Forward to Professorship: Inclusive Faculty Development Strategies That Work

With almost twenty years behind us since my colleagues and I started our journey FORWARD, we are pleased to be able to share the culmination of our efforts and experiences. Our team formed at a time when the “leaky pipeline” metaphor was being used to address the issues of underrepresentation of women in science and engineering. Our first FORWARD project aimed to shore up the undergraduate to graduate school leak in the pipeline and, with the NSF ADVANCE funding program, we tended to the doctoral to assistant professor leak.

Today, the leaks are still there, but diminishing, and the issues that contribute to those leaks are openly discussed. A plethora of resources exist online and at institutions to address diversity issues, but face to face workshops are still in demand. The value of connecting with others in similar situations cannot be overestimated, as time and time again we witnessed at our workshops peer to peer and near peer mentorships forming and friendships growing through shared experiences. The resulting empowerment was clearly visible to us on site, in the evaluations, and beyond, as participants shared with us their successes in forging their own career paths.

The message I have to share is simple – with a little bit of resources and serious drive, you can do a lot. The talk will include tips on organizing and developing your own career development workshops, insights from others who have created workshops, ideas on how to design, develop, implement and evaluate a workshop to provide the materials pre-tenured women can use to go FORWARD in STEM.