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Forwarding careers
ADVANCE Program aims to increase females in science, engineering positions
- Programs at Iowa State and nationally in recent years have worked to increase the number of women in science and engineering fields. A relatively new ISU effort, in which the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences plays an integral role, is taking a different view of the challenge.
The National Science Foundation's ADVANCE Program aims to produce "institutional transformation" that increases the participation of women in "STEM" fields: science, technology, engineering and math. NSF awarded ISU a five-year, $3.3 million grant to implement the program on campus.
"There is a huge number of women entering the science and engineering pipeline who are not coming out," said David Oliver, LAS associate dean for research.
Oliver said nationally women make up more than half of the undergraduate and nearly half of the graduate enrollment. However, the NSF reports women account for only about a quarter of the science and engineering workforce and less than 21 percent of the faculty in those fields.
"There's indeed a drop off," Oliver added.
The ADVANCE Program aims to transform departmental cultures, practices, policies and even structures, such as physical and social arrangements. At the university level, according to the ADVANCE first-year annual report, the program is "focusing on subtle and overt impediments to equity."
Some university programs across the nation have used incentives such as additional salary or research funding to recruit and retain females, Oliver noted.
"ADVANCE is more about institutional transformation and dealing with impediments to hiring, retaining and promoting women in STEM fields. It's not simply adding or changing policies," he said.
The program will be instituted in three phases involving three focal departments each phase. LAS' Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology and the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology (EEOB) are in the initial phase. The Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering is the other.
ADVANCE will rely on data from focus groups and individual interviews to help guide decision-making. Training sessions to meet the special needs of individual departments and problem-solving meetings also are planned. In addition, mentoring and networking opportunities are in the works.
"It's going to be very important to LAS," Oliver said about ADVANCE. "The last few years, both chemistry and EEOB have hired a number of exceptionally talented women scientists. We want to keep them. We want to create an environment to make them, and everyone else, successful."
A faculty member from each focal department serves in the key role of an ADVANCE professor. One such person is Jo Anne Powell-Coffman, associate professor of genetics, development and cell biology, who calls herself the ADVANCE liaison for her department.
"Research has shown that some barriers to faculty success are especially disadvantageous, on average, for women and minorities," she said. "If we can identify and mitigate any such barriers at ISU, then we can create an environment that attracts the best of the best and promotes the success of all faculty, to the benefit of our department, our students, and the university."
Powell-Coffman believes in the importance of ADVANCE and understands the pressures placed on junior faculty, especially women. Not that long ago she was an assistant professor working toward tenure with two children age 3 and under at home.
"Female Ph.D. students," she said, "will come ask me, ‘Should I invest more time into this career or do something else?' I answer, ‘Don't give up what you love to do because you anticipate barriers.'"
She hopes ADVANCE will eliminate some barriers, although she adds, "It's not an easy fix."
Powell-Coffman said ADVANCE is evidence that ISU is trying to make a difference. "I think it's also encouraging to ISU female faculty members already here."
Around LAS
September 3-16, 2007
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