Resources
Resources by Category
Networking
Chemurgy 2.0- Building capacity across Iowa to meet human needs with things that grow
Funded by Iowa NSF EPSCor, Chemurgy 2.0 is a partner of the ADVANCE Midwest Partnership. With this project, research infrastructure will be improved not only at Iowa research universities but also at predominantly undergraduate institutions in Iowa. Research experiences and educational opportunities are provided for preservice teachers and for undergraduates from groups traditionally underrepresented -- including first-generation and rural students.
Campus Writing Communities
This file is a compilation of campus-based writing communities and their descriptions.
To add your writing community to the list, please contact Dr. Tasha Beretvas at the University of Texas at Austin (tberetvas at austin.utexas.edu).
Writing Professional Development and Consulting
Dr. Ada Hagan, owner of Alliance SciComm & Consulting, LLC provides writing professional development and drafting, editing and revision services.
Dr. Hagan offers pro-bono editing services to women and gender non-conforming trainees from under-represented groups. Interested trainees can complete this form.
ARC Network
The ARC Network strives to advance equity nationally by facilitating the adoption and implementation of evidence-based systemic initiatives by institutions of higher education and other STEM organizations that affect those in STEM workplaces. The ARC Network will facilitate authentic, intentional dialogue between researchers and practitioners, connect inclusiveness to organizational principles and practices, and account for and incorporate intersectional perspectives throughout our work.
Join the ARC Network Community.
ACE Women's Leadership Resources
The American Council on Education has long worked to support the success and persistence of women in senior leadership positions. This collection of research on women's leadership contains useful resources and publications.
Association for Women in Science
AWIS is a global network that inspires bold leadership, research, and solutions that advance women in STEM, spark innovation, promote organizational success and drive systemic change. It consists of a global network with 80 grassroots chapters and affiliates connecting more than 100,000 professionals in STEM with members, allies, and supporters worldwide.
Membership in AWIS gives the tools and connections needed to lead in the profession through on-demand career and personal development resources, exclusively tailored to the needs of women in STEM.
2020 NAP Consensus Study Report on Women in STEM
The National Academy Press has released the 2020 Consensus Study Report: Promising Practices for Addressing the Underrepresentation of Women in Science, Engineering and Medicine - Opening Doors. The pdf is downloadable for free.
"Careers in science, engineering, and medicine offer opportunities to advance knowledge, contribute to the well-being of communities, and support the security, prosperity, and health of the United States. But many women do not pursue or persist in these careers, or advance to leadership positions - not because they lack the talent or aspirations, but because they face barriers, including: implicit and explicit bias; sexual harassment; unequal access to funding and resources; pay inequity; higher teaching and advising loads; and fewer speaking invitations, among others."
Earth Science Women's Network - Resource Center
This community resource center has been developed to provide a clearinghouse of professional and personal resources for our members and to the broader Earth science community, but many resources are broadly applicable to women faculty in all disciplines.
Best Practices for Inclusive Departments
Most faculty members want to feel respected and included in their departments, engaged in positive professional interactions with colleagues, and consulted and heard by their department Chairs/Heads. Yet, many faculty members do not feel included in their departments. Research at UMass shows that among STEM faculty, White women, Asian women, and women from underrepresented minority groups feel much less connected to their departments and less valued by their colleagues and Chairs/Heads than men, particularly in the area of research. In addition, women STEM faculty rate their departments as less collegial, respectful, cooperative, supportive, equitable, fair, and inclusive than men STEM faculty. This document shares steps that departments can take to create a more inclusive department.
Faculty Equity & COVID-19 - The problem, the evidence, and recommendations
The ADVANCE program at the University of Michigan published in October 2020 a document summarizing the global impact of of COVID-19 on faculty, the results of a survey of University of Michigan's faculty, and recommendations on supporting faculty teaching, service, research and work-life balance. It includes suggestions on metrics to be used to monitor Covid-related inequalities.
