A boost for women in academia

BETHANY JENKINS, in URI's Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, is among the women faculty members benefiting from the ADVANCE program. /
BETHANY JENKINS, in URI's Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, is among the women faculty members benefiting from the ADVANCE program. /

Brown University and the University of Rhode Island have an advantage when it comes to funding professional development opportunities for faculty.
Their advantage comes in the form of a $3.3 million grant for Brown and $3.5 million grant for URI from the National Science Foundation to be used during a five-year period to recruit and develop the careers of women in science and engineering departments, where they are significantly underrepresented.
But each of the universities has found it beneficial to leverage the funds to create universitywide professional development opportunities for men and women of all disciplines.
This is especially true in the mentoring program, said Barbara Silver, director of the ADVANCE Program, which is now in its fourth year at URI.
In that time, Silver and her staff have encouraged all the colleges within URI to link junior faculty members with a mentor within the college and with one outside the college. The purpose of mentoring is to show incoming faculty a pathway to success, which will help them in furthering their careers.
URI’s ADVANCE program also has leveraged funds to host career workshops on negotiating skills, writing, grant management and work-life balance, which are open to all faculty members.
Through such events, Roberta King, assistant professor in the department of biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences, said she has made successful connections with senior faculty, especially women outside her department.
Those connections have led to exposure to the best practices of other departments, King said. And the knowledge gained has been invaluable.
It has helped her in efforts to earn a promotion to associate professor, effective July 1, subject to approval by the R.I. Board of Governors for Higher Education.
Brown University, which was granted funds to create its ADVANCE program last year, has made professional development the central component of the program.
Last week, Brown’s ADVANCE program awarded nine career development awards totaling $140,000, said Pamela O’Neil, associate provost for policy and planning at Brown and leader of the program.
Most of the cash awards will be used to travel to places where faculty can meet and collaborate with the top researchers inside and outside of their respective fields, she said. The awards also could be used to bring researchers to Brown.
Building those relationships is especially important for scientists as research becomes more collaborative across disciplines, O’Neil said. Scientists are increasingly required to show a history of collaboration with other scientists in order to win NSF grants.
URI instituted a similar type of award program to promote its women faculty’s research programs in the science and engineering departments. It is all part of ensuring that women have the proper tools to develop successful careers, Silver said.
Women in predominantly male-dominated disciplines experience some significant disadvantages, which is why the NSF formed the program. Research has found that women lack adequate professional and social networks. They face more challenges balancing caretaking responsibilities with demanding work schedules. And they often experience an overlap of “tenure track” with the “baby track,” meaning their biological clocks coincide with when they are trying to earn tenure.
The ADVANCE program at URI has addressed those issues by encouraging policy changes, such as a six-week paid leave for men and women who have a baby or adopt a child. That policy was passed in 2005.
But there is still more that could be done, Silver said. Universities need to address the child care issue and offer flexible work schedules.
Providing professional development opportunities and other incentives to women in the sciences at universities is beneficial in many ways, O’Neil said. One is it can attract female students to science if they see more successful women faculty in those fields. Two is it protects the universities’ investment in new faculty.
“We want to make sure our faculty is successful because a lot of time, money and energy go into finding them,” she said. “And we want our faculty to be able to get tenure.”

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