Rice University
NSF ADVANCE Proposal
Context — National and Local
The under-representation of women in academic positions, and especially in leadership roles in the academy, is an on-going cause for societal concern [1]. At a time when international pressures on the science and engineering enterprise are escalating, a substantial portion of the talents and insights in our population — particularly those of women, including women of color — are missing from these academic disciplines [2, 3]. The science and technology leadership established by the United States in the 20th century is eroding, and emerging demands of the 21st century require well-integrated, diverse networks of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers [4, 5]. Yet, despite research showing that cognitive and workforce diversity adds perspective, enhances problem-solving [6], increases performance [7, 8], and provides a crucial base of creativity and innovation [9], women remain underrepresented in scientific and engineering disciplines.
The gender imbalance in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET) results in large part from a self-perpetuating cycle propelled by inequitable access to "information, opportunity, and recognition" [3] and a climate that has been described as “chilly” and sometimes "threatening" [10-13]. Female (and minority) students do not easily see themselves as professors because they see so few women in these roles and those that they do see are often underpaid and overworked relative to their male colleagues [14]. Despite the increasing presence of women in the academic pipeline and gains at the assistant professor level [2, 15], until very recently, high-level academic leaders have been almost exclusively men, and slower promotion of women into these positions continues despite similarities in productivity and institutional prestige[16]. Although women follow comparable paths in terms of career preparation and experiences (i.e., theydo "all the right stuff"), disparities between men's and women's occupational standings persist [3, 17]. Further, the advancement of women appears slower and is characterized by a variety of inequities that are often subtle and easily dismissed [18]. Without an equitable work environment, inspiration, and clear models, motivation to face and overcome the numerous challenges in an academic career is lost, and the very students who would enrich the SMET enterprise gravitate to other areas.
If the current situation is to change, active intervention is required. The goal of this ADVANCE proposal is to implement a research-driven strategy that will transform the Schools of Science and Engineering at Rice and increase the participation and advancement of women faculty, including women of color. Our strategy for institutional transformation is founded on: (1) a comprehensive analysis of the climate and obstacles faced by Rice women faculty and (2) sociological and scientific research in the fields of gender discrimination and organizational culture change. The specific aims of the proposal are to:
•Increase the number of women faculty in science and engineering by effective recruitment, retention, and career advancement. Over the next 8 years, more than 1/3 of the Rice faculty in science and engineering will reach normal retirement age; thus, we have a timely opportunity to make an enormous impact on the gender and ethnic diversity of our faculty. We propose a comprehensive strategy to increase the recruitment of women faculty at all levels. Our goal is to increase the percentage of women faculty to reflect the national pool of women earning PhDs in science and engineering – if achieved, this goal will result in effectively doubling to tripling the current national averages for percent women faculty in most departments.
•Create a positive work environment to facilitate development of well-integrated, diverse, gender-neutral SMET networks of faculty and students. An analysis of Rice climate indicates that, while faculty salary and advancement do not differ significantly by gender, significant climate differences are experienced by men and women faculty. We propose series of interventions to create a workplace with clear organizational support for all members and devoid of perceptions of discrimination. Since departments are the unit within universities that make most decisions and are where "life is lived", changing the future landscape requires addressing issues throughout the academic structure [3]; thus, our efforts span from the departmental to the institutional level. Research indicates that gender-neutral work environments increase employee diligence, commitment, innovation, and feelings of power and prestige and decrease work conflicts [19-21].
•Examine our proposed programs for efficacy and share detailed information on those that do/do not work (and why). We will carry out detailed assessment of the interventions proposed to assess effectiveness and maximize the ADVANCE program impact at Rice. Electronic toolkits will be developed and disseminated to enable others to utilize and further develop our most successful programs, ensuring broad impact of our efforts across a wide segment of the SMET community. We are aware that other ADVANCE sites have developed hard-won knowledge about what does/does not work and will therefore invite leaders of current IT initiatives to Rice at the beginning of our program to provide feedback on our plans and share wisdom from their experiences. We will be particularly interested in exploring the most effective assessment approaches. We will invite these ADVANCE IT leaders again in Year 2 when experience will have informed our questions and needs.
To implement this strategy, we have developed an ADVANCE Leadership Group that includes institutional leadership and expertise in science, engineering, and organizational psychology. The ADVANCE PIs, Kathleen Matthews and Sallie Keller-McNulty, are Rice University’s Deans of Science and Engineering, respectively. Co-PIs Rebecca Richards-Kortum and Ken Whitmire are department chairs in Bioengineering and Chemistry, respectively. Co-PI Michelle Hebl, Associate Professor of Psychology, pursues research focused on understanding interactions between stigmatized and non-stigmatized individuals. Hebl’s work has led to research tools to better understand discrimination and strategies to successfully remediate discrimination and increase diversity [e.g., 27, 35]. The Leadership Group will be assisted by members of the ADVANCE Team (see below). The individuals in these groups have worked together to identify three key components necessary to increase participation and advancement of Rice women faculty in SMET: 1) A critical mass of women in all departments, 2) equity in resources that support their academic goals, and 3) a welcoming, supportive climate. Research on effective steps to institutional transformation and dissemination of this information create the system illustrated in Fig. 1.
