Presentation from ICWES 15 Conference - July 2011, Australia

1. NDSU Advance FORWARD
Retaining and Advancing
Women Faculty
Canan Bilen-Green Donald P. Schwert
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Geosciences, and
North Dakota State University Center for Science & Math Education
Fargo, North Dakota, USA North Dakota State University
Fargo, North Dakota, USA

2. NDSU Advance FORWARD
Focus on Resources for Women’s
Advancement
Recruitment/Retention and
Development
U.S. National Science Foundation #HRD-0811239
September, 2008 – August, 2013

3. Genesis of the Project
% Tenure-line % Tenured % Full Professor
Women Men Women Men Women Men
*Average 45 55 31 69 24 76
*Doctoral 41 59 26 74 19 81
*AAUP Report, Curtis and West, 2006
N = 1445 universities; data from U.S. Dept Educ and AAUP
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4. Genesis of the Project
% Tenure-line % Tenured % Full Professor
Women Men Women Men Women Men
*Average 45 55 31 69 24 76
*Doctoral 41 59 26 74 19 81
NDSU 2006 36 64 10 90 7 93
*AAUP Report, Curtis and West, 2006
N = 1445 universities; data from U.S. Dept Educ and AAUP
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5. Genesis of the Project
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6. NDSU Climate and Female Faculty
• Work-life surveys revealed that (vs. male faculty)
female faculty:
– Reported higher stress levels
– Struggled with work/life balance
– Scored lower on work environment
– Rated climate lower
– Spent significantly more time on their teaching and service
• No significant differences between STEM and non-
STEM faculty
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7. 7

