This project will create a blueprint to foster an equitable and supportive environment for all faculty members, especially women at City College (CCNY) in the City University of New York system. City College is the flagship science and engineering school in the system and a minority-serving institution. Change at CCNY is likely to impact the other colleges and lead to advancing women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields throughout the system. CCNY will conduct a self-assessment of faculty perceptions, institutional policies and practices, and of the representation and advancement of women in STEM as a means towards developing the blueprint. Advancing women and minority faculty at CCNY will provide visible role models for more than half of the student population that is female, many of whom are from minority or disadvantaged backgrounds.
As City College moves into its next phase in transforming itself into a research-intensive university, it faces the challenge of remaining true to its mission of access and inclusive excellence, while upgrading its research profile and reputation. The goals of this proposal are to identify the cultural and environmental factors that promote or hinder the advancement of STEM women at City College. This information will be used to implement new policies to ensure that advancement is gender neutral and to provide a blueprint for effective career advancement of women. The specific objectives of the project are as follows: (a) to locate and identify obstacles to the representation and advancement of women STEM faculty; (b) to determine perceptual differences among faculty and administrators of different genders, races/ethnicities, ranks and disciplines; (c) to better understand cultural and environmental influences on these obstacles and perceptual differences; (d) to effect institutional transformation through targeted initiatives to remove barriers and remedy current inequities. A mixed methods approach will be used to obtain information from faculty that will be used alongside the policy review to develop the blueprint for institutional transformation. The data collection portion will be used to create a systematic data set that may be used in the future to monitor change.
