Delaware State University's ADVANCE IT-Start Project targets the following four goals: (1) Acquire the institution-specific information needed to characterize and understand the status, challenges, and barriers to participation by women and underrepresented minorities in STEM, especially among faculty (2) Identify from other institutions and experts proven best practice strategies for increasing the participation and advancement of women and URM and implementing sustainable institutional change. (3) Lay the groundwork for and cultivate institutional receptivity to institutional transformation that will increase the participation and advancement of women and URM among DSU's faculty and leadership. (4) Develop an institutional transformation plan.
Intellectual Merit. The intellectual merit centers on the project's systematic, multi-dimensional approach of characterizing and understanding the institutional situation, best practices from other institutions, and the research base, while in parallel fostering stakeholder buy in to the need and nature of institutional transformation aimed at dramatically improving the participation and advancement of women and URM among the STEM faculty. Evaluation is used in a formative manner to drive project success.
Broader Impacts. This project will set the stage for DSU, a minority-serving institution (students ~80% black, ~60% female) currently in transition toward greater research intensity and expanded graduate programs, to design institutional transformation to improve the participation and advancement of women and URM STEM faculty. The project also fosters interactions, mentoring, and networking among women and URM faculty across all STEM disciplines on the DSU campus and across the broader academic community. Furthermore, the approach could establish a model for other minority-serving institutions interested in increasing the presence and advancement of female and URM STEM faculty.