8. North Dakota State University’s
Advance FORWARD Project
• Campus climate
• Faculty recruitment
• Faculty retention and advancement
• Leadership opportunities
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9. Major Project Components
Implementation Group
Provost, Vice President for Commission on the
Academic Deans and Academic Affairs Status of Women Faculty
Department Chairs/Heads
NDSU Advance FORWARD
Executive Director and Project Staff
Internal Advisory Board External Advisory Board
Steering Committee
Campus Climate Advancement/Leadership Research
v Faculty recruiter v Cohort mentoring program for v Unstructured spaces
v Advocates and Allies Program junior faculty v Interventions into climate
v Gender/equity awareness v Mid-career mentoring v Programs to recruit, retain,
education/training for program and advance
§ Academic administrators v Professional development v Role of critical mass in
§ Faculty grant programs climate
§ Course Release
v Grant programs § Leap v Gender and productivity
§ Climate/gender equity § Leadership Development v Mentoring and reverse
research § Mentor Relationship mentoring
§ Department climate initiative Travel v Women in leadership
Dissemination Activities
FORWARD Team
Key:
NDSU Administration
FORWARD Administration Evaluation
External to NDSU Internal & External
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10. Evaluation
• NSF 12 Indicator data collection
• Faculty work-life survey and academic
administrator survey
• Evaluation of workshops, lectures, and programs.
• Interviews with faculty who have resigned
• Focus groups with faculty
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11. FORWARD Advocates & Allies
• Male faculty interested in supporting female faculty
members in departments, colleges, and the
university
• Advocates: tenured male faculty men with a
proven record of supporting female faculty
• Allies: trained male faculty who identify themselves
as allies of female faculty
• Advocates and Allies are active proponents of
gender diversity and equality in their units
• Male faculty trained to date: 65
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12. Junior Faculty Mentoring Program
• New faculty cohort mentoring program and mentor
training
– Same-gender mentoring groups composed of 4-
5 new faculty and 2 senior faculty (expanded to
include male and non-STEM faculty)
– Groups meet monthly from first-year through
third-year review process
– Planned activities offered once per semester
(e.g., scholarly writing, teaching assessment)
– Two workshops/year led by outside experts
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13. Junior Faculty Mentoring Speakers
Gender & the Evaluation of Teaching: What
We Can't Count Can Hurt Us- pedagogical Joey Sprague
lunch, workshop for PTE committee members
Rising Above Cognitive Errors: Tips for
Promotion, Tenure and Evaluation, Good and
Bad Practices related to job searches and JoAnn Moody
review processes- pedagogical lunch,
workshops for chairs, deans, female faculty,
PTE committees
How to Feel as Bright as Everyone Thinks
You Are: Why Smart Women (and Men)
Valerie Young
Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and
What to Do About It- pedagogical lunch
Networking workshop for female faculty Bonnie Coffey
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14. Junior Faculty Mentoring Program:
Evaluation
• Increased mentees’ sense of connection across campus
and in the community
• Women were less likely to agree that their comfort level
with the promotion and tenure process increased
• Female faculty mentees preferred female mentors
• Both mentors and mentees mutually found the
experience valuable
• Time and scheduling were reported to be the greatest
challenges
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15. Mid-Career Mentoring Program
• Peer mentoring teams, which may be interdisciplinary
• Teams meet informally once a month and include at
least two women but can be mixed gender
• Includes twice-yearly formal meetings with academic
administrators
• Funding for teams to purchase items needed to meet
the mentoring goals of the group
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16. Promotion to Professor Panels
• Promotion to Professor Panel Series
− Recently-promoted professors, department
chairs, promotion/tenure committee members
• Panels inform faculty about how/when to apply for
professorship
– Understanding of the process and criteria for
promotion to full professor improved (81.2%)
– Acquired new skills and/or information about
determining when they are ready to apply for
promotion to full professor (73.5%)
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17. Grant Programs
• Promote the advancement of tenure-line women
faculty
• Major grants involve external reviews; internal
committees
• Mentor travel relationship, course release, leap
research, lab renovation, and leadership
development
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18. Travel, Course
Release, Climate/Gender, Leadership, and
Leap Awards 2008-2011
81 faculty received FORWARD awards
totaling of $740,850
• As of summer 2011, those awards have translated into
– 20 articles under review,
– 15 articles accepted for publication,
– 21 grants submitted and under review, and
– 9 grants funded.
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19. Grant Programs: Evaluation
• Positive Impacts:
– decision to remain at NDSU (94.7%)
– tenure and/or promotion process (89.5%)
– career advancement (78.9%)
– experience of the NDSU campus climate (92.1%)
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20. Percentage of NDSU Women
Tenure-Line Faculty by Rank
%Assistant %Associate %Full
50%
42% 42% 44% 44% 42%
40% 41%
39%
40% 36%
31% 29%
30%
24% 23%
19% 20%
20% 15% 16%
12% 11%
11% 10%
10% 6% 6% 8% 7% 7% 7% 7%
5% 5%
0%
92-93 02-03 03-04 04-05 05-06 06-07 07-08 08-09 09-10 10-11
Before FORWARD “Early” FORWARD NDSU Advance FORWARD
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21. Retention Progress
• Grant/award recipients and mentees agreed that their
participation in these programs had a positive impact on their
decision to remain at NDSU
• Retain/promote women assistant professors
– 2008-09: 8 women to associate rank (of 20 promotions)
– 2009-10: 5 women to associate rank (of 17 promotions)
– 2010-11: 8 women to associate rank (of 18 promotions)
• Promote/advance women associate professors
– 2008-09: 1 woman to full rank (of 13 promotions)
– 2009-10: 6 women to full rank (of 12 promotions)
– 2010-11: 3 women to full rank (of 12 promotions)
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22. Policy Related Work
• Spouse/partner hire
• Required formal search for all positions
• Childbearing leave
• Modified duties
• Tracking compliance with policies
• Instrument for student rating of instruction
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23. Impacts
• Increased the number of female
• full professors
• faculty in leadership roles
• advanced associate professors to consider promotion
• Enhanced research productivity
• Stimulated conversations about climate
• Fostered greater interest in engaging in issues
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24. Conclusions
• Universities seeking to tap top talent pools
need to pay attention to the progress of women faculty
in order to enhance institutional performance
• Through FORWARD’s institutional transformation
framework, changes in policy, attitude, and outlook are
taking place
• NSF ADVANCE guidelines are a good resource for other
institutions interested in institutional transformation
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25. www.ndsu.edu/forward
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26. Thank You…
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27. Additional Slides
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28. Mentor Relationship Travel Grant
• Provide funds to offset costs of meeting with mentors
from outside NDSU to build long-term professional
mentoring relationships
– Travel costs associated with meeting a mentor
– Travel costs associated with bringing a mentor to
NDSU
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29. Course Release Grants
• Provides funds for one-semester release from teaching
responsibilities
• Open to tenure-line women faculty in STEM disciplines
• Budget cap: Cost of teaching replacement
• Awardees are expected to submit manuscripts (peer
reviewed)
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30. Leap Research Grants
• Provides research grants to seed successful grant
proposals
• Open to tenure-track and tenured women faculty in
STEM disciplines
• Proposals reviewed by external researchers; internal
committee
• Awardees are expected to submit
proposals, manuscripts
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31. Barriers to Women’s Advancement
in the Academic Ranks
• “the chilly climate”
― committee assignments
― support roles
• empirical evidence of gender bias
― overrating of men; under-rating of women
• “the gendered organization”
― work policies evolved from life experience of
traditional male bread-winner, but now . . .
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32. Barriers to Women’s Advancement
in the Academic Ranks
• coincidence of biological and tenure clocks
― the “glass floor”; the “second shift”; the “invisible
job”; the “hidden curriculum”; and a “catch 22”
• a variety of remedies
− Mentoring
− Policy
• critical mass
― 35-40% women needed to overcome perceived
tokenism and extra scrutiny
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33. NDSU ADVANCE FORWARD
Retaining and Advancing
Women Faculty
Canan Bilen-Green Donald Schwert
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Center for Science and Math Education
North Dakota State University North Dakota State University