2021 Guide to Colleges and Careers for Women in STEM
Women are often underrepresented in STEM fields. This guide provides women with resources to successfully pursue an education and career in these industries.
Nature's guide for mentors
Having a good mentor early in your career can mean the difference between success and failure in any field. Adrian Lee, Carina Dennis and Philip Campbell look at what makes a good mentor.
“Having a good mentor early in one's career can mean the difference between success and failure in any career.”
“Those who are good mentors get incalculably more out of it than they put into it.”
Lee, A., Dennis, C. & Campbell, P. Nature's guide for mentors. Nature 447, 791–797 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/447791a
AccessADVANCE
The goal of AccessADVANCE is to increase the participation and advancement of individuals who identify as women with disabilities in academic science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers, including faculty positions. AccessADVANCE will increase understanding of the issues related to this understudied and often marginalized group that will lead to the identification of effective interventions with the potential to systematically address issues impacting the career advancement and success of female faculty with disabilities. Opportunities for engagement include joining a Community of Practice, Mini-grants, and contributing to a Universal Design Toolkit.
StratEGIC Toolkit
The StratEGIC Toolkit offers research-based advice about strategic interventions useful in this type of organizational change. Our research draws upon the programs and experiences of institutions that have implemented Institutional Transformation (IT) projects under the National Science Foundation's ADVANCE program.
Laursen, S. L., & Austin, A. E. (2014). StratEGIC Toolkit: Strategies for Effecting Gender Equity and Institutional Change. Boulder, CO, and East Lansing, MI. www.strategictoolkit.org
Networking Matters More for Women in Academe
We need to talk about why women, usually more than men, feel hesitant to build networks overtly -- and how we must remedy that, writes Karlyn Crowley in this article published on March 9, 2021 in Inside Higher Education.
Dr. Rita Colwell, First Female NSF Director, on Sexism in Academia
How to Successfully Negotiate Your Salary
This article by Dan Moseson published on April 19, 2021 in Inside Higher Education gives useful advise on negotiation strategies to graduate students and faculty.
"Caroline Levine, chair of the department of literatures in English at Cornell University, wrote to me, “I was trying to think about negotiating strategies, and I realized that I often feel that women really have no good way to do this -- ask for more, and you're considered pushy and entitled; don't ask, and you don't get raises. [...] Caroline pointed me to a tweet from the journalist and author Stefanie O’Connell Rodriguez, who wrote, “Can we start saying ‘ambition penalty’ instead of ‘confidence gap’ when we talk about women and girls? It’s not so much a fear of speaking up, negotiating, asserting oneself, etc. at issue, but the reprisal for doing so. This distinction clarifies where the need for change lies.” O’Connell Rodriguez’s website links to copious research suggesting that this is true -- it’s important to teach our students and junior colleagues to be skilled negotiators, but that alone will not end pay inequities. Potent cultural barriers still stand in the way, and those who hold significant power in institutions need to actively seek out ways to use it on behalf of those who don’t."
More Resources on Negotiation
Cofounded by one of the authors of "Getting to Yes", William Ury, Harvard Law School's Daily blog contains short articles and reports on negotiating.
"Women Don't Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation--and Positive Strategies for Change", book by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever.
Rose, S. M. & Danner, M. (2010) Money matters: the art of negotiating the academic contract for women. In M. E. Lenning, Brightman, S., & S. Caringella (Eds.), A guide to surviving a career in academia: Navigating the rites of passage (pp. 33-56). NY: Routledge. This chapter was originally published in Rose, S., & Danner, M. (1998). Money matters: The art of negotiation for women faculty. In L. Collins, J. Chrisler, & K. Quina (Eds.), Arming Athena: Career strategies for academic women (157-186). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Computer Science and Engineering Resources for Women in STEM
This HP-sponsored resource includes a summary of factors that contribute to the gender gap in computer science and provides a list of STEM programs for young women and an extensive list of campus clubs, initiatives, and resources for women in STEM. The site also includes a list of scholarships and financial aid programs targeting women in STEM, varying from need-based aid to essay and academic competitions.
