Breadcrumb
The National Science Foundation's ADVANCE program supports projects to address the persistent underrepresentation of women on science and engineering faculties and in leadership roles at institutions of higher education. Institutional Transformation projects are multi-faceted initiatives that tackle underrepresentation at all levels, from hiring and advancement, faculty development and mentoring, through creating family-friendly policies and adjusting systems and structures that are less accommodating to women's lives and careers. E&ER has worked in evaluation and research related to ADVANCE IT projects.
E&ER conducted evaluation-with-research studies for LEAP, Leadership Education for Advancement and Promotion, at the University of Colorado Boulder. This ADVANCE project has sought to improve the representation and advancement of women on STEM faculties and academic leadership. Formative and summative evaluation of LEAP’s activities examined how they have affected individual participants and enacted LEAP’s faculty-centered, development-based, institutional change model. Pathways, a comparative interview study, addresses factors shaping the career decisions of STEM Ph.D.s in academe, including graduate students and faculty on and off the tenure track. Demographic modeling studies revealed gender differences in faculty recruiting and attrition.
Publications
- Laursen, S. L., & Austin, A. E. (2018). Faculty development for mid-career women in STEM: Cementing career success, building future leaders. In V. L. Baker, L. G. Lunsford, G. Neisler, M. J. Pifer, & A. L. Terosky (Eds.), Success after tenure: Supporting mid-career faculty (pp. 221-242). Sterling, VA: Stylus. [Author accepted manuscript]
- De Welde, K., & Laursen, S. L. (2011). The glass obstacle course: Informal and formal barriers for women Ph.D. students in STEM fields. International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology 3(3), 571-595. [open access]
- Laursen, S. L., & Rocque, B. (2009). Faculty development for institutional change: Lessons from an ADVANCE project. Change (March/April), 18-26.
- De Welde, K., & Laursen, S. L. (2008). The “Ideal type” advisor: How advisors help STEM graduate students find their ‘scientific feet.’ The Open Education Journal (1), 49-61. [Open access]
- Marschke, R., Laursen, S., Nielsen, J. M., & Rankin, P. (2007). Demographic inertia revisited: An immodest proposal to achieve equitable gender representation among faculty in higher education. Journal of Higher Education 78(1), 1-26. [Fulltext]
Reports
- Hassi, M.-L., & Laursen, S. L. (2009). Faculty Climate Survey: Climate, Collegiality, Leadership, Mentoring, Diversity and Institutional Support According to Research and Teaching Faculty, 2003-2007. (Report to the LEAP project) Boulder, CO: University of Colorado at Boulder, Ethnography & Evaluation Research.
- Laursen, S. (2009). Summative Report on Internal Evaluation for LEAP, Leadership Education for Advancement and Promotion. (Report to the National Science Foundation) Boulder, CO: University of Colorado at Boulder, Ethnography & Evaluation Research.
- Laursen, S. (2008). Outcomes of LEAP Individual Growth and Department Enhancement Grants, FY 2007. (Report to the LEAP project) Boulder, CO: University of Colorado at Boulder, Ethnography & Evaluation Research.
- Rocque, B., & Laursen, S. (2007). Faculty Career Trajectories and the Institutional Factors that Shape Them: Comparative Analysis of Longitudinal Faculty Interview Data (Report to the LEAP project) Boulder, CO: University of Colorado, Boulder, Ethnography & Evaluation Research.
- Laursen, S., & Rocque, B. (2006). An Assessment of Faculty Development Needs at the University of Colorado at Boulder. (Report to the LEAP project) Boulder, CO: University of Colorado, Boulder, Ethnography & Evaluation Research.
- Laursen, S., Rocque, B., De Welde, K., Seymour, E., Pedersen-Gallegos, L. (2005). Outcomes of Faculty Development Initiatives of LEAP, Leadership Education for Advancement and Promotion, an NSF ADVANCE Project at the University of Colorado at Boulder: Mid-Course Evaluation Report. (Report to the National Science Foundation.) Boulder, CO: University of Colorado, Boulder, Ethnography & Evaluation Research.
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under award HRD-0123636. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in these reports are those of the researchers, and do not necessarily represent the official views, opinions, or policy of the National Science Foundation.
We are examining NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation (IT) projects as a means to understand how universities can most effectively create institutional environments that support the success of women scholars. Individual institutions have assessed and chronicled their own goals, strategies, and processes.
