Author: Chrystal Bruce, PhD, Associate Dean, John Carroll University
The NSF ADVANCE Partnership Project, Advancing STEM Careers by Empowering Network Development (ASCEND), was conceived to support the professional advancement of mid-career women STEM faculty and administrators. Through this collaboration, we created regional peer-to-peer networks and provided participant-informed education, training, and professional support to equip faculty for promotion and leadership positions and institutional leaders to develop inclusive campus policies and cultures.
The results from ASCEND demonstrated that the professional guidance, practical advice, and emotional support provided by an interinstitutional peer mentoring network contributed to the persistence and advancement of participants. Members began to think about leadership differently and started mapping out their professional plans through an informed decision making process and strategic use of tools and resources to build their confidence and tackle new challenges. Although ASCEND focused on mid-career women STEM faculty, our program and principles can be beneficial to any interested faculty, staff, or administrator independent of experience, discipline, identity, or institution type.
Isolation is a shared experience for faculty, staff, and institutional leaders. In this webinar, participants will be introduced to a resource to build and sustain effective teams to not only combat isolation but also create systemic changes. Institutions that foster the creation and support of these networks will strengthen their ability to meet future challenges through information sharing, inclusion of multiple voices, improved campus climate, and increased ability to attract and retain a more diverse faculty, staff and student body.
Based on our findings, we have created a resource to help individuals facilitate the formation of teams that provide similar support for themselves, faculty, and staff. As the webinar progresses, participants will develop an understanding of how they might help build these kinds of networks and the impact this could have on them as individuals and more broadly on the institutional community to which they belong.
Topics in the guidebook include:
- Creating community
- Setting goals
- Self-care and care for others
- Managing difficult situations
- Leading in a dynamic time
- Sharing policies and practices
- Sustainable leadership development
This guidebook equips you to create communities of support in the dynamic and challenging landscape of higher education.
The webinar will begin with a brief presentation of outcomes from our NSF-funded grant demonstrating the effectiveness and impact of inter-institutional peer networks followed by sharing key aspects of the guidebook. Participants will then have an opportunity to engage with the facilitators as they make a plan to create and sustain their own peer network or those of their faculty, staff, or administrators. This webinar will also provide the opportunity to identify other partners and stakeholders in this work.