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

性别平等的教师在线学习社区：针对STEM部门层面的变化（FOLC-E）项目为了解与STEM教师性别不平等相关的部门层面结构和文化提供了独特而宝贵的机会。该项目通过调查部门设置的特点，解决了改善STEM部门文化、实践和结构的关键需求。该项目将由代表每个FOLC-E小组5-7个部门的教师组成。作为该项目的直接结果，跨越多个STEM学科的25到45个部门将在部门层面上做出重大改变，解决不平等问题，可能影响数千名学生和教师。该项目促进STEM部门内部公平的潜力将大大改善教育场所，许多学生认为自己来自STEM学习和工作中代表性不足的群体。合作伙伴包括万花筒项目（PKAL），这是一个由来自150多所高等教育机构的4000多名STEM教师组成的国家联盟，旨在传播来自赠款的信息；以及PULSE（本科生生命科学教育合作伙伴关系），它最初由美国国家科学基金会、HHMI和NIGMS/NIH资助，现在是一个教育非营利组织。该项目将通过实施和研究五个folc - e，为STEM领域的交叉性别平等改革工作提供信息。FOLC-E是一种利用社会学习和支持来增加交叉性别平等的机制。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，具有共同兴趣的人们聚集在一起，以学习、知识生成和共享以及协作的精神实现个人和团体目标。教师团队将与FOLC-E促进者、交叉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。他们将参与导致不平等的结构，可以利用这些结构在其部门内实施改革。团队将利用组织变革的既定理论，制定变革的行动计划，并在FOLC-E的支持和鼓励下制定他们的计划。FOLC-E小组将利用数据评估其工作的影响和成功，并完善未来的行动计划。对FOLC-E干预的研究将产生关于组织和文化因素的新知识，这些因素既为系统性变革创造了障碍，也为其创造了机会。NSF ADVANCE项目旨在通过识别和消除阻碍学术机构中不同教师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、过程、实践以及组织文化和气候中。ADVANCE“伙伴关系”奖为扩大基于证据的系统性变革战略的项目提供支持，以增强地区或国家STEM教师的性别平等。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识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 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.