In contrast, this study takes a cross-institutional, analytical and synthetic approach to extract the lessons, best practices, and organizational strategies that support the success of women scholars in STEM fields, seeking to answer the question: What has been learned about the effectiveness and long-term viability of organizational change efforts to create institutional environments that are conducive to the success of women scholars, particularly in STEM fields? E&ER's collaborators on this study are Ann Austin at Michigan State University and Kris De Welde from the College of Charleston.
Publications
- Laursen, S., & Rasmussen, C. (2024). Availing orientations and facilitating behaviors: An emerging framework for change leaders. In Cook S., Katz, B., & Moore-Russo, D. (Eds.), forthcoming. Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education. Omaha, NE. [Conference paper]
- Laursen, S., & Austin, A. E. (2020). Building gender equity in the academy: Institutional strategies for change. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Laursen, S. L., & De Welde, K. (2019). The changer and the changed: Evolving theories and practices of change in ADVANCE calls for institutional transformation. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 38(2), 140-159. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-09-2017-0192 Author accepted MS
- Laursen, S. L., & Austin, A. E. (2018). Faculty development for mid-career women in STEM: Cementing career success, building future leaders. In V. L. Baker, L. G. Lunsford, G. Neisler, M. J. Pifer, & A. L. Terosky (Eds.), Success after tenure: Supporting mid-career faculty (pp. 221-242). Sterling, VA: Stylus. [Author accepted manuscript]
- Laursen, S. L., Austin, A. E., Soto, M., & Martinez, D. (2015). ADVANCing the agenda for gender equity: Tools for strategic institutional change. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 47(4), 16-24. DOI: 10.1080/00091383.2015.1053767 [Abstract]
- Laursen, S. L., Austin, A. E., Soto, M., & Martinez, D. (2015). Strategic institutional change to support advancement of women scientists in the academy: Initial lessons from a study of ADVANCE-IT projects. Ch. 5 in M.A. Holmes, S. O’Connell & K. Dutt (Eds.), Women in the geosciences: Practical, positive practices toward parity, AGU Special Publications 70, Washington, DC, & Hoboken, NJ: American Geophysical Union & John Wiley & Sons; pp. 39-49. [Table of Contents]
Reports
- Austin, A. E., & Laursen, S. L. (2015). Organizational Change Strategies in ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Projects: Synthesis of a Working Meeting. Boulder, CO, and East Lansing, MI.
- Austin, A., Laursen, S., Hunter, A.-B., Soto, M., & Martinez, D. (2011.) Organizational change strategies to support the success of women scholars in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields: Categories, variations, and issues. Presented at Inciting the Social Imagination: Education Research for the Public Good, 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA, April 8-11. [Fulltext]
Tools
- Laursen, S. L., & Austin, A. E. (2014). StratEGIC Toolkit: Strategies for Effecting Gender Equity and Institutional Change. Boulder, CO, and East Lansing, MI.
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under awards HRD-0930097 and HRD-1830185. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in these reports are those of the researchers, and do not necessarily represent the official views, opinions, or policy of the National Science Foundation.
Two decades of work with ADVANCE enables us to offer some historical perspectives on the origins, progress, and ongoing challenges for this program.
- Rosser, S., & Laursen, S. (2022). Looking back to look forward: A retrospective analysis of ADVANCE. The ADVANCE Journal 3(1). https://doi.org/10.5399/osu/ADVJRNL.3.1.2 (open access)
- Laursen, S. L., & De Welde, K. (2019). The changer and the changed: Evolving theories and practices of change in ADVANCE calls for institutional transformation. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 38(2), 140-159. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-09-2017-0192 [Author accepted MS]
As external evaluator for Texas A&M's (College Station) ADVANCE Center, E&ER provided advice, connections, and an annual review of the project's progress, challenges and accomplishments.
- Laursen, S. (2017). Summative Report: External Evaluation for Texas A&M ADVANCE. Year 7, May 2017. [Report to TAMU ADVANCE] Boulder, CO: Ethnography & Evaluation Research.
Current and archived resources about the work of TAMU ADVANCE are available at the TAMU ADVANCE website.
Independent evaluation of the TAMU ADVANCE Center was supported by the National Science Foundation under award HRD-1008385 to Texas A&M University-College Station. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in these reports are those of the evaluator, and do not necessarily represent the official views, opinions, or policy of TAMU ADVANCE or the National Science Foundation.