The Next STEPS committee was formed in 2018 to address recruitment and retention of faculty and graduate students in the Eberly College of Science at the Pennsylvania State University – University Park. We are a committee composed of members from all seven departments in the Eberly College of Science, the Dean’s Office, and Human Resources. We are particularly interested in addressing disparities in the number of female and underrepresented groups in our faculty and graduate student bodies. Over the past three years, we have developed three workshops to bring awareness to and provide practical suggestions to mitigate bias in faculty hiring, promotion and tenure, and graduate admissions to faculty across the college, These workshops engage faculty in understanding why diversity matters, how implicit bias can affect decision making, how the use of rubrics can aid in these decision-making processes, and inclusive recruiting. Additionally, we also have a program that provides structured support to new tenure-track faculty members in their first year at Penn State. Our workshop for best practices in hiring tenure track faculty and our program for new tenure-track faculty are inspired by the STRIDE and Launch programs at the University of Michigan, respectively.  In this presentation, I will discuss the scope of our efforts as well as our thoughts on the future of our committee.

Next steps: Recruitment and retention of faculty and graduate students in the Eberly College of Science at the Pennsylvania State University

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.