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The purpose of this project was to examine the extent to which early-career women faculty in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) experience working in a chilly interpersonal climate (as indicated by experiences of ostracism and incivility) and how those experiences relate to work and non-work well-being outcomes.

Data came from a sample of 96 early-career STEM faculty (Study 1) and a sample of 68 early-career women STEM faculty (Study 2). Both samples completed online surveys assessing their experiences of working in a chilly interpersonal climate and well-being.

In Study 1, early-career women STEM faculty reported greater experiences of ostracism and incivility and more negative occupational well-being outcomes associated with these experiences compared to early-career men STEM faculty. In Study 2, early-career women STEM faculty reported more ostracism and incivility from their male colleagues than from their female colleagues. Experiences of ostracism (and, to a lesser extent, incivility) from male colleagues also related to negative occupational and psychological well-being outcomes.

This paper documents that exposure to a chilly interpersonal climate in the form of ostracism and incivility is a potential explanation for the lack and withdrawal of junior women faculty in STEM academic fields.

The purpose of this research study was to explore U.S. STEM faculty’s perceptions of culturally responsive mentoring underrepresented doctoral students in STEM programs. The research question that guided this study was “How do STEM doctoral faculty mentors engage in culturally responsive mentoring?

A case study research design was used and included findings from an embedded case drawn from a larger ongoing study. Six STEM faculty participants provided in-depth insights into the dynamic nature of the culturally responsive mentoring journey through semi-structured interviews that were analyzed using thematic analysis. The theoretical framework for this research study was grounded in the ideas posited by culturally responsive pedagogy.

The findings revealed three themes related to the mentoring journeys experienced by the faculty fellows: an academic journey, an intentional journey, and a subliminal journey.

The findings of this research provide significant contribution to the current literature on mentoring and point to the importance of continuous, structured research efforts to increase the quality of mentoring for URM students in doctoral STEM programs.

STEM faculty could benefit from participating in mentor training framed by culturally responsive pedagogy. Future research is needed to explore the mentor training needs of STEM faculty in other environments, including contexts outside the United States.

This study extends understanding of STEM faculty's knowledge, dispositions, and abilities of culturally responsive mentoring and emphasizes the need for ongoing professional development training in this area.

The purpose of this case study is to explore the perceptions of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) faculty members toward mentoring undergraduates.

Within the context of a student scholarship and faculty development project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), STEM faculty members were interviewed at a small teaching-focused university in South Texas, United States. This research study utilized a qualitative case study approach based on semi-structured interviews with nine Mathematics and Computer Science faculty members. Transcripts were coded thematically, beginning with open coding and continuing with repeated rounds of comparison leading to the identification of four themes.

Four themes were identified in the data: describing settings where mentoring occurs, identifying the tasks of mentoring, developing skills for mentoring others and inhabiting the identity of a mentor. These findings suggest that increasing faculty engagement and effectiveness in mentoring STEM students may be a matter of broadening the definition of mentoring and helping faculty members develop the identity of a mentor.

In an effort to promote retention of students, specifically within STEM fields, many initiatives highlight the importance of faculty mentoring for undergraduate students. This research suggests that faculty members' perceptions of the role and structure of a mentoring relationship will shape this relationship and have an impact on student persistence and success.

While most studies of faculty–student mentoring focus on the experiences of students, this study explored faculty members' perceptions of that relationship.

The advancement of equity, diversity and inclusion in higher education is dependent on institutional culture changes in academia. Faculty equity, diversity and inclusion efforts must engage departmental leadership. The purpose of this paper is to describe the growth and expansion of the ADVANCE leadership program at the University of Washington (UW) for department chairs that was designed to provide department chairs the skills, community and information needed to be agents of change within the academy.

The paper chronicles the program’s growth from a campus-based workshop program to national workshops (LEAD) to a web-based toolkit (LiY!) to support institutions in running their own UW ADVANCE-inspired leadership workshops.

The paper demonstrates the success of each growth stage and the expansion of program impact.

The paper offers recommendations for growing a model from a local to national scale and adapting the described leadership development model at other institutions.

The paper shares a successful model for equipping department chairs to be advocates of gender equity, diversity and inclusion in STEM and to be change agents in higher education.

A lot is known about systemic barriers to broadening participation (BP) in STEM. Empirical research has demonstrated the existence and impact of implicit bias, stereotype threat, and micro-aggressions on a sense of belonging, organizational productivity and leadership opportunities. We also know that achieving greater participation of women and faculty of color in the STEM disciplines is complicated and depends on altering complex and multi-layered interactions between activities and actors. Further, because researcher and institutional goals vary as a function of target population and context, generalizable models can struggle in the face of larger BP efforts. Through the authors experience as an NSF ADVANCE-IT awardee, the authors believe that a dynamic, multi-scaled and organizational level approach is required to reflect the reciprocal dialogue among research questions, best practices, tailored applications and quantifiable goals. The authors describe several examples of research, programming activities and program evaluation that illustrate this approach. In particular, the authors describe both the programming successes and challenges, with the aim of helping others to avoid common mistakes by articulating very broad and, the authors’ hope, generalizable “lessons learned.” The paper aims to discuss these issues.

