ADVANCE Adaptation: American University Creating Gender and Racial Equity Among STEM Faculty

美国大学(AU)高级适应项目将改善所有教员的专业和学术环境，重点是留住STEM领域的女性和代表性不足的种族和少数民族(URM)教员。这一重点是由先行催化剂拨款所做的先前工作提供的，该工作表明，教师招聘做法的变化正在实现新教师的多样性，但不同教师的离职，特别是URM女性教师的离职是一个主要问题。Catalyst的工作还发现，在任期和终身教职的职业道路上，教师获得了不公平的经历和支持。因此，高级非盟项目侧重于改善STEM中女性和URM教师的整体学术环境，包括终身教职、终身教职和终身教职。该项目的目标是：1.通过对导师和被辅导者的培训来加强对教师的指导；2.通过“博耶启发”的终身教职、晋升和连任改革来审查和修订部门层面的政策；3.通过各种策略提升、认可和奖励非盟教员所做的多样性、公平性和包容性工作；以及4.创建一个负责教务长办公室教师多样性和公平性的机构行政职位。“推进非盟”项目将澄清现有的政策，并制定和执行新的终身教职、晋升和连任指导方针，其中融合了包容性和反种族主义原则。该项目的这一方面和其他方面预计将增加STEM教职员工在他们的部门和AU的归属感。受博耶启发的这一框架被选中，目的是反对“教学与研究”的二分法。该框架将教师工作分为四个截然不同但相互重叠的职能：1)发现的学术；2)整合的学术；3)应用的学术；4)教学的学术。该框架的使用预计将提高非传统教员工作的可见度，并扩大与终身教职和晋升有关的教员工作的定义。预计该项目的发现将有助于阐明如何通过项目和部门的政策和实践，让学术领袖参与关于种族和性别不平等永久化的重要和“艰难的对话”。NSF高级方案旨在通过重点确定和消除阻碍学术机构中不同教员充分参与和进步的组织障碍来促进性别平等。阻碍公平的组织障碍可能存在于政策、流程、实践以及组织文化和氛围中。先期“适应”奖为学术、非营利性高等教育机构以及非学术、非营利性组织提供调整和采用循证策略的支持。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The American University (AU) ADVANCE Adaptation project will improve the professional and academic environment for all faculty with a focus on the retention of women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minority (URM) faculty in STEM fields. This focus is informed by prior work done with an ADVANCE Catalyst grant, which showed that changes to faculty hiring practices were achieving increased diversity in new faculty, but departures of diverse faculty, particularly URM women was a major issue. The Catalyst work also found inequitable experiences and support for faculty on term and tenure-track career pathways. Thus, the ADVANCE AU project focuses on improving the overall academic climate for women and URM faculty in STEM including tenure track, tenured, and term faculty. The goals of the project are to: 1. Enhance faculty mentoring through training for both mentors and mentees; 2. Review and revise department level policies with “Boyer-inspired” tenure, promotion, and reappointment reforms; 3. Elevate, recognize, and reward the diversity, equity, and inclusion work done by AU faculty through various strategies; and 4. Create an institutional administrative position with responsibilities for faculty diversity and equity in the provost office.The ADVANCE AU project will clarify existing policies and develop and execute new tenure, promotion, and reappointment guidelines that integrate inclusive and antiracist principles. This and other aspects of the project are expected to increase STEM faculty feelings of belongingness in their departments and at AU. The Boyer-inspired framework, selected to combat the “teaching versus research” dichotomy, categorizes faculty work into four distinct but overlapping functions: 1) the scholarship of discovery; 2) the scholarship of integration; 3) the scholarship of application; and 4) the scholarship of teaching. The utilization of the framework is expected to increase the visibility of non-traditional faculty work and to expand the definition of faculty work as related to tenure and promotion. Findings from the project are expected to shed light on how to engage academic leaders in important and “difficult conversations” about the perpetuation of racial and gender inequities via policies and practices in programs and departments. The NSF ADVANCE program is designed to foster gender equity through a focus on the identification and elimination of organizational barriers that impede the full participation and advancement of diverse faculty in academic institutions. Organizational barriers that inhibit equity may exist in policies, processes, practices, and the organizational culture and climate. ADVANCE "Adaptation" awards provide support for the adaptation and adoption of evidence-based strategies to academic, non-profit institutions of higher education as well as non-academic, non-profit organizations.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.