The BGSU ALLIES project focused on how inclusive academic leaders and faculty allies can work collaboratively to reduce biases, transform institutional policies and practices, and shape more supportive workplace climates for women faculty in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs (Figure 1, https://www.bgsu.edu/allies.html). Allies leverage their privilege to support marginalized colleagues.

The ALLIES project goal was to make allyship and inclusive leadership the expectation and norm at Bowling Green State University (BGSU). We created an integrated model to develop a critical mass of faculty allies within departments and inclusive leaders across the university who are knowledgeable about inclusion and equity issues and empowered to actively combat gender bias (Figure 2).

The ALLIES project was organized into multiple components:

Faculty Allies and Advocates Program

We designed a multi-event program for STEM faculty to develop their allyship skills, including recognizing bias, knowing when and how to intervene, and other allyship actions they can take to support their women faculty colleagues. We also trained 12 senior faculty as Faculty Advocates, who delivered unit-level workshops on addressing gender bias. In all, 112 faculty (meeting our target of 40% of all full-time STEM faculty) were trained as Faculty Allies and Advocates.

Inclusive Leadership Program

We developed several workshops on inclusive leadership principles and practices in which most BGSU department chairs and other faculty administrators participated. In all, 75% of current STEM chairs/directors have participated in ALLIES programs.

University Policies and Practices

With BGSU's Division of Inclusion and Belonging, General Counsel, and President's Cabinet, we established a new equity impact assessment requirement for all University-level policies. We also developed a set of evidence-based best practices and policy recommendations to address gender biases that were shared with administrators.

Research on Gender Equity and Faculty Allyship

The ALLIES team conducted research on faculty allyship beliefs and behaviors (see Figure 3 for publication details, Figure 4 for conferences at which we presented). Five PhD students were trained in research best practices, equity and inclusion in STEM, and accessibility and inclusive design principles.

We explored ways that faculty define and discuss their intersecting forms of privilege and communicatively enact allyship. We found tensions in the degree to which faculty perceived privilege to be un/earned and rooted in structural power and a focus on interpersonal allyship actions rather than ally actions that dismantle power structures and challenge biased policies and cultures (Hanasono et al. 2022). Additional work (Ro et al. 2023) reinforced the idea that faculty focus on individual-level ally strategies rather than strategies to effect institutional and structural change, possibly because the hierarchical structure of university systems makes it difficult for individual faculty to identify or consider institution-wide actions. Also, true allyship (as opposed to performative allyship) involves risks that already-marginalized faculty may not be in a position to take.

The ALLIES team is now developing a new Faculty Ally Behaviors Scale, to better understand how institutional policies, practices, and culture shape faculty perceptions and behaviors of allyship (Ro et al. 2024).

Sustaining ALLIES

To sustain our work, we have created online learning modules designed to help learners recognize and combat biases that result in inequities based on gender, race, and other marginalized identities. New faculty and administrators can use these modules, ensuring that allyship and inclusive leadership do indeed become the expectation and norm at BGSU.

Working with support from the Office of the President and Chief Inclusion Officer, we have established two Faculty Associate positions in the Division of Inclusion and Belonging. The Faculty Associates will use ALLIES resources to design and facilitate relevant programs for faculty and staff.

We organized a conference on "Advancing Gender Equity for Faculty" held at BGSU in May 2022. Over 100 attendees from 40 universities across the country shared allyship and inclusive leadership strategies for gender equity, broadened their networks of support, and discussed future collaborations.

Word of our programs' effectiveness has drawn interest from outside parties interested in adopting our workshops. We have conducted allyship and inclusive leadership workshops at Case Western Reserve University, the University of Toledo, and for IT professionals at U.S. National Laboratories. We are developing a structure to continue offering our workshops to academic, government, and industry audiences.

BGSU's Transformation

Based on survey responses, 95% of participants in the Faculty Allies program reported an increase in their personal commitment to addressing gender bias and discrimination. Many reported increased awareness of how gender bias impacts women faculty, more open conversations about these issues, and that the frequency of allyship actions had significantly increased in their units. Most faculty administrators have attended at least one of our workshops on inclusive leadership. Together, this critical mass of change agents will shape academic unit cultures and infuse institutional policies and practices with best practices to support the career success of women and other marginalized STEM faculty for years to come.

Last Modified: 12/23/2024
Modified by: Margaret M Yacobucci