Impact: Suggestions for Warming the Campus Climate for Women

Professor Christine Hult Utah State University

PI Utah State ADVANCE

Funding provided by National Science Foundation ADVANCE Program SBE-0244922

http://www.nsf.gov/home/crssprgm/advance

http://advance.usu.edu

The Problem

Percentages of Females and Males in All S&E(NSF 00- 327, data points from 1996)

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NSF ADVANCE Overview• The Purpose of NSF ADVANCE is to increase

the participation of women in the scientific and engineering workforce.

• The Problem: Significant increases in women STEM PhDs, but they are leaving academics.

• Our strategy: To address issues of equity through improving the effectiveness of all faculty members

• Climate changes have been shown to have a differential impact on women and minorities.

Organizational Change OverviewIncremental—two steps forward, one step back

Working with a variety of entities

• President & Provost, Deans• Sponsored Programs, VP Research• Tri-Council for Women’s Programs• AA/EO, Human Resources• Faculty Senate• STEM departments and department heads• Individual Faculty Members

Suggestions for Warming the Climate on your Campus

Some low cost high impact suggestions

(Project now in the sixth no-cost extension year)

1. Using Data to Drive Change

2. Improving Policies and Procedures

3. Supporting Faculty

1. Using Data to Drive Change

• National & Local Data

• Recruitment Data

• Promotion Data

• Retention Data

American Association of University Professors Gender Equity Indicators

http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/research/geneq2006.htm• Indicator 1. Employment status (% women)

• Indicator 2. Tenure status (full time instructional)

• Indicator 3. Full Professor rank (% women full)

• Indicator 4. Average woman’s salary (as % of average man’s salary)

Break down institution’s data at college level.

Interviews of Women STEM Faculty and Matched Male Colleagues

Gender Differences in Obstacles to Success and Sources of Dissatisfacation

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NSF Data Indicators• Vary in difficulty of collection and usefulness.

• Space use analysis is only useful if the institution is large enough.

• Hiring and retention analyses need to be done at the college level across multiple years.

• Promotion analyses need to be done at the institutional level across multiple years.

Cleaning Institutional Data• Our experience - lots of errors in central

data.• When the number of women is small, the

errors can have large impacts.• Track individual faculty by names or

identifiable code. • Find sympathetic administrators to get

access to institutional data. • Find ways to institutionalize NSF Data

Indicators.

Recruitment Data

Data• Utah State had fewer

STEM faculty women than national averages.

• In the 5 years before ADVANCE 17% of STEM hires were women. Women made up 34% of national applicant pool.

Low cost strategies

• Formation of SERT: Science and Engineering Recruitment Team

• Development of Hiring for Excellence DVD

• More attention to Dual Career hiring policy

• Increased involvements of Deans in hiring decisions in some colleges

Improvement in RecruitmentNew Women Hires in the STEM Colleges - Tenured &

Tenure-Track Faculty Pre ADVANCE (1996-2002) & during ADVANCE (2003-2006)

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USU STEM Hiring of Assistant Professors by College 2003-2007

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Promotion Data

Data• At the start of ADVANCE,

Utah State had fewer full professors than peer institutions.

• Utah State had fewer women full professors in the STEM fields than national averages.

Low cost strategies• Workshops for Associate

to Full professors• Associate to Full

transition mini-grants• Promotion committees for

associate professors• Some deans began

meeting with each associate professor to discuss promotion

The Cost of Not Retaining Faculty

Data• Over a 3 year period Utah

State spent $3.67 M on start up packages to replace faculty who left for other institutions

• Over a 5 year period 22% of women and 13% of men STEM faculty left for another institution.

Low cost strategies• ½ time Vice Provost for

Diversity & Development (faculty mentoring and retention)

• Direct some merit increases toward retention

• Greater attention to dual career hiring

Improvement in Non-Retirement Attrition

Annual Non-retirement Attrition

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Annual Growth rate Pre-ADVANCE = 2.5%

Annual Growth rate ADVANCE = 9%

Increase in the Number of STEM Women Faculty

2. Reviewing Policies

Systematic review of policies identified by women in interviews as “barriers” or sources of “dissatisfaction”

• Dual career policy

• Promotion committees

• Tenure and promotion policies/guidelines

• Ombudspersons for T&P meetings

• Work-life policies

Transparency

Increase transparency of processes. • This is critical in breaking down the “us

versus them” phenomenon wherein faculty see the administration as their enemy.

• When decision processes such as resource allocation or promotion are unclear or hidden, distrust increases.

• Trust can be regained with improved transparency.

Committee Appointments• Evaluate committee appointments.

Committee appointments often disproportionately affect women.

• Avoid the token woman syndrome. That is, having a woman on every committee.

• Consider using a spreadsheet. Include departmental/college/university

committees.

Dual-Career Policies

• Create and publicize dual-career policies.

Our study of university policies on websites.

• Have policies in place and readily available.

This will improve placement in academia of women faculty with PhD/Scientist partners

Work-Life Issues

Make improvements in work-life issues. Work-life policies seem to be especially important

for women. Policies that can improve work-life: • Paid care-giving leave • On-site child care • Tenure extensions and/or transitional support to

maintain or restart research following major life events

• Part-time or job-sharing options for tenure-track faculty

3. Supporting All Faculty• Promote networking

• Celebrate small wins

• Communicate (10 times more than you think would be necessary)

• Provide for modest seed grants

• Offer brown-bag workshops

• Offer individual coaching on T&P

• Open all programs to men and women

Improve Research Collaborations

• Isolation: Women at MIT and Utah State both reported feelings of isolation.

• Networking: Our data suggest women do not realize that resources are obtained through networking.

• Team-work and collaboration on research: Can improve the job satisfaction and productivity of all faculty.

Collaborative Seed Grants

Provide modest funding for collaborative seed grants ($5-8k)

• Must be “multi-disciplinary”• Must include at least one female from STEM• Must target a specific grant or agency

Institutionalized through VPR• Impressive results on follow-up funding after one

year of VPR central seed grant funding

VPR Funding Results• Of the VPR grant PIs and co-PIs, 23 were

female and 25 were male.

• Of the 48 VPR grant PIs and co-PIs, five received direct ADVANCE support.

• Of the 48 VPR grant PIs and co-PIs, 16 came from departments with whom ADVANCE had worked.

Transitional Support Grants

Small pool of funds for emergency “transitions” such as illness in family

• Have partly institutionalized as “care-giving with modified duties” policy

Small pool of funds for transitioning from associate to full

• Have partly institutionalized with transition grants in some colleges

Significant Gains through ADVANCE

• From 1996-2002, USU had to hire 15.5 faculty members (men and women) to increase the number of women faculty in STEM by 1.

• From 2003-2007, USU only had to hire 4 faculty members (men and women) to increase the number of women faculty in STEM by 1.

This is a function of improving the % of new women hires and retention rates for women.

Summary

• Institutional data can effect climate change.

• Data focus the discussion on specific issues.

• Interested administrators used institutional data in decision making and to justify decisions.

• Improvement in policies improves climate.

• Supporting all faculty improves climate.