Specific Barriers to Women’s Advancement at Rice
Our plan for institutional transformation encompasses an in-depth analysis of current barriers to the advancement of SMET women faculty at Rice. We begin by reviewing these barriers, with regard to (1) numbers of women faculty, (2) climate experienced by women faculty and (3) resources available to women faculty, and then present the detailed plans of this ADVANCE proposal.
(1) Number of Women. As is evident in Table I, the percentage of women faculty in SMET departments at Rice, except in bio- and mechanical engineering, is below that for the national pool of women receiving Ph.D.s., with no minority women in science and engineering at Rice and no women insome SMET departments. Whereas the overall percentage of female undergraduate and graduate students at Rice is at/above the national average, the percentage of female faculty at Rice is significantly below the national average at the assistant and associate professor levels (Fig. 2). If we successfully meet our goal of bringing numbers of faculty women to match Ph.D. pool availability, we will effectively double to triple the current national average of women faculty. To attract more women, including women of color, our departments must gain deeper awareness of barriers and find the impetus to create a welcoming system. Recruitment and retention issues must be addressed to reach a critical mass of women and minority women that changes the dynamic process [22,23].
Table I. Comparison of percent women in fields at Rice and nationally*
Field / % Women Bachelors / % Women Ph.D.'s / % Women FacultyEngineering / Rice / National / Rice / National / Rice / National
Bioengineering / 46 / 46 / 31 / 30 / 30 / 17
Chemical Engineering / 38 / 37 / 31 / 25 / 0 / 12
Civil/Envi Engineering / 17 / 32 / 39 / 23 / 0 / 14
Comp/Appl Math / 31 / 33§ / 28 / 33§ / 10 / 11§
Computer Science / 11 / 17 / 8 / 19 / 11 / 12
Elec/Comp Engineering / 14 / 16 / 16 / 14 / 5 / 9
Mechanical Eng/Mat Sci / 26 / 14 / 31 / 12 / 17 / 7
Statistics / 36 / 50§ / 51 / 52§ / 13 / 22§
Natural Sciences
Biochemistry/Cell Biol/Ecology/Evol Biol / 62 / 58 / 49 / 47 / 32 / 20
Chemistry / 46 / 47 / 35 / 31 / 9 / 12
Earth Science / 67 / ND¶ / 40 / ND¶ / 11 / ND¶
Mathematics / 18 / 32§ / 38 / 25§ / 7 / 7§
Physics & Astronomy / 19 / 21 / 14 / 13 / 8 / 7
*National and Rice engineering data are from the American Society for Engineering Education web page; national natural sciences data are from Nelson & Rogers [15], and Rice data are from the School of Natural Sciences for 2004-2005. No minority women are on the SMET faculty at Rice.
§From AMIA Survey of Tier 1 Universities, 2003
¶No data available
Rice has made strides in placing women in leadership roles, with female deans for both science and engineering (the only Tier 1 institution where both science and engineering deans are women). Moreover, of 14 departments in these schools, 3 are chaired by women. We seek to increase this number. However, leadership is not just about leading departments or schools or acquiring administrative duties. We must place women in a variety of leadership roles in national professional settings, a process that requires nurturing relevant skills, nominating women for these roles, and equipping women to assume these roles. As part of our ADVANCE program, we will undertake a variety of strategies to increase the number of women at all levels and in leadership positions.
(2) Climate Issues. The status of women has been assessed at numerous universities (e.g., MIT, Princeton, University of Michigan, Case Western Reserve University, Georgia Tech, Duke, etc.). Our recent climate survey (see Supplementary Materials for Technical Report), with an overall response rate of 46%, indicates that the situation at Rice is quite similar to other institutions: Women faculty report a significantly less positive experience than men across a number of domains (Fig. 3). Differences ranged from 0.5-1.0 point on a 4.0 point arbitrary scale, with all positive climate dimensions consistently rated lower for women and all negative climate dimensions consistently rated higher for women. Thus, women experience a less welcoming and more demanding work environment.This situation is of particular concern as research shows these issues have the greatest apparent impact on women, who often under-represent or altogether deny experiences of discrimination [24-26].
With so few women and the understanding that the presence of women on committees and other deliberative bodies is crucial, excessive demands are inevitably made on our existing women faculty. Based on our climate survey, Rice women faculty feel overvalued in service roles — being asked to serve on numerous committees, address departmental tasks, and assume mentoring roles eschewed by their male colleagues, to name a few — but undervalued in terms of the regard and affirmation of colleagues for their contributions. The assumption appears to be that a woman’s professional activities are of lower value than the corresponding activities of her male peers. Changing how women are engaged in service roles and developing an equitable system of demands are critical to system equilibration and creating positive role models for students. The fact that women faculty are over-extended and asked to do more than their male colleagues is not lost on our graduate students and post-doctoral associates making career choices. The ADVANCE program will undertake specific initiatives and tracking of climate issues to create a system that does not selectively disadvantage any members. Assessment of our efforts will leverage the experiences of other ADVANCE teams in a wide range of institutions.