How Can Departments Foster Fair and Equitable Faculty Workloads?
There is substantial evidence that faculty workload is unequally shared and recognized, with significant implications for satisfaction, productivity, advancement, and retention. But what can departments do to address these inequalities? The Faculty Workload and Rewards Project is a National Science Foundation-funded study to improve equity in how faculty workload is taken up, assigned, and rewarded. Our research examines the conditions, policies and practices that shape equitable distributions of labour, with particular attention to impacts for faculty members of minoritized identities and/or who identify as women.
Mentoring Plan Template
This resource by Joya Misra (2019), University of Massachusetts, Amherst, ADVANCE program, is available as a downloadable pdf. Mentoring plans allow departments to articulate how new faculty members will receive the mentoring and support that they need to be successful.
An Insider/Outsider Journey: Life Reflections with Nobel Laureate Carolyn Bertozzi
Join 2022 Nobel Laureate Carolyn Bertozzi for her thought-provoking speech about her journey from privileged beginnings as the daughter of a MIT professor to overcoming systemic roadblocks in chemistry education on her road to becoming a world renowned chemist, the surprising ways her life changed during the days of the announcement, and what she hopes can be accomplished to bring more people to chemistry after the award. Register now to discover the person behind the Nobel Prize, the different ways she has lived life as an insider and outsider, and enjoy a unique opportunity to ask her your questions following the keynote presentation!
This ACS Webinar is moderated by Senior Vice President Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay of the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Respect (DEIR) at the American Chemical Society and is co-produced with ACS Central Science and the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Respect at ACS.
Watch the recording.
Scholarships for Women in STEM
This webpage contains a collection of scholarship opportunities for women in STEM fields.
Beyond Bias: Fair and Inclusive Hiring
This video of Dr. Shelley Correll, Michelle Mercer and Bruce Golden Family Professor in Women's Leadership at Stanford University, summarizes best practices for fair and inclusive hiring of faculty.
Research
The researcher journey through a gender lens
Elsevier’s latest gender report, The Researcher Journey Through a Gender Lens, examines research participation, career progression and perceptions across the European Union and 15 countries in 26 subject areas. The report draws on Elsevier’s data sources and analytics expertise. It was further informed by experts from around the world. Our goal is to better understand the role gender plays in the global research enterprise and inspire evidence-based policy driven by powerful data.
Some of the important findings in the report include:
- Men are more highly represented among authors with a long publication history while women are highly represented among authors with a short publication history.
- Among first authors, the average citation impact of men is higher than that of women, suggesting gender bias in citation practice.
- Researcher attitudes towards gender diversity and equity vary widely among men and women. Most of the differences in viewpoints are related to the importance an individual places on gender balance and to the perception of fairness in the academic system.
This is the third report on gender in research. It can be downloaded from the website.
Supporting faculty during and after COVID-19: don't let go of equity
COVID-19 has upended health, education, and work systems. People are balancing new work, familial and personal care routines, coping with feelings of uncertainty and grief, and wondering how they are going to make it all work. College and university faculty are no different. Faculty, like educators everywhere, are expressing concerns about their ability to provide instructional, academic, and emotional support to students, adapt to online teaching environments, maintain research, grant and publication activity while managing personal, child, and sometimes extended familial care. Recent budget and hiring freezes and furlough announcements have only heightened faculty concerns about the stability of their appointments and their current and future workloads.
