| NSF Org: |
EEC Division of Engineering Education and Centers |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 23, 2015 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 1, 2017 |
| Award Number: | 1542728 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Paige Smith
EEC Division of Engineering Education and Centers ENG Directorate for Engineering |
| Start Date: | October 15, 2015 |
| End Date: | September 30, 2018 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $225,288.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $256,846.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2017 = $31,558.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
926 DALNEY ST NW ATLANTA GA US 30318-6395 (404)894-4819 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
225 North Avenue, NW Atlanta GA US 30332-0002 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | EDA-Eng Diversity Activities |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001718DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.041 |
ABSTRACT
This broadening participation project utilizes emeriti faculty to provide mentoring to early career engineering faculty who are from underrepresented populations. The mentors are renowned engineering faculty who are recently retired following successful careers in academia at the Georgia Institute of Technology. They are matched with early career faculty from various institutions based on their areas of technical expertise. It is believed that the mentors can provide advocacy for the junior faculty in three specific areas critical to the success of faculty in STEM fields: networking within the technical community, highlighting and advertising the junior faculty members' scholarly research contributions, and coaching on how to successfully navigate their academic career. This project is unique in that it goes beyond traditional mentoring, incorporating a professional advocacy piece that capitalizes on the senior standing the emeriti faculty have achieved as leaders in their professional communities.
The intellectual merit of this work is in its intent to provide an in-depth understanding of the effectiveness of utilizing emeriti faculty who are equipped to serve as advocates for early career faculty who are members of underrepresented groups. While still small in numbers, members of underrepresented groups (women and ethnic/racial minorities) are slowly growing in the faculty ranks with few having attained senior faculty status. More traditional mentoring programs create mentoring pairs based on ethnicity or gender, with the thought that the shared experiences of being in the minority are essential to a successful mentoring relationship. Instead, this project will investigate the effectiveness of using emeriti faculty who are predominantly Caucasian and male, and have been trained to be strategic advocates for the early career underrepresented faculty. The broader impact of this project is in its ability to positively affect the career trajectories and future success of a diverse group of early career faculty members with the goal of increasing the diversity of engineering faculties. This project has the ability to be replicated on a large scale, utilizing the expertise of a growing population of retired faculty and enabling them to continue making valuable contributions to their institution and the engineering academic community.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The National Science Foundation Broadening Participation in Engineering (NSF BPE) research award “Increasing Minority Presence within Academia through Continuous Training (IMPACT)” has made new inroads and afforded new insights regarding the strategic partnering of underrepresented minority (URM) engineering faculty with emeriti engineering faculty of similar technical and professional interests. The pilot effort has initially corroborated the assertion that URM faculty can benefit from the “counseling, coaching and connections” of their emeriti predecessors, while simultaneously the emeriti faculty realize a new avenue for the employment of their insights and recognition in their respective fields.
Intellectual Merit: A multi-phased phenomenological mixed method research design was employed to gain an in-depth understanding of the ways in which the URM and emeriti faculty experienced the opportunities afforded by the IMPACT program. Three waves of data collection occurred to examine the participants’ general feelings of the initiative, as well as the assistance provided within the mentoring and advocacy-network paradigm (career development, sponsorship, and coaching). Mentees believed the initiative would aid in their career progression. Mentees were most interested in the sponsorship aspect provided by emeriti mentors, with specific interest in networking with potential research collaborators, editors at high profile journals, and federal grant officers. Mentors indicated they participated in the program to “give back” to the engineering field and to aid in the diversification of the engineering professoriate. Mentors were most interested in the coaching aspect of the program and felt their experience and insight could be of great benefit to the mentees. Neither mentees nor mentors believed cultural, gender, or generational gaps hampered the mentoring relationship, as their shared academic interests provide natural bridges across any such gaps.
As can be seen in the scholarship resulting from this project (i.e., cumulatively six peer-reviewed journal and refereed conference articles (completed and under review) including the inaugural “Best Paper” award by the Faculty Development Constituency Committee of the American Society for Engineering Education), there were various levels of confirmation of the effort’s efficacy by project participants, as well as tangible progressions such as one URM participant’s transition to a faculty position at a premier engineering institution. A key determiner of success was found to be the consistency of periodic communications, wherein those that remained engaged showed the most favorable sentiments.
Broader Impact: The URM faculty were primarily recruited from various institutional models (e.g., HBCU, Ivy League, “Big 10”, small private) via a recently developed database of minority STEM faculty (i.e., the Academic and Research Leadership Network, which has received NSF support) as well as more “grass roots” efforts. Project leads brokered pairings primarily based upon shared sub-disciplinary expertise (e.g., tribology, engineering structures, polymer engineering) to further assure mutual relevance. Ultimately seven emeriti faculty and eleven URM engineering faculty were paired, but the systematic approach promotes widespread utility of the initiative across the landscape of academia. This was evidenced by this BPE award fostering a follow-on award for scaling under the NSF INCLUDES initiative (Award # 1744500). The INCLUDES award brings together an alliance of stakeholders invested in diversifying the engineering professoriate and bolstering the engagement of emeriti faculty through mentorship, which has the promise to have far-reaching benefits in academia.
A website has been developed for project dissemination, as well as the initiative’s growth and perpetuation (https://www.uccs.edu/~IMPACT/). The website efficacy, along with that of the overall project, was confirmed by external evaluator Transforming Your STEM Career (T-STEM).
Last Modified: 12/28/2018
Modified by: Comas L Haynes
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