Minority Faculty Development

1. Minority Faculty Development Gilda Barabino, PhD Georgia Institute of Technology NSF MRSEC Directors’ Meeting November 2, 2009

2. Barabino Led Initiatives • NSF ADVANCE Cross-Disciplinary Initiative for Minority Women Faculty • Minority Faculty Development Forum • support the career advancement and retention of underrepresented minority faculty - primary mechanism: NSF Minority Faculty Development Workshop

3. GUIDING PRINCIPLES

4. Reconceptualizing the Issues • Viewing diversity among the professoriate—not in isolation—but as part of a complex system • Student diversity • Enhancing educational experience for ALL • Enriching S&E enterprise • Global issue • Policy and programs to enhance diversity must be institutionalized

5. Minority Faculty Development and Career Progression: Determinants • Mentoring • Networking • Opportunities for collaboration • Personal and professional interactions with peers and tenured faculty within department and broader community • Identity formation as a scientist/engineer reinforced by inclusion, socialization and valuation of contributions

6. Pathway to the Academy: Possible Deterrents • Lack of role models • Lack of encouragement and proactive recruitment • Quality of graduate experience • Perceived unattractiveness of faculty career

7. Women of Color in the Academy • Least likely to have professional mentors • Least likely to be tenured and promoted • Least likely to be at the rank of full professor • Least likely to be included in collaborative research projects • Most likely to carry the heaviest service burden

8. “The Double Bind: The Price of Being a Minority Woman in Science”AAAS Report No. 76-R-3, 1976 • “Minority women represent a disturbingly small part of the total scientific manpower pool, but are a significant component whose needs seem not to have been addressed by existing programs for minorities or women. They have traditionally been excluded because of biases related to both their race or ethnicity and gender, constituting a double bind. Programs for minorities and women have generally been assumed to include minority women, but in fact minority women fall in the cracks between the two. The programs developed for minorities in science have mostly been dominated by male scientists. Similarly, the women’s science organizations are overwhelmingly white, and the minority science organizations, overwhelmingly male.”

10. ADVANCE X-D Initiative for Minority Women Faculty • Cross-disciplinary • Research-driven • Diversity conceptualized in terms of race, ethnicity and gender • Socialization into an academic career/faculty development/navigating career path/succeeding and thriving • Enhanced career success

11. X-D Initiative • Cohort • 20 tenure-track faculty • Across engineering disciplines and types of institutions • Conferences • Inaugural, April 2008 at Georgia Tech • Follow up, September 2009 at Grace Hopper Conference for Women in Computing in collaboration with Anita Borg Institute

12. X-D Initiative • Primary Activities • Professional development and socialization • Career planning and coaching • Strategic networking • Research component (built-in) • Qualitative and quantitative studies to elucidate fundamental issues and determine effectiveness of existing interventions

13. Ongoing mechanism to support the career advancement and retention of underrepresented minority (URM) (African American, Hispanic, Native American) faculty – NSF Minority Faculty Development Workshop is primary activity MINORITY FACULTY DEVELOPMENT FORUM

14. Minority Faculty Development Workshop Premise: • Broadening participation of underrepresented minorities in S&E is a national imperative (diverse workforce and replacement of aging faculty) • Lack of URM faculty in engineering negatively impacts recruitment and retention of URM students • Minority faculty development programs positively impact URM faculty career success (Moody, 2004) • Current policies and practices related to tenure and promotion are not always conducive to faculty diversity (Trower, 2002) - efforts aimed at enhancing tenure rates for URM faculty such as the MFDF and MFD Workshop can mitigate

15. Minority Faculty Development Workshop • Theme/Location/: • 21st Century Engineering Faculty/NSF (2006), • Building Tomorrow’s Engineering Faculty Today/GaTech (2009) • Engineering Minority Faculty/MIT (2010) • Format: • 2 1/2 day informational, interactive and workshop sessions including opportunities for networking and mentoring • Unique Features: • Primary focus on tenure-track faculty • Web-based pre- and post-conference activities and web-based searchable database of participants and others • Tailored and interactive programming

16. Workshop Content • Informational sessions • Plenary speakers, understanding NSF/NIH/other agencies • Workshop sessions • Grantsmanship, writing/publishing, teaching, tenure nuts and bolts, sowing the seeds of a successful research program • Interactive sessions • Worklife balance, professional skills development, shared research interests (poster session) • Career coaching • Networking opportunities and social activities

17. Membership in MFDF (workshop participants automatic members)

18. Searchable database

19. Connections: X-D Initiative/MFDW – Other NSF Programs • Professional development and socialization • Career planning and coaching • Strategic networking • Seamless pipeline • Research and evaluation

20. The Engineering Alliance for Mentoring

21. Future Strategies • Longitudinal data collection • Greater agency and institutional accountability (leadership to promote accountability) • Sustained culture of support and collaboration (more inclusive research settings) • Minority faculty development program as a follow on to AGEP (networking, building community, socialization, successful navigation) • ADVANCE type program for URM

22. Discussion