The University of California is one of the largest higher education systems in the country and is comprised of 10 research campuses. In an effort to address its longstanding goal of diversifying the faculty, the UC system proposes an ADVANCE PAID project to promote the recruitment, retention and advancement of women and underrepresented minority women in the STEM disciplines. Specifically, this project will critically analyze key stages of the search and selection process as a means of informing system-wide decisions regarding women STEM candidates. This project will also support biennial meetings of faculty and administrators from all ten campuses to participate in roundtable discussions on various topics including, but not limited to cross-campus mentoring, incentives for diversity in hiring and assessment of institutional climate for Latina STEM faculty. The partnering of the UC campuses provides an ideal opportunity for assessing impact on underrepresented minority women who, at individual campuses, may be too few in number to report.
Intellectual Merit This proposal is submitted from the central administration office of the UC system. The goal of this project is to analyze the search process across the 10-campus UC system. Additionally, beyond the analysis of search data, the project will host biennial roundtables for faculty and administrators that cover a range of topics including rewarding diversity hiring, mentoring, data development and building capacity.
Broader Impact The UC Oakland ADVANCE PAID project includes the ten campuses within its higher education system. To that end, the project will impact nearly 10,000 members of faculty. Additionally, the proposed project will implement strategies to improve the recruitment and retention of Latina STEM faculty. As such, UC Oakland has the potential to enhance the representation in the academic STEM disciplines of women faculty and special populations of women faculty in a meaningful way. This project may also serve as a model for all institutions of higher education with similar interests in targeting women of color.
UC ADVANCE PAID, "Meeting the California Challenge," has had the goal of bringing University of California (UC) faculty demographics in closer alignment with the diverse population of the state by leveraging an established 10-campus structure, strong networks, and rich data sources. The program has been designed to enable UC campuses to recruit, retain, and advance more women and underrepresented minority women faculty in science, technology, engineering, and math. With the active support of all 10 chancellors, and guidance from its Steering Committee and Research Scholars Advisory Board, UC ADVANCE PAID has generated the knowledge, organizational supports, and interpersonal networks that are essential for significant institutional change. Over three years, the program has included two main components: Recruitment Data Analysis Project The goals of the Recruitment Data Analysis Project were 1) to design ways to collect and aggregate data that are transportable not only across 10 campuses, but potentially across broader subsets of universities or disciplines, 2) to use these data to pinpoint roadblocks to recruitment of women and URMs in STEM, and 3) to implement recruitment practices that overcome such roadblocks. The Program met these goals through the following accomplishments: Established a robust system of data collection and analysis within the UC Recruit application promoting transparency and equity in faculty hiring. The UC Recruit web-based recruitment system now collects data from each stage of the faculty recruitment process for all 10 UC campuses tracking over 40,000 applications for some 400 ladder-rank faculty searches each year. By establishing baselines for assessing progress and a norm of transparency, the collection and reporting of these data encourages departments to monitor their progress and to adopt practices aimed at increasing equity and diversity while ensuring excellence. The system is bringing new awareness of equitable and inclusive searches to UC faculty members. The California Challenge Roundtable Initiative The goals of the California Challenge Roundtable Initiative were 1) to build a stronger cross-campus community, combining forces to recruit and retain more women overall and URM women in particular in STEM, 2) to establish STEM recruitment and retention as a standard part of the University diversity conversations, and 3) to follow-up on the Roundtables with new campus initiatives or practices. The five Roundtables met these goals through the following accomplishments: Through a series of roundtables on five UC campuses, established a collaborative cross-campus network of faculty and administrators to identify critical issues, evidence-based solutions, and implementation strategies for increasing equity in recruitment, advancement and retention of faculty. The network promotes empirically informed policy-making and disseminates information and best practices across the system by bringing together campus leadership, faculty experts on issues related to employment inequality, and administrators of faculty development, equity and inclusion programs. Furthermore, the roundtables and other meetings provided a wealth of information that benefited attendees and that are maintained and available to all on the grant-sponsored website and through other venues (see www.ucop.edu/ucadvance/events/past-events/index.html). The roundtables have stimulated new action on the campuses in regard to mentorship programs, reweighting of evaluation criteria (rubrics), diagnostic interventions, using faculty-appointed equity advisors to promote diversity related outcomes, and advancing family-friendly policies and dual career programs. With the conclusion of the grant, the Steering Committee and Research Scholars Advisory Board have set forth recommendations to sustain and advance the progress made by the UC ADVANCE PAID program. The recommendations are to 1) continue to support and develop UC Recruit, 2) establish a UC Institute for the Faculty of the Future, 3) establish system-wide resources for improving climate in educational and work settings, and 4) catalyze the system-wide adoption of evidence-based practices that promote equity and diversity in the hiring process for both ladder rank and non-ladder faculty.