Thankfully, institutions are responding to faculty concerns. And although there are several overarching concerns, COVID-19 presents distinct challenges to differently situated faculty members, calling attention to and potentially widening individual and institutional equity gaps. Thus, as campuses set about problem-solving they must keep equity1 front and center. Below, we draw on various news sources2 to describe how institutions are responding to COVID-19 in relation to faculty support and evaluation. We also take the liberty to suggest responses that have not been widely discussed, but that we view as worthwhile considerations. By Leslie D. Gonzales and Kimberly Ann Griffin. PDF.
Continuing the conversation on gender equity during the COVID-19 pandemic
This website is a living document that is intended to continue the conversation on gender equity in academia that was started in the article Gender Equity in Academia Post-COVID19: Challenges and Opportunities.
As more information is shared, this website will evolve.
Does Gender Bias Still Affect Women in Science?
In this article published in Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews in July 2019, Rachel L. Roper reviews studies that identifies the sources of bias against women scientists.
Summary: The percentage of women employed in professional scientific positions has been low but is increasing over time. The U.S. National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation have both implemented programs to improve women’s participation in science, and many universities and companies have diversity and equity programs. While most faculty and scientists believe that they are fair and unbiased, numerous well-designed studies published in leading peer-reviewed journals show that gender bias in sciences and medicine is widespread and persistent today in both faculty and students. Recent studies show that gender bias affects student grading, professional hiring, mentoring, tenure, promotion, respect, grant proposal success, and pay. In addition, sexual harassment remains a significant barrier. Fortunately, several studies provide evidence that programs that raise conscious awareness of gender bias can improve equity in science, and there are a number of recommendations and strategies for improving the participation of women.
Gendered COVID-19 Faculty Experiences
This website collects articles on issues faculty are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how the resulting changed circumstances for academic work and lives differentially impacts individuals based on gender. Tenure clock delays, caregiving responsibilities, online teaching, and challenges for wellness all have been known to impact gender disparities, particularly adversely for women. This resource is made available by the Stanford Faculty Women’s Forum Steering Committee.
How Journals Can Increase Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Science
This article in Edge for Scholars is an edited version of an editorial published by the Early-Career Advisory Group (ECAG), an international group who advise and support eLife – a life sciences journal with an editorial board of over 600 working scientists. ECAG is committed to improving research culture - and in the recent Editorial in eLife calls for radical changes that journals can adopt to address racism in the scientific community and to make science more diverse and inclusive.
Lost in the Numbers: Gender Equity Discourse & Women of Color in STEM
The International Journal of Science in Society, Volume 3, Issue 4 by Lisette E. Torres-Gerald (2012).
Abstract: The National Science Foundation (NSF) documented an increase of 29.1% in female Ph.D.s in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) from 1976 to 2008. Yet, there has been no growth in the number of female science faculty at postsecondary institutions such as Iowa State University (ISU). From 1993 to 2003, science departments at ISU hired men and Whites 63% and 78% of the time, respectively. Similarly, 16% of women typically resigned after three years versus 4% of men (Litt & Debinski, 2004). In 2006, ISU applied for and received NSF funding to create an ADVANCE Program meant to respond to this lack of gender equity and to promote institutional change. Using feminist theory, I conducted a critical discourse analysis of ISU ADVANCE documents and website to examine the language used to discuss gender equity and women of color. Connected through the interlocking systems of capitalism, patriarchy, and racism, the following themes were revealed: 1) the political economy of equity and diversity in STEM; (2) the maintenance of male dominance and the general status quo; and (3) the “universal woman” and the normalization of Whiteness. Here, I focus on the interlocking themes of patriarchy and racism and demonstrate how these systems effectively remove women of color from the discourse of equity in STEM.
Grant writing: what are your project's 'specific aims'?
This article by Jude Mikal outlines how to write the most important page of your research proposal, "often the only document read by the key panelists who help determine whether your project gets grant money. This is the page you send out when you’re seeking feedback on your project from peers, mentors, and program officers. It’s also the document that grant agencies use to recruit the expertise necessary to review your grant application. So it’s critical, given its importance to the success of your application, for your specific-aims page to be written in accordance with certain conventions."
The article includes paragraph-by-paragraph suggestions on key structural and content features of a specific-aims page.
How to document how the pandemic has impacted your teaching, research and service work
What’s the best way to do that, and how can it be done without adding to your already overloaded schedule? Mangala Subramaniam (director of the Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence at Purdue University) put together detailed lists of the ways in which faculty members — both tenure track and non-tenure-track — can document the impact of Covid-19 on their work, as well as some tips on how to do so efficiently. In her overview, she noted that underlying structural issues have led to disparate impacts on women and faculty of color, something that many academics have worried about. But she said that’s why it’s all the more important to document exactly how people are being affected. You can find these and other tools at the center’s website.
Documenting Pandemic Impact - Univ. Massachusetts Amherst tool
Three or five years from now, institutional actors may not remember how much the pandemic reshaped faculty members’ workload and careers. One important approach identifies how to document both the interruptions and the extra work that faculty members have engaged in to guarantee that this record is not lost. UMass ADVANCE has developed a pandemic impact tool to help faculty members document these effects. With the support of the provost and the faculty union, as well as the Massachusetts Society of Professors, faculty now can include information about how these events influenced their annual reviews, which are included in their personnel cases.
Resources to Support Faculty During COVID-19
UMass ADVANCE put together a shared Google Drive with resources to support faculty during COVID-19. It includes documents and examples on: equitable faculty evaluations, tenure delays, institutional supports, equitable implementations, and pandemic impact statements.
Reviewing 20 Years of Interventions for Women in STEM
A forthcoming special issue of Gender & Society, available online now, looks at what’s changed and what hasn’t after 20 years of National Science Foundation ADVANCE grants to support women in science. Contributors to the issue find that motherhood is still portrayed as incompatible with science careers, which discourages mothers from the faculty ranks before they even get there, and that treating gender inequality as a legitimate field of disciplinary inquiry attracts women to that field. Other findings relate to the role of clear organizational standards in promoting workload balance for mothers.
Gender Disparities in Academia During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systemic Problems Require Systemic Solutions
To paraphrase Betsey Stevenson, an economist at the University of Michigan: COVID took a crowbar to existing disparities and pried them wide open (Grose, 2021). Academics as a group tend to be relatively privileged in terms of education and socioeconomic status. Yet, concerns regarding gender disparities predominate within academia, particularly as they relate to the crown jewel of academic achievement: research productivity. In this article, we aim to address concerns about academic productivity specifically in the discipline of communication sciences and disorders—and to provide an intersectional perspective that considers how gender and race together shape the academic experience.
This article by Dr. Laura DeThorne in Academy outlines the factors that contribute to gender disparities (caregiving, service responsibilities, and gender discrimination) and propose systemic solutions to move forward in reducing them (tenure clock extension and pandemic impact statements, realign tenure and promotion indices).
CRediT
CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) is a high-level taxonomy, including 14 roles, that can be used to represent the roles typically played by contributors to research outputs. The roles describe each contributor’s specific contribution to the scholarly output.
CRediT adoption can be achieved via a manual workflow outside of Submission and Peer Review systems, or through using a system with an existing CRediT integration.
The roles given in the taxonomy include, but are not limited to, traditional authorship roles. The roles are not intended to define what constitutes authorship, but instead to capture all the work that allows scholarly publications to be produced.
Recommendations for applying the CRediT taxonomy are:
- List all Contributions – All contributions should be listed, whether from those listed as authors or individuals named in acknowledgements;
- Multiple Roles Possible – Individual contributors can be assigned multiple roles, and a given role can be assigned to multiple contributors;
- Degree of Contribution Optional – Where multiple individuals serve in the same role, the degree of contribution can optionally be specified as ‘lead’, ‘equal’, or ‘supporting’;
- Shared Responsibility – Corresponding authors should assume responsibility for role assignment, and all contributors should be given the opportunity to review and confirm assigned roles.
