ADVANCE Partnership: Faculty Online Learning Communities for Gender Equity, Targeting Department Level Change in STEM

学院在线学习社区促进性别平等：针对STEM中的部门级变化(FOLC-E)项目为了解与STEM教师性别不平等有关的部门级结构和文化提供了一个独特而宝贵的机会。该项目通过调查部门设置的特点，解决了改善STEM部门的文化、做法和结构的迫切需要。这个项目将邀请代表每个FOLC-E小组5-7个部门的教员团队。作为这一项目的直接结果，跨多个STEM学科的25至45个系将在系级层面进行重大改革，以解决不平等问题，潜在地影响数千名学生和教职员工。该项目有潜力促进STEM部门内部的公平，这将极大地改善教育场所，在那里，许多学生被认为来自STEM中代表性不足的群体，他们学习和工作的机会很少。合作伙伴包括万花筒计划(PKAL)，这是一个由来自150多所高等教育机构的4000多名STEM教师组成的全国性联盟，以传播赠款和PULSE(本科生生命科学教育伙伴关系)的信息，PULSE最初由NSF、HHMI和NIGMS/NIH资助，现在是一个教育非营利性组织。该项目将通过实施和研究五个性别平等论坛，为STEM的跨部门性别平等改革努力提供信息。FOLC-E是一种利用社会学习和支持来增加跨部门性别公平的机制。它以教师学习社区(FLC)、实践社区(COP)和部门行动小组(DAT)的概念为基础。在实践社区中，具有共同兴趣的人聚集在一起，本着学习、知识生成和共享以及合作的精神来实现个人和团队目标。教师团队将与FOLC-E促进者、跨部门性别平等专家和行政导师合作，深入了解不平等的权力动态。他们将采用导致不公平的结构，这些结构可以被用来在其部门内实施改革。团队将利用已建立的组织变革理论创建变革行动计划，并在FOLC-E的支持和鼓励下制定他们的计划。FOLC-E小组将使用数据来评估其努力的影响和成功，并完善未来的行动计划。对FOLC-E干预的研究将导致对组织和文化因素的新认识，这些因素既是系统性变革的障碍，也是系统性变革的机会。NSF高级计划旨在通过专注于识别和消除阻碍不同教员充分参与和提升学术机构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“伙伴关系”奖为那些扩大基于证据的系统性变革战略，以增强STEM教师在地区或国家的性别平等的项目提供支持。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Faculty Online Learning Communities for Gender Equity: Targeting Departmental Level Change in STEM (FOLC-E) project offers a unique and valuable opportunity to understand department level structures and culture related to STEM faculty gender inequity. This project addresses the critical need to improve the cultures, practices, and structures of STEM departments by investigating features of the departmental setting. This project will engage teams of faculty representing 5-7 departments per FOLC-E group. As a direct result of this project, twenty-five to forty-five departments, across multiple STEM disciplines, will make a significant department level change addressing inequity, potentially impacting thousands of students and faculty. The potential of this project to promote increased equity within STEM departments will substantially improve the educational places where many of the students that identify as being from groups that are underrepresented in STEM study and work. Partners include the Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) a national alliance of over 4,000 STEM faculty from over 150 institutions of higher education to disseminate information from the grant and PULSE (Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education) which was initially funded by NSF, HHMI and NIGMS/NIH and is now an educational non-profit organization. The project will inform intersectional gender equity reform efforts in STEM by implementing and studying five FOLC-Es. FOLC-E is a mechanism for increasing intersectional gender equity that leverages social learning and support. It is grounded in the concepts of faculty learning communities (FLC), communities of practice (CoP), and departmental action teams (DATs). In a community of practice, people with a common interest come together to fulfill both individual and group goals in a spirit of learning, knowledge generation and sharing, and collaboration. Teams of faculty will work with FOLC-E facilitators, intersectional gender equity experts, and administrative mentors to engage in a process of deeply understanding the power dynamics of inequity. They will engage structures that contribute to inequity that can be leveraged to enact reforms within their departments. Teams will create an action plan for change, utilizing established theories of organizational change, and enact their plans with the support and encouragement of the FOLC-E. The FOLC-E groups will use data to assess the impact and success of their efforts and refine future plans for action. A study of the FOLC-E intervention will result in new knowledge about the organizational and cultural factors that create both barriers to and opportunities for systemic change.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 "Partnership" awards provide support for projects that scale-up evidence based systemic change strategies to enhance gender equity for STEM faculty regionally or nationally.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.