34. NDSU ADVANCE FORWARD
Retaining and Advancing
Women Faculty
Canan Bilen-Green Donald Schwert
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Center for Science and Math Education
North Dakota State University North Dakota State University

35. NDSU ADVANCE FORWARD
Retaining and Advancing
Women Faculty
Canan Bilen-Green Donald Schwert
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Center for Science and Math Education
North Dakota State University North Dakota State University

36. NSF ADVANCE
Institutional Transformation Program
• Funding for comprehensive and sustainable
institutional transformation to increase participation
of women faculty
• 49 ADVANCE Institutions
– 2001; 9
– 2003; 10
– 2006; 13
– 2008; 9 (including NDSU)
– 2010; 8 more funded in 2010
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37. Genesis of the Project
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38. Genesis of the Project
Universities seeking to
tap top talent pools
NEED to pay attention to
the progress of this large segment of the
labor force in order to enhance
institutional performance.
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39. Outline
• NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Program
• NDSU Advance FORWARD
• Goals and Major Project Components
• Retention and Advancement of Women Faculty
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40. Genesis of the Project
A relatively narrow
and quite leaky pipeline –
So what?
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41. New Faculty Orientation:
Enhancing Department Climate Session
• Offered in 2008, 2009, and 2010
• Participants generate ideas on
– barriers to promoting a positive department climate
– helpful aspects to promoting a positive department
climate
• Participants somewhat agreed that
– their knowledge of how to promote a positive climate at
NDSU increased (100%)
– they have acquired new skills, information, or
understanding about gender and climate at NDSU (100%)
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42. Impact on Climate
• Grant/award recipients:
– agreed to some extent that their participation in the FORWARD
award/grant program(s) enhanced their experience of the NDSU
campus climate (78.0%)
• Mentees somewhat agreed that being in the cohort mentoring
program has:
– increased their sense of connection with other faculty (100%)
– decreased their sense of isolation on the NDSU campus (71%)
• Mentors somewhat agreed that being in the cohort mentoring
program
– has increased their sense of connection with other faculty
on campus (75.1%)
– felt that they were mentored during the cohort mentoring process (50.0%)
– had a positive impact on their own experience of the climate at NDSU (56.3%)
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