To better understand the barriers for women in STEM, the authors utilized an iterative methodology. Specifically, the authors conducted a social network analysis, an exit survey of departed faculty, longitudinal analysis of career trajectories and research productivity, and a survey on the interaction between values and climate.

The analyses suggest three strategies better retain women in STEM: improve women’s professional networks; re-aling policy documents and departmental practices to better reflect faculty values; and improve departmental climate.

The pay-off for using this more complex research approach to triangulate onto specific challenges is that the interventions are more likely to be successful, with a longer-lasting impact.

With continuous institutional research, metric refinement, and program evaluation the authors are better able to develop targeted programming, policy reform, and changes in institutional practice. The interventions should result in permanent institutional and systemic change by integrating multi-method qualitative and quantitative research into BP practices, which the authors couple with longitudinal analysis that can quantify success of the authors’ efforts.

Women remain underrepresented in academic STEM, especially at the highest ranks. While much attention has focused on early-career attrition, mid-career advancement is still largely understudied and undocumented. The purpose of this paper is to analyze gender differences in advancement to full professor within academic STEM at a mid-size public doctoral university in the western USA, before and after the National Science Foundation (NSF)-ADVANCE Program (2003–2008).

Using faculty demographics and promotion data between 2008 and 2014, combined with faculty responses to two waves of a climate survey, the magnitude and longevity of the impact of ADVANCE on mid-career faculty advancement across gender is evaluated.

This study documents increased representation of women in all ranks within the STEM colleges, including that of full professor due to ADVANCE efforts. It also demonstrates the role of greater gender awareness and formalization of procedures in reducing the variability in the time as associate professor until promotion to full professor for all faculty members, while also shrinking gender disparities in career attainment. As a result of the codification of the post-tenure review timeline toward promotion, more recently hired faculty are promoted more swiftly and consistently, irrespective of gender. Post-ADVANCE, both male and female faculty members express a greater understanding of and confidence in the promotion process and no longer see it as either a hurdle or source of gender inequality in upward career mobility.

While data were collected at a single university, demographics and career experiences by women mirror those at other research universities. This study shows that within a given institution-specific governance structure, long-lasting effects on faculty career trajectories can be achieved, by focusing efforts on creating greater transparency in expectations and necessary steps toward promotion, by reducing barriers to information flown, by standardizing and codifying the promotion process, and by actively engaging administrators as collaborators and change agents in the transformation process.

This study addresses mid-career dynamics and potential mechanisms that explain gender gaps in the promotion to full professor, a largely understudied aspect of gender disparities in career attainment within STEM. It shows how institutional policy changes, intended to alleviate gender disparities, can benefit the career trajectories of all faculty members. Specifically, this study highlights the crucial role of codifying procedures and responsibilities in neutralizing subjectivity and inconsistencies in promotion outcomes due to varying departmental climates.

While postdoctoral research (postdoc) training is a common step toward academic careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, the role of postdoc training in social sciences is less clear. An increasing number of social science PhDs are pursuing postdocs. This paper aims to identify factors associated with participation in postdoc training and examines the relationship between postdoc training and subsequent career outcomes, including attainment of tenure-track faculty positions and early career salaries.

Using data from the National Science Foundation Survey of Earned Doctorates and Survey of Doctorate Recipients, this study applies propensity score matching, regression and decomposition analyses to identify the role of postdoc training on the employment outcomes of PhDs in the social science and STEM fields.

Results from the regression analyses indicate that participation in postdoc training is associated with greater PhD research experience, higher departmental research ranking and departmental job placement norms. When the postdocs and non-postdocs groups are balanced on observable characteristics, postdoc training is associated with a higher likelihood of attaining tenure-track faculty positions 7 to 9 years after PhD completion. The salaries of social science tenure-track faculty with postdoc experience eventually surpass the salaries of non-postdoc PhDs, primarily via placement at institutions that offer relatively higher salaries. This pattern, however, does not apply to STEM PhDs.

