Rochester Institute of Technology Seeks to Boost Women Faculty in STEM Fields

Backed by a $3.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the Rochester Institute of Technology recently launched it AdvanceRIT initiative which has a goal of increase the number of women faculty in STEM disciplines.

As of 2012, women were 24 percent of the total tenure or tenure-track faculty in STEM fields at the university. A 2010 report found that women were 12 percent of the engineering faculty, 16 percent of the faculty in mathematics and statistics, 17 percent of the faculty in the physical sciences, and 29 percent of the faculty in computer science. Women were far better represented in the biological sciences, holding 44 percent of all faculty positions.

Part of the problem is that women tend to leave faculty positions at a rate that is twice as high as its for men faculty members. AdvanceRIT hopes to devise and promote various strategies both to recruit and retain women faculty in STEM fields. Money will be provided for career development activities and efforts will be made to find jobs for the spouses on women faculty in STEM fields.

The AdvanceRIT program is under the direction of Margaret Bailey, a professor of mechanical engineering and senior faculty associate to the provost. She is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and holds a Ph.D. in civil, environmental, and architectural engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder.