More Like this

1. Assessing departmental readiness to support minoritized faculty

   https://doi.org/10.1002/he.20494  

   Carter‐Veale, Wendy Y; Cresiski, Robin H; Sharp, Gwen; Lankford, Jordan D; Ugarte, Fadel (March 2024, New Directions for Higher Education)

   Kinzie, Jillian L; Wolf-Wendel, Lisa (Ed.)

   Though increasing numbers of racially and ethnically minoritized (REM) individuals earn PhDs and national initiatives focus on faculty diversity, challenges persist in recruiting, hiring, and retaining REM faculty. While a pervasive issue nationally, the literature predominantly focuses on faculty diversity at research‐intensive institutions. This exploratory case study pilots a readiness instrument to evaluate the commitment and willingness of a biomedical department at a primarily undergraduate institution to embrace faculty diversity before initiating a postdoctoral faculty conversion program. We introduce the Community Readiness Model (CRM) into an academic context, offering academic departments a robust framework and tool to evaluate readiness and capacity to recruit, retain, and support REM faculty. Practical Takeaways: Academic departments can be conceived of as a type of community. The adapted Department Readiness Tool can be a valuable method of evaluating a department's readiness to support the success of underrepresented minority faculty. Departments may score highly on some areas of readiness but relatively low on others, which provides insight into where time and resources should be invested to improve readiness. 

   more » « less
2. A descriptive examination by race/ethnicity in how engineering faculty understand their efficacy and responsibility for engaging in equity-based initiatives for faculty of color

   DeAngelo, Linda; Winkler, Christa; Stone, Blayne; Diaz, Charlie (June 2025, American Society of Engineering Education)

   This full empirical research paper addresses how engineering faculty perceive their roles and responsibility in creating an equitable environment within academia, an understudied but important area to address in organizational change efforts. To begin to fill this gap, we developed a survey to understand the ways that faculty take up responsibility for driving diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) changes. The instrument included 7 scales measuring faculty perceptions of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belongingness (DEIB) policies and practices, professional development and support for faculty of Color, and efforts to recruit and retain faculty of Color, as well as their perceptions of personal responsibility and self-efficacy to enact DEIB change. We collected data from 179 engineering faculty at three private engineering institutions in the Northeast region of which 137 provided race/ethnicity data and make up our analytical sample - Asian faculty (n=29, 16.2%), Black, Latiné, Indigenous (BLI), and multiracial BLI faculty (BLI(M)) (n=18, 10.1%), and white faculty (n=90, 50.3%). Mean standardized factor scores were created for each scale and pairwise comparisons using t-tests with a Bonferroni correction were used to examine differences between groups. The results highlight differences and trends among Asian, White, and BLI(M) faculty in DEIB readiness and responsibility. The findings of this study have implications for understanding how faculty assess their environments and how they view their responsibility and readiness to engage in enacting equity-based initiatives. 

   more » « less
3. Instructional Influencers: Teaching Professors as Potential Departmental Change Agents in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

   https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.24-03-0102  

   Wilton, Mike; Maloy, Jeffrey; Beaster-Jones, Laura; Sato, Brian K; Lo, Stanley M; Grunspan, Daniel Z (September 2024, CBE—Life Sciences Education)

   Prevost, Luanna (Ed.)

   Embedding change agent individuals within STEM departments may drive instructional and pedagogical change efforts. This study seeks to assess whether tenure-track, teaching-focused faculty housed in STEM departments are perceived as influential on the instructional and pedagogical domains of their colleagues. 

   more » « less
4. Profiles of readiness: Using a blended framework to explore what it takes for faculty to be ready to change instructional practice

   https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2021.1878573  

   Hauk, Shandy; St John, Kristen; Jones, Megan (February 2021, Journal of Geoscience Education)

   null (Ed.)

   In answer to calls for research about professional change, this study addressed the question: What is involved in college science faculty readiness for change in instructional practice? The setting was a professional development experience in oceanography/marine science and paleoclimatology among 32 faculty from 2- and 4-year colleges. Ten of the 32 participated in interviews, and all provided survey responses and documents used in the study. Cycles of inductive analysis generated three example case stories to illustrate a new model for exploring faculty readiness for change in teaching. The model blends results from the health sciences on readiness for behavioral change with research on the personal, external, professional, and consequence domains of a professional change environment. The blended model attends to how an instructor draws on the domains to (a) see an instructional challenge as requiring intentional action to be resolved; (b) notice new significance (for the instructor) in some aspect of instructional practice; (c) feel able to manage instructional stressors/challenges; (d) have commitment to initiate/sustain change; and (e) perceive adequate support in undertaking change. Profiles of instructional readiness for change are represented by composite cases named Lee, Pat, and Chris. In the case of Lee, factor (c) drove change efforts; for Pat, factors (a) and (b) were in the forefront; and for Chris it was factors (d) and (e). The three cases are valuable both as sketches of the blended model in use and as touchstones for future research and development related to postsecondary faculty professional learning. 

   more » « less
5. How the Demographic Composition of Academic Science and Engineering Departments Influences Workplace Culture, Faculty Experience, and Retention Risk

   Griffith, Eric. E; Dasgupta, Nilanjana (January 2018, Social sciences)

   Although on average women are underrepresented in academic science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments at universities, an under appreciated fact is that women’s representation varies widely across STEM disciplines. Past research is fairly silent on how local variations in gender composition impact faculty experiences. This study fills that gap. A survey of STEM departments at a large research university finds that women faculty in STEM are less professionally satisfied than male colleagues only if they are housed in departments where women are a small numeric minority. Gender differences in satisfaction are largest in departments with less than 25% women, smaller in departments with 25–35% women, and nonexistent in departments approaching 50% women. Gender differences in professional satisfaction in gender-unbalanced departments are mediated by women’s perception that their department’s climate is uncollegial, faculty governance is non-transparent, and gender relations are inequitable. Unfavorable department climates also predict retention risk for women in departments with few women, but not in departments closer to gender parity. Finally, faculty who find within-department mentors to be useful are more likely to have a favorable view of their department’s climate, which consequently predicts more professional satisfaction. Faculty gender and gender composition does not moderate these findings, suggesting that mentoring is equally effective for all faculty. Keywords: gender; STEM; climate; retention; faculty 

   more » « less