Collaborative Research: AGEP ACA to Engage Leaders to Improve Diversity among STEM Faculty

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This NSF AGEP Catalyst Alliance project is piloting an institutional change strategy of broad national significance, which focuses on mobilizing STEM leader engagement and commitment to expand opportunities for doctoral students, post-doctoral research fellows, and faculty who are members of racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in STEM. Consisting of leaders with considerable expertise in diversity promotion at the University of New Mexico, Arizona State University and University of Oregon, this NSF AGEP Catalyst Alliance team is expanding knowledge about the shared and specific challenges facing these doctoral students, post-doctoral research fellows and faculty in STEM fields and contributing to best practices to promote equitable and inclusive institutional transformation. This NSF AGEP Catalyst Alliance is identifying challenges, engaging leaders, developing a strategic plan, and consolidating an effective working team between the three partner institutions. The partners are public institutions of higher education, have a Carnegie classification of Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity, are located in Western states, and share a commitment to advancing the success of people with backgrounds that are historically underrepresented in the science and technology enterprise. The project team focuses on four primary activities during the project period. First, the team is implementing institutional assessment studies at each partner institution through surveys and individual interviews. Second, the team is creating leader engagement committees of STEM administrators and faculty to analyze study results and review menus of national best practices. The committees are generating a sense of buy-in and ownership from participants. Third, the partners are developing a five-year equity strategic plan, which outlines change strategies suggested by the leader engagement committees. Finally, the team is refining a collaborative relationship between project leaders at the three partner universities through weekly meetings, while consulting with an external advisory board of distinguished STEM leaders.Improving equity and inclusion is critical to advancing STEM faculty, educating America’s future STEM workforce, fostering individual opportunity and contributing to a thriving U.S. economy. The NSF AGEP program, therefore, funds grants that advance and enhance the systemic factors that support equity and inclusion and, consequently, mitigate the systemic inequities in the academic profession and workplace. NSF AGEP Catalyst Alliances design and implement one or more organizational self-assessment(s) to collect and analyze data that will identify inequities affecting doctoral students, post-doctoral research fellows, and faculty who are members of racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in STEM. NSF AGEP Catalyst Alliances also pilot equity strategies and develop a five-year equity strategic plan. These grants fund similar institutions of higher education to generate the foundational work necessary for long-term institutional transformation. Ultimately, advancing institutional equity and inclusion in faculty hiring, retention and promotion policies and practices will increase the number of faculty who are members of racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in STEM. This NSF AGEP Catalyst Alliance is using an intersectional analysis to study the variation in the experiences of and challenges faced by members of racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in STEM. This analysis includes examining within and between group similarities and differences. The team is also adapting the Frank Dobbin’s and Alexandra Kalev’s managerial engagement approach, and Shelley Correll’s “Small Wins” change model, to address the goal of improving diverse faculty representation in STEM. Together these methods will contribute to successful project implementation and outcomes. Internal evaluation of the project work will be conducted by Kristine Denman, the Director of the New Mexico Statistical Analysis Center. External assessment of this NSF AGEP Catalyst Alliance work will be led by Lynn Nordstrom from the Cornelius Management Group.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.