Wisconsin Ag Connection - Michigan News - MSU Recognized for Innovative Approach to Faculty Diversity with $3.98 Million NSF grant

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MSU Recognized for Innovative Approach to Faculty Diversity with $3.98 Million NSF grant
Michigan Ag Connection - 09/23/2008

Michigan State University has been awarded a five-year, $3.98 million ADVANCE grant from the National Science Foundation to increase the representation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers.

A key strategic goal of the NSF is to cultivate a world-class, broadly inclusive science and engineering work force, in part through Increasing the Participation and Advancement of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Careers program, also known as ADVANCE. MSU's ADVANCE project, titled "Advancing Diversity through Alignment of Policies and Practices (ADAPP)," is designed to attract, retain and promote the best possible faculty by improving the campus environment for all people.

The initial focus of MSU's ADVANCE project will be on the development and advancement of policies and practices in the colleges of Engineering, Natural Science and Social Science, with the intent that changes shown to be effective will eventually be applied to all units on campus. Project team members include representatives from units across campus and high-level administrators.

One factor that contributed to MSU being awarded the grant -- and that set MSU apart from other institutions -- was the success of initiatives to increase faculty diversity that MSU already has in place. The ADAPP project will enable MSU to expand its successful work in this area and to reach more deeply across the entire university community.

"MSU already has significant activity on which we will build our ADVANCE project," said MSU Provost Kim Wilcox, who will serve as the principal investigator of the ADAPP project. "Our project aims to build capacity and reduce bias in recruitment, retention and promotion, by aligning strategic goals in colleges and departments with the university-wide value of diversity, and then implementing objective evaluation criteria."

Additional project features include workshops, support for development of mentoring programs, working with diversity officers, and use of an electronic human resource information system. While many of these are currently in place in some areas of the university, the ADAPP project will serve as a catalyst and platform for leveraging existing programs and helping to create a more holistic, coordinated, and systemized approach to ensuring diversity.

Women comprise an increasing percentage of science and engineering majors at academic institutions, earning half of all bachelor's degrees in these fields, but constitute only 27 percent of the science and engineering work force at large and only 29 percent (in 2003) of doctoral-level science and engineering faculty in four-year colleges and universities, with only 18 percent at the rank of full

professors. Women from minority groups are particularly underrepresented, constituting approximately 3 percent of science and engineering faculty in four-year colleges and universities.

MSU's ADVANCE project will address these challenges. "To meet the continuing, strong demand for a highly educated and technologically savvy work force, it is important that all individuals, regardless of gender or ethnicity, have an opportunity to achieve and to contribute in mathematics, engineering and science," Wilcox said. "The pursuit of new scientific and engineering knowledge and its use in service to society requires talent, perspectives and insight that can only be assured by increasing diversity."

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