Drs. Levine and Ramage attended the WEPAN ARC Network Equity in STEM Community Covening from May 31-June 3, 2022. This gathering of past, present and aspiring NSF ADVANCE funded leaders, scholars, and change agents captures and reports on new research, methods, programs, processes, and policies institutions and societies are creating and implementing to diversify STEM higher education workplaces and the STEM workforce overall. The hashtag was #EiSCC22.
We networked about tools of change at each level of the university organization: individuals and allies, departments and department chairs, deans and senior officers on both the academic/faculty affairs and diversity roles of our campuses. Several speakers described collaborative models of reviewing, creating, and utilizing evaluation criteria with an equity lens, especially given the impacts of COVID-19. Work centering the experiences of women of color and HBCUs, faculty workloads, and how to revise promotion & tenure criteria to align with an organization's values were also prominently featured throughout the conference. Additionally, we learned about salary and compensation work around the nation and about some clever ideas to enhance Lehigh's existing mentoring programs, about building meaningful post-doc to faculty pipeline programs, and about the strategies employed to overcome some resistence to change.
Lehigh shared with other ADVANCE grantees advice on sustaining their programs, particpated in a focus group about a digital archive about 20 years of NSF ADVANCE, and shared about our "faculty candidate ambassadors/30-min meeting" as well as our Lessons Learned debrief of the recruitment cycle. The practical advice leading to real change around the country and the inspiring plenaries will surely impact our work at Lehigh in 2022-23 and beyond.
[Photo of Joan Ramage and Marci Levine in front of ARC Network/WEPAN backdrop]