Teaching
Develop Students' Science Identity by Showcasing Diverse Faculty
The SAGE 2YC Faculty group created a website with a collection of resources. Research shows that faculty can "help students develop a Science Identity by showcasing examples of scientists who do not fit common stereotypes, helping students see scientists as whole people they can relate to, giving students opportunities to practice doing and talking about science, and highlighting content topics that are relevant to students' lives."
Among the resources are the Diverse Geologists page; the Secret Lives of Scientists and Engineers, a PBS's NOVA award-nominated web series and short videos about cutting-edge science and engineering, the amazing people who do that work, and the things they do when their lab coats come off; Black History Month: Making History in the Geosciences, a blog post about four extraordinary Black geoscientists; and much more.
The Time Scavenger's Meet the Scientist page showcases diverse scientists and their science.
Dr. Sarah Sheffield from the University of South Florida in Tampa includes a Scientist of the Week in her blog and updates it weekly with the life and research of diverse scientists in a broad range of disciplines.
Inclusive Teaching - How to Modules
These six modules introduce evidence-based teaching and mentoring practices that support an inclusive climate. They were developed by a faculty learning community within the College of Engineering at the University of Delaware. The modules were originally disseminated to all UD College of Engineering departments via a series of six 10-minute presentations at faculty meetings in spring and fall 2019. Each module consists of evidence or a theoretical basis for the topic, including relevant literature, as well as practical teaching and mentoring tips that could be applied when interacting with undergraduate and graduate students. In addition, each module has a summary handout. Pre- and post-surveys were administered to participants at the start and conclusion of the series to measure perceived effectiveness of the modules, faculty self-efficacy in teaching engineering, and faculty self-efficacy in culturally responsive classroom management.
10 Online Teaching Tips Beyond Zoom: Teaching Without Walls, Episode 1
This is the first of a series of four videos by Michael Wesch, Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University.
Teaching: How Professors Can Help Students Get Through the Semester
This article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, by Beth McMurtrie, explains why students are struggling with online classes this (fall 2020) semester.
Transforming Higher Education: Multidimensional Evaluation of Teaching
This website includes frameworks, examples, tools, papers, and resources on holistic approached to teaching evaluations.
How to Make Mental Health A Top Priority This Fall And Beyond
In this essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education Dr. Mays Imad argues that an institution is failing students if it isn’t helping them understand the links between stress, trauma, and learning.
"This essay is a plea for colleges and universities to start — and sustain — proactive, holistic mental-health programs for students. Such initiatives are not merely about the effects of the pandemic, and go beyond trauma-informed teaching and learning. I am calling for higher education to cultivate our moral imagination where every student is seen, where we invest in the well-being of the whole student, and where we ground all of our work in an ethics of care."
How to Improve Your Teaching - Fast
A new website for academics offers 20-minute micro courses to help you catch up on teaching innovations. OneHE’s best feature is a set of asynchronous micro courses, each of which requires only 20 to 30 minutes to finish. They cover a variety of teaching-and-learning topics such as “Helping Students Manage Attention and Distraction Through Technology,” “Supporting Students’ Use of Feedback,” and “Establishing the Foundations for Community Online.” Courses unfold in eight or nine brief modules, each of which typically consists of some text and/or graphics along with a short (two to three minutes) video lecture from the instructor. The modules cover topics like the research base of the course topic, its practical applications, and its key messages.
While the courses are the most substantive element of OneHE, the website also includes other resources, such as a list of one-off recommendations for teaching activities collected from individual faculty members around the world. The list is easily searchable if you are, say, looking for a warm-up activity to build community or a quick tip for the first day of the semester. As OneHE continues to build out its offerings, Jones told me, it will be expanding to include webinars and seminars, as well as course sequences that link the micro courses into more extended options — for example, a 10-course sequence designed specifically for new faculty and graduate-student instructors.