Lisa M. Baird, a professor of biology at the University of San Diego, is the principal investigator in a faculty effort that led to the hiring of a cohort of eight women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics there. Here is her account of that effort, as told to Mary Bowerman.
Approximately 60 percent of our majors in the STEM disciplines at the University of San Diego are female, but within those disciplines the percentage of female faculty isn’t even close to that. Our desire was to promote opportunities for women in STEM fields and have a more representative faculty.
The university applied for and was awarded a grant by the National Science Foundation to fund a program called Affirm, which stands for Advancement of Female Faculty: Institutional Climate, Recruitment and Mentoring, to increase the representation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers.
In November 2010, members of that program, an interdisciplinary team of female professors, submitted the proposal to the NSF. We knew that the funding could be used to attract and develop strategies to hire women faculty members, while the university in turn would pay for the salaries of the new hires. In 2011 we received a five-year, $600,000 grant.
One of the first things we did next was conduct a campus-climate survey through a questionnaire and with focus groups to gauge how supported the faculty felt by the administration and their peers, and to address what we could do differently with new female faculty hires.
The other piece was implementing a strong mentoring program for existing women faculty members. I was fortunate that my Ph.D. professor was one of those pioneering women, who taught me not just about science but also about the academic community. At that time, mentorship was hard to come by. We wanted to stress that mentorship can be a strong component of success.
Originally we were promised two faculty positions. As we talked with the provost and deans of the colleges of arts and sciences and of engineering about how to advertise for the two positions, we came up with the idea of a cohort or cluster hire across disciplines.
Typically science-position ads are written tightly and prescriptively, but we wanted to try something different. Rather than picking a single department, we listed all the possible departments to which a person could apply. Our ad was wide open. We also asked candidates to describe how they would envision working as part of an interdisciplinary cohort; how they would promote interdisciplinary collaborations in the undergraduate curriculum; and their approach to, and experience with, mentoring female students and students from underrepresented backgrounds.
We had a huge number of applicants, from diverse candidate pools. We were gender-neutral during the application process, but if the choice was between two equally qualified junior-professor candidates, women were chosen. (We were in touch with our legal staff at all stages of the process.) Many of the people we interviewed said they felt drawn to the ad because their interests straddled several departments.
All of the candidates were amazing. That’s the reason the provost and deans said, “Let’s create additional hiring opportunities,” which led to our eight new assistant professors in the STEM fields.
The new professors are Jessica Bell, chemistry and biochemistry; Molly Burke, biology; Odesma Dalrymple, industrial engineering; Imane Khalil, mechanical engineering; Jennifer Prairie, environmental and ocean sciences; Amanda Ruiz, mathematics and computer science; Joan Schellinger, chemistry and biochemistry; and Divya Sitaraman, psychological sciences.
We want this cohort of women faculty members to get tenure and become longstanding members of the community. We intend to continue to mentor and promote women in the STEM fields. At the science center here, we have work areas in the hallways for students, and as I walk around, I see young women having help sessions with the new professors. There is this incredible energy and sense of possibility between the students and new faculty.
