ADVANCE at UNM

I am deputy director of ADVANCE at UNM, a NSF-funded program to promote women and minority STEM faculty.

Our goals:

  1. create a more inclusive, egalitarian, and supportive institutional climate;
  2. increase the participation of women STEM faculty in leadership positions;
  3. improve satisfaction with, and perceptions of fairness of, the tenure and promotion process among women STEM faculty;
  4. increase the number of women at all levels in STEM departments;
  5. increase the national and international recognition of scholarship by all women STEM faculty at UNM.

In the first three years of the project, our high impact activities included:

  1. Leadership engagement: collaborating with university leaders to promote reform
  2. Alignment of faculty search processes with national best practices
  3. Strategic and coordinated approach to faculty development
  4. Support for women and URM STEM faculty in milestone reviews, including mid-pro, tenure, and promotion to full professor
  5. Creation of a safe and confidential space for women and URM STEM faculty, a sense of community, and resources for their autonomous organization
  6. Publicity and recognition of research and accomplishments of women and URM STEM faculty through our website, and digital and social media outreach

Our program is based on Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev’s “managerial engagement” model of organizational change toward diversity. You can read more about their work in the Harvard Business Review and the American Sociological Review.