NDSU Advance FORWARD: Enhancing Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement of women faculty in engineering at North Dakota State University

Abstract

The NDSU Advance FORWARD project, funded by the National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation program in 2008, seeks to develop and implement a comprehensive research-driven strategy to increase participation of women in all science and engineering faculty and academic administrative positions. Advance FORWARD (Focus on Resources for Women's Advancement, Recruitment/Retention, and Development) builds on the earlier work of North Dakota State University's self-initiated FORWARD committee, a group of faculty and administrators who came together in 2002 out of a shared concern about the slow advancement of women faculty in science and engineering departments. Specifically, Advance FORWARD strives to improve the climate across campus, enhance faculty recruitment efforts, increase faculty retention and advancement, and open leadership opportunities. In this paper we discuss various challenges that we have encountered while implementing our programs and offer recommendations so that other institutions interested in developing similar programs can avoid the same pitfalls. In order to provide a context for our recommendations, we provide background on our institution, describe key initiatives that have been implemented to date, and summarize baseline data. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2010.