Beyond Binders Full of Women: NSF ADVANCE and Initiatives for Institutional Transformation

Organizational interventions and the creation of gendered knowledge: US universities and NSF ADVANCE

“…Sites often focus on retention issues by improving the climate with department chairs, creating measures for work–family conflicts and programmes for networking and mentoring, research support and faculty development. ADVANCE can produce new coalitions within universities by giving women faculty more of a voice, creating allies among men, establishing gender equity officers and committees, and institutionalizing ADVANCE offices, deans and provosts responsible for gender equity (Bilimoria & Liang, ; Fox, , ; Laursen, Austin, Soto, & Martinez, ; Morimoto, Zajicek, Hunt, & Lisnic, ; Stewart, Malley, & LaVaque‐Manty, ). Early assessments of the ADVANCE interventions by gender scholars are mixed.…”

“…Bilimoria and Liang () found that the first 19 IT sites succeeded in increasing the percentages of women faculty and administrators, even across the recession. Yet, earlier cohorts of IT projects still took a ‘change‐the‐women’ orientation rather than promotion and tenure, policy or other institutional level change (Fox, ; Morimoto et al, ).…”

Faculty peer networks: role and relevance in advancing agency and gender equity

“…There is a growing literature on the implementation and outcomes of ADVANCE IT programmes (Stewart, LaVaque-Manty, and Malley 2004;Rosser and Chameau 2006;Bilimoria, Joy, and Liang 2008) and analysis of the goals, challenges, and possibility for success among feminist scholars (Bird 2011;Morimoto and Zajicek 2012;Morimoto et al 2013). Most of this literature begins from the premise, as we do here, that higher education organisations are gendered, with organisational practices, structures, and cultures that favour men and devalue women in critical ways (Acker 1990(Acker , 2006Dean, Bracken, and Allen 2009).…”

“…Thus, any effort at improving gender equity must target core operating procedures that disadvantage women faculty and their sense of agency to succeed in their careers. ADVANCE programmes implement many different kinds of interventions, including but not limited to reform of search practices, leadership development, research seed grants, campus climate surveys, and department chair training on unconscious bias (Morimoto et al 2013). Research has explored the larger challenges and successes of culture change through ADVANCE programmes (Stewart, LaVaque-Manty, and Malley 2004;Bilmoria and Liang 2012;Morimoto et al 2013).…”

“…ADVANCE programmes implement many different kinds of interventions, including but not limited to reform of search practices, leadership development, research seed grants, campus climate surveys, and department chair training on unconscious bias (Morimoto et al 2013). Research has explored the larger challenges and successes of culture change through ADVANCE programmes (Stewart, LaVaque-Manty, and Malley 2004;Bilmoria and Liang 2012;Morimoto et al 2013). However, less work has examined what occurs within specific ADVANCE IT interventions to alter the nature of gendered organisations for their participants.…”