Guest Column: Upcoming Workshops, Discussions Offer Support for Women and Minority Faculty

Research finds that minorities and women often face unique challenges as faculty members, such as lower senses of fit in their departments, greater feelings of isolation, fewer opportunities for collaboration, more trouble finding quality mentors, and bias from colleagues and students. Moreover, women and minorities are more likely to be overburdened with service, which often is not highly rewarded in tenure and promotion decisions. All of this is important because it can affect career satisfaction, advancement and retention. In an attempt to address some of these issues and to gather insight from the experiences of our own faculty, we organized the first series of Minority Faculty Career Discussions in the fall, with 35 faculty and postdocs attending the first session. Three discussions occurred over the course of the semester and focused on topics such as mentoring and balancing service expectations while maintaining research productivity. There also was a question-and-answer session with Provost Andrew Comrie. Evaluations of the series were generally positive, with 88 percent of respondents agreeing that the career discussions were an effective format and 88 percent agreeing that they?d recommend the discussions to colleagues. As one evaluator wrote, "It is a very good initiative to know the actual needs of faculty members and an opportunity to strengthen bonds among them." Given this success, we are continuing the series this spring, but improving it based on feedback. Additionally, we're offering a series aimed at women in STEM, following the same model. Furthermore, the Commission on the Status of Women's Faculty Affairs Workgroup is offering networking lunches on the first Friday of the month from February to April. While these programs are designed to address common challenges faced by particular groups of faculty, we welcome all faculty from any background to attend. We also have our annual spring workshops on promotion and tenure [1]. Read more about the programs and topics below.