This study leverages comprehensive, nationally representative data to investigate the role of postdoc training in the career outcomes of social sciences PhDs, in comparison to STEM PhDs. Research findings suggest that for social sciences PhDs interested in academic careers, postdoc training can contribute to the attainment of tenure-track faculty positions and toward earning relatively higher salaries over time. Research findings provide prospective and current PhDs with information helpful in career planning and decision-making. Academic institutions, administrators, faculty and stakeholders can apply these research findings toward developing programs and interventions to provide doctoral students with career guidance and greater career transparency.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the objectives, activities and outcomes of the National Science Foundation ADVANCE project, Institutions Developing Excellence in Academic Leadership (IDEAL) during 2009–2012. The goal of IDEAL was to create an institutional learning community empowered to develop and leverage knowledge, skills, resources and networks to transform academic cultures and enhance gender equity, diversity and inclusion in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines at six research universities in the northern Ohio region. Over the three-year period, these institutions developed academic leaders and institutionalized gender equity transformation through multi-dimensional and multi-level initiatives, improving the advancement and leadership of women faculty in STEM disciplines.

The authors describe the objectives, activities and outcomes of the NSF ADVANCE project, IDEAL during 2009–2012. The six research institutions included in IDEAL were Bowling Green State University, Case Western Reserve University (the lead institution), Cleveland State University, Kent State University, University of Akron and University of Toledo.

IDEAL’s outcomes included the institutionalization of a number of gender equity initiatives at each university, an increase in the number of tenured women faculty in science and engineering disciplines over three years across the six universities, and increases in the numbers of women in faculty and administrative leadership positions. Out of 62 of the IDEAL participants (co-directors and change leaders), 25 were promoted or appointed to roles of leadership within or beyond their institutions during or after their participation in IDEAL. A number of new institutional collaborations and exchanges involving the six universities occurred during and emerged from IDEAL. An integrative model of the IDEAL program is developed, describing the nested components of each institution’s gender equity transformation within the IDEAL partnership consortium and the larger NSF ADVANCE community, and highlighting the dynamic interactions between these levels.

The IDEAL program demonstrates that systemic change to achieve equity for women and underrepresented minority faculty in STEM disciplines must be rooted on individual campuses but must also propagate among higher education systems and the broader scientific community. The effort to develop, sustain and expand the IDEAL partnership model of institutional transformation (IT) in higher education illuminates how innovative, context-sensitive, cost-effective and customized institutional strategies may be implemented to advance gender equity, diversity, inclusion and leadership of women faculty at all levels across the country.

This is an original description of a unique and distinctive partnership among research universities to foster gender equity IT. The manuscript details the objectives, activities and outcomes of the IDEAL program, established with the aim of broadening participation in the STEM academic workforce and advancing gender equity, diversity and inclusion in institutions of higher education. An integrative model is developed, illustrating the key components and outcomes of the IDEAL program.

Mentoring postdocs is a shared responsibility and dynamic process that requires a mutual commitment between the faculty mentor and postdoc. The purpose of this study is to understand how minoritized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) postdocs view and engage in mentoring exchanges with their faculty mentors. In the context of this study, minoritized postdocs include women, people of color, and individuals with international status; faculty mentors include postdocs’ Principal Investigators (PIs).

Three researchers and 31 data sources (i.e., interview transcripts) were used to construct the case. Researchers first deductively and independently coded the data sources using Molm’s (2006) social exchange framework to identify examples of direct, generalized, and productive mentoring exchanges. Researchers then used thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) to identify emergent themes among coded examples of direct, generalized, and productive mentoring exchanges.

Data analyses revealed three emergent themes: (1.1) postdocs valued regular meetings and communication with mentors to clarify responsibilities and role expectations, (1.2) postdocs found more value in their interactions with junior faculty PIs who were flexible and open to innovative ideas, and (1.3) postdocs appreciated conversations about short- and long-term career goals and advice with mentors.

Findings offer implications for faculty and postdocs’ approaches to mentoring relationships, and for approaches to cultivating supportive scholarly communities in STEM higher education. Recommendations include flexibility in research assignments, increased awareness of non-academic careers, and opportunities for informal interactions and intra/interdepartmental community building.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight critical issues facing women of color (WOC) faculty and to synthesize the research literature in order to offer recommendations for action to address inequities using an intersectionality framework.

The authors conducted a qualitative meta-analysis. Relevant articles were obtained through a search of the EBSCO and Google Scholar databases entering in combinations of specific keywords. In order to be included in this review, the manuscripts had to be published between the years 2001 and 2017; in a peer-reviewed journal; and available through the university library system.

The majority of manuscripts in the meta-analysis revealed high teaching and service loads, ambiguous standards for tenure and lack of culturally responsive mentorship are challenges experienced by WOC faculty. Moreover, there is limited research that examines STEM WOC faculty experiences at minority-serving institutions and in leadership roles. Further research is needed to examine the long-term efficacy of mentoring strategies and institutional transformation efforts for WOC. These numerous challenges cumulatively undermine institutions’ abilities to implement institutional transformation that impacts WOC in higher education.

The recommendations provided are based on the results of the meta-analysis and are intended to promote systemic change for STEM WOC faculty in institutions through intersectional and transformational approaches.