The Lehigh ADVANCE Center seeks applications for a faculty director to join the core leadership team of Drs. Marci Levine and Joan Ramage. We seek applications from associate or full professors with interest and vision to contribute their leadership and innovation to the ADVANCE Center and enhance its impact on campus. Submit your application https://forms.gle/haMstY77X8EDKzoR8 by March 15, 2024. Ideally, the new director will begin July 1, 2024 and serve a 2-3 year term.
The mission of the Lehigh ADVANCE Center (formerly the ADVANCE Center for STEM Women Faculty) is to support faculty diversity, inclusion, and equity across all disciplines through institutional transformation. This is in service to and in alignment with both the University’s Diversity, Inclusion and Equity Plan and Strategic Plan.
In recent years, the portfolio of ADVANCE has expanded greatly, and a co-director model will serve this enhanced scope and reach into the future. ADVANCE will continue to center the concerns, needs and research about gender in STEM while it develops and expects to grow capacity to deliver new training tools, research questions, programs, frameworks, recommendations, and collaborations answering the needs of ongoing and emerging priorities to create a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and anti-racist Lehigh. Much about ADVANCE, its history and its ongoing work to support women in STEM and other underrepresented faculty while simultaneously developing leadership capacity is available online. Current initiatives touch on critical data analyses, policies, processes and education that promote equity in areas such as:
Faculty Recruitment & Onboarding
Faculty Retention
Climate & Community, including affinity group (such as LU-WISE) and DE&I educational programs
Mentoring
Professional Development, including Leadership Development
Tenure and Promotion
Service and Workload Equity
Advancing Future Faculty Diversity Postdoctoral Program (recognized as a Best Practice Pathway Program when Lehigh received 5th consecutive HEED Award in Fall 2023)
In addition to regular workshops, Lehigh ADVANCE provides individual and group-level consultations, has advised on the Provost Faculty Fellow initiative, and is a sought-after thought partner and collaborator with numerous campus colleagues. ADVANCE was recognized in 2023 with the Allyship in Action award, during the Take Pride Ceremony, Lehigh University Pride Center. Recently, ADVANCE was an active member of the third cohort of the NSF Aspire IChange Alliance and is a co-investigator on a funded NSF research project about External Review Letters and biases. ADVANCE regularly attends and presents at higher education and faculty-specific conferences about leadership, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in STEM and beyond, and is a vibrant member of the national ADVANCE Implementation Mentors Network.
The ADVANCE faculty director should have a vision for how to provide an equity-based lens to faculty research, teaching, and service in order to promote the overall success of all faculty at Lehigh. The faculty co-directors will work in partnership with Dr. Marci Levine and also closely with the Deputy Provost for Faculty Affairs, the Provost, the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, the Faculty Senate, the colleges, and the Office of Diversity, Inclusion & Equity, just to name a few.
We anticipate that each co-director will be supported via a course release and a combination of research discretionary support and/or salary cap. Please contact <advance@lehigh.edu> with questions about this opportunity.
Eligibility and Application Requirements:
- Tenured Faculty Member
- Any discipline
- All genders
- Link to application https://forms.gle/haMstY77X8EDKzoR8
- Name and Department/Discipline
- CV
- Statement (~1 page) explaining why you wish to be a co-director and what you bring to the role. Your remarks should focus on your vision for change leadership, your goals for the ADVANCE Center, and how you imagine continuing to grow, amplify, or otherwise transform Faculty Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity and the ADVANCE Center by taking this new leadership role. Where possible, be specific about components (novel or already existing) of the ADVANCE portfolio which would best benefit from your leadership, interests, and expertise in a shared directorship model.
- Deadline to apply is March 15, 2024
- Finalists will be interviewed as soon as the second half of March 2024.
- Formal appointment date will start July 1, 2024.
Please consider applying for this important role yourself or encourage a colleague to apply. You may also email advance@lehigh.edu to nominate someone and we will reach out.
