Although recent decades have seen substantial gains in improving access and climate for women in STEM, the academy remains a place where women remain underrepresented in professional ranks and face inequity and gendered expectations in teaching and service expectations/workload, research support, and invisible labor.  These lead to differences in time to promotion and other measures of career success and advancement.  At many primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs), representation of women in STEM is particularly poor and lags behind R1 institutions. The COPLAC ADVANCE PLAN (Partnering and Liaising Across the Nation) Project is an initiative funded by the NSF ADVANCE program to address an intersectional perspective of faculty equity for women in STEM at the 29 public primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) that make up the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC). Our multi-institutional team has developed a two-tiered approach directed at two program objectives to impart sustainable, systemic reductions in gender inequity among COPLAC’s institutions: (1) Create institutional change within COPLAC by training both women and men administrators and department chairs (i.e., “influencers”) to recognize bias, identify intersectional policies, and solve issues that contribute to gender inequities in STEM. (2) Provide professional support and networking to women STEM faculty through virtual affinity groups. These facilitated groups will generate a sustainable infrastructure that fosters community, empowerment, research collaboration, mentoring, and solutions for women to overcome barriers to career advancement.  Through a comprehensive survey of both COPLAC administrators and women STEM faculty, our team has identified faculty equity policies, programs, impacts, obstacles, and experiences across COPLAC PUI campuses and have developed targeted training materials for STEM Department Chairs to address faculty equity at department level.  Survey results of faculty challenges, training elements to address inequity for STEM faculty, and training assessment will be presented.

Challenges and strategies for promoting STEM faculty equity through Department Chair training in primarily undergraduate institutions

Where thousands of chemistry professionals meet to share ideas and advance scientific and technical knowledge. Spring 2023 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch at the end of March.

ACS Spring 2023

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