History of WISTEM and ADVANCE WRITING INITIATIVE

The Problem: Recruitment and Retention of Women Faculty

Iowa State has been fortunate in its ability to attract top-rank scientists. But Iowa State University is not hiring, retaining, or promoting women faculty at the same rate as men faculty. This reflects a nation-wide trend identified by the National Science Foundation as a critical concern of universities struggling to attract and retain female students and faculty in STEM fields. "Ensuring that the climate, the polices and the practices at these institutions encourage and support the full participation of women in all aspects of academic life, including leadership and governance, is critical to attracting students to science and engineering careers." Iowa's Board of Regents has also identified "diversity" as a "Key Result Area" in its Strategic Plan, a component adopted by ISU and targeted in President Geoffroy's "investing in people" and "diversity" initiatives. A report on taskforce on the recruitment and retention of women and minority faculty is available on the provost site.

A report by the ISU's University Committee on Women (2002), available on their website, concluded that newly hired tenure-track women faculty have higher attrition rates than newly hired tenure-track men faculty, particularly in the first three years of their employment. In a comparison between men and women hired since 1994, by the end of their third year 16 percent of women had resigned compared to 4 percent of men. Moreover, despite the steadily growing pool of exceptionally qualified female faculty candidates over the course of the last 10 years, ISU hired male faculty 63% of the time.

NSF ADVANCE Program and ISU ADVANCE Team

The National Science Foundation has initiated a multi-million dollar program to support institutional change to promote gender equity in SMET fields. The goal of the ADVANCE program is to increase the participation of women in the scientific and engineering workforce. To meet this goal, the ADVANCE program provides award opportunities for both individuals and organizations: Fellows Awards, Institutional Transformation Awards, and Leadership Awards. With each of the three types of ADVANCE awards, NSF seeks to support new approaches to improving the climate for women in U.S. academic institutions and to facilitate women's advancement to the highest ranks of academic leadership. The Institutional Transformation grants are designed to encourage research and program development at the institutional level that will change "policies and practices" in ways that support the recruitment, promotion, and retention of women scientists.

The Institutional Transformation grants are targeted at individual institutions and support programs tailored to address specific issues at the institution itself. Successful proposals have reported on current issues at the institution concerning recruitment, promotion and retention of women scientists, then outlined programs to address these issues.

During the fall 0f 2002, ISU's Women's Studies Program hosted a 3 day NSF-sponsored meeting focused on the status and retention of women STEM fields. The conference brought together 12 university teams who are developing programs to increase retention and promotion of women faculty in science and engineering fields. One outcome of the conference was a recommendation for ISU to take advantage of the opportunity to develop an NSF ADVANCE grant for institutional transformation. At this meeting we formed an ISU STEM team and a subset of this group, the ADVANCE Writing Team, who worked for almost three years writing the NSF grant. The ADVANCE grant proposal writing initiative is available here (PDF).

The ADVANCE writing team conducted studies of institutional barriers, developed preliminary program recommendations for the advancement of women in STEM fields, and wrote a grant proposal to NSF. Our goal was to produce an outstanding application for the 5 year, $3.7 million NSF funding to further develop and implement an ADVANCE program at ISU. A proposal was submitted in July, 2005. Announcements are expected before the end of 2005.

In September and October, 2003 we hosted the visits of two distinguished experts, Dr. Denice Denton, Dean of Engineering UW, and Dr. Joan Williams, Professor and Director of the Program on Gender, Work, and Family at the American University Law School and author of Unbending Gender; Why Family and Work Conflict and What we can do about it. These speakers shared their research and consulted with the ADVANCE team as well as several groups of faculty and administrators. In spring, 2004 Professor Caroline Sotello Viernes Turner visited the ISU campus to consult with us on ways to improve the recruitment and retention of minority faculty. Sotello Viernes Turner is co-author, with Samuel Myers, Jr., of Faculty of Color in Academe: Bittersweet Success.