Broadening Participation in STEM
Preparing Black Female Faculty for Prominence, Power, and Presence in the Academy
Effective Years: 2016-2018
The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. This conference proposal focuses on developing a research agenda that will explore ways to help African American female faculty at predominantly white institutions navigate the promotion and tenure process. The conference will establish a platform for intergroup discussions about diversity in the workplace, illuminate gaps in existing literature to help target future research, and propose pathways for assisting African American faculty and graduate students succeed in the academy. The conference will involve nationally recognized education researchers from multiple STEM disciplines and academic institutions. The conference will help advance knowledge in the field by addressing gaps in research about the larger need to know what works, for whom, and why in academic settings where African American female faculty members often face deep-rooted challenges that threaten their continued participation in STEM fields.
The outcomes from this conference will potentially impact participating faculty members, conference presenters, education researchers, as well as the students they teach and mentor. The outcomes will include the development of a white paper that synthesizes current research and suggests what future research should entail. A network to support socialization will be established to link tenured African American female faculty with their graduate and undergraduate students to facilitate the sharing of experiences that fosters upward mobility in academic environments. Therefore, results from this conference will serve as a baseline for instituting pathways capable of forestalling negative encounters prevalent in higher education settings. The impact will reach across disciplines (STEM and the social sciences) and institutional types (predominantly white institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and community colleges) to increase the diversity and quality of the Nation's STEM workforce, which in turn, will help the United States maintain its status in a global society and marketplace. Specific strategies will be disseminated through offices of diversity and inclusion at the participating institutions as well as national and international professional education associations and societies.