(3) Equitable distribution of resources. Generally, the allocation of tangible resources can be directly addressed once identified. A comprehensive survey of a selected set of quantitative factors is underway (start-up packages, assigned space, etc.), and preliminary analysis suggests that resources available to women and their advancement rates are comparable to their male colleagues. However, women are highly under-represented in the rank of endowed chairs. The Provost has repeatedly called attention to the need for advancing women to this rank. Long-term attention to Rice salary and support issues has minimized gender-related differences, particularly at the assistant professor level. As part of the ADVANCE institutional transformation, we will establish a system to examine Rice resource assignment patterns and ensure equity. Because women tend to adapt to situations and believe that they have lower self-worth relative to men [3], women often do not speak up, and the issues that most affect women are frequently lost to other, more vocal constituencies. No system is in place — at the local or institutional level — for mentoring or coaching women regarding the most effective mechanisms to elicit change.
The Path Forward
The goal of this ADVANCE proposal is to transform the Rice Schools of Science and Engineering to increase our diversity and to create a climate that (1) values individuals, (2) identifies, acknowledges, and employs unique skills and insights, and (3) rewards contributions in order to stimulate innovation and enhance individual performance. To achieve this transformation, we propose three central goals that reflect Rice's specific needs, are grounded in research on systems and individuals, and have the potential to contribute to the broader advancement of women:
•Increase the number of women faculty through effective recruitment, retention and career advancement. Assessment criterion: Does number of women faculty increase?
•Create a positive work environment and increase the number of women science and engineering faculty in leadership positions at Rice and nationally.
Assessment criteria: Do women report satisfaction similar to men? Are women in more leadership positions?
•Examine our proposed programs for efficacy and share detailed information on those that do and do not work and why.
These goals arise from two underlying premises: (A) Crucial elements for recruitment and retention of a diverse faculty, especially women and underrepresented minorities, comprise the provision of sufficient resources for achievement along with the creation of a positive and valuing environment [27]. (B) Enhancing representation of women at all levels will facilitate recruitment and retention of a more diverse faculty and leadership team [23]. Indeed, recruitment, retention, and mentoring have been identified as key practices for generating faculty diversity [28]. This set of goals forms a complex interacting network, where success in one area augments success in others and becomes self-perpetuating. Analyzing the effects of specific actions and identifying programs that work is an essential part of advancing women in SMET areas. Sharing what works in a form that is easily adopted in other settings will enable significant change beyond our individual institution. Indeed, our program will be informed in all phases by information about what has been effective for other ADVANCE sites by direct invitations for leadership to visit our campus in Yrs 1 and 2. We describe below first key steps and specific actions we will undertake to achieve institutional transformation:
Key First Steps: Ensuring Institutional Leadership through the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs. Past research has shown that support from institutional leaders is crucial to ensure female faculty success [29]. Having and using the authority to promote women is an important element in the overall advancement of women [3]. Rice currently has no institutional mechanism to address gender-related issues or assess the effects of specific activities that would enhance the environment for women. Further, no institutional system exists to effectively track information that would be relevant to decision-making regarding the status of women. The absence of a person charged with the responsibility and authority to gather information and engender change results in the absence of sustained initiatives and energy to address key problems. Thus, as our first step in institutional transformation, the position of Vice Provost for Academic Affairs (VPAA) will be created as part of a reorganization of the Office of the Provost. As indicated in the President/Provost's letter of support (see Supplementary Materials), "[t]he VPAA will have a substantial proactive responsibility for gender equity and diversity amongst Rice's faculty." The VPAA will work in partnership with the ADVANCE Leadership Group and ADVANCE Team to address key issues related to academic climate and the advancement of women, including women of color. As described in detail below, this effort will encompass training for department chairs and search committees, tracking essential information in cooperation with the Office of Institutional Research under the auspices of the Vice President for Finance (Katherine Collins), overseeing institutional funds designated to promote diversity, and creating gatherings that facilitate formation of integrated networks. The VPAA will be appointed by the Provost in the next 12 months. As part of this proposal, we will hire an ADVANCE Executive Director, preferably at the Ph.D.-level and with experiences relevant to the activities outlined in this proposal. This full-time staff member will work closely with the VPAA and the ADVANCE Team to implement proposed programs and to ensure that wisdom from other ADVANCE institutional transformation sites (and other programs) will inform each of our initiatives.
Goal 1. Increase the Number of Women Faculty in SMET at Rice
A. Recruitment
Rice lags behind national averages at assistant and associate professor levels (Fig. 2); thus, our efforts are focused initially at these levels. Although, in accordance with federal law, no advantage will be given to women in hiring or retention, aggressively broadening the pools and ensuring the absence of unintended bias in selection are crucial. We will improve recruitment through a variety of approaches — from increasing the pool of candidates to instituting best practices and finding new sources of women for the academy. We appreciate the special need to recruit minority women to Rice in SMET areas. Rice is home to a very successful NSF AGEP program that has been instrumental in dramatically improving the diversity of our graduate student population. We will take advantage of the substantial intellectual and human resources already available through our AGEP program to address the challenge of recruiting minority women faculty (see letter of support).