Collaborative Research: AGEP FC-PAM: Project ELEVATE (Equity-focused Launch to Empower and Value AGEP Faculty to Thrive in Engineering)

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Carnegie Mellon University, Johns Hopkins University, and New York University will work as an Alliance team to develop a model to promote the equitable advancement of early career tenure-stream engineering faculty from populations of interest to the AGEP program. The goal of this AGEP Faculty Career Pathways Alliance Model (FCPAM) is to develop, implement, self-study, and institutionalize a career pathway model, that can be adapted for use at other similar institutions, for advancing early career STEM faculty who are members of populations of interest to the AGEP program: African Americans, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Native Pacific Islanders. This AGEP FCPAM will provide a framework for institutional change at private, highly selective research institutions that will enable all faculty to be members of a collaborative community. Improving the experience of these faculty can lead to increased diversity in the engineering faculty and ultimately result in graduating more STEM students from diverse populations and increasing diversity in the STEM workforce. 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. FCPAM awards are intended to support the development, implementation, evaluation, and institutionalization of Alliance models that will advance AGEP populations, within similar institutions of higher education. FCPAM collaborators also study how socio-cultural, economic, structural, leadership and institutional variables affect the formation of the FCPAM, and the strategies or interventions the collaborators implement to advance AGEP populations. The Alliance interventions will focus on three major areas, 1) equity-focused institutional change designed to make structural changes that support the advancement of AGEP faculty, 2) identity-affirming mentorship that acknowledges and provides professional support to AGEP faculty holistically, recognizing all parts of their identity and 3) inclusive professional development that equips all engineering faculty and institutional leaders with skills to implement inclusive practices and equips AGEP faculty for career advancement. Evidence-based practices from the Women in Engineering ProActive Network and the NSF INCLUDES ASPIRE Alliance's Inclusive Professional Framework, will be foundational for this AGEP FCPAM's activities. An internal evaluator will lead the self-study and formative assessment which will advance knowledge concerning the institutional barriers that negatively impact the advancement of AGEP populations in academic STEM careers, with attention to the role cultural and intersectional identities play in the success of AGEP faculty. An external evaluator will provide summative assessment using a culturally responsive framework to assess implementation of project activities and development of the Alliance model.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.