Poster Abstracts

University of Colorado at Boulder

STEM Diversity Support: Undergraduate and Graduate Students, Postdocs, and Faculty

At the University of Colorado at Boulder, several efforts support the education, recruitment, and retention of women and minority undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and administrators in the STEM disciplines.

The Women in Engineering Program in the College of Engineering and Applied Science, directed by Beverly Louie, works with the Integrated Teaching and Learning Program in the first-year Engineering Projects class. The class features a hands-on, design, and build focus to create team-based projects —many of which are done for real clients. It emphasizes written and oral communication, CAD and machining, team dynamics, analysis, and testing. It also offers special Women’s Manufacturing Workshops that help women students build skills and confidence. The project has resulted in an overall 19% or higher increase in retention of women and minority students. View the websites at: http://www.colorado.edu/engineering/WIEP/GirlScouts.html and http://itll.colorado.edu/geen1400/

The Graduate Teacher Program, directed by Laura Border, features a Lead Graduate Teacher Network that works with two large STEM teams: the Engineering Team and the Science Team to provide teacher training and academic career development for graduate students in 15 STEM departments. The Lead Teams offer microteaching workshops for beginning teaching assistants, provide workshops throughout the year, and carry out videotape consultation with TAs. Academic professional development efforts address the job search, interviewing skills, negotiation skills, and mock interviews. The website is: http://www.colorado.edu/gtp

The Postdoctoral Association of Colorado offers both academic and non-academic career preparation for postdocs from CU labs, national labs in the area, and the various research institutions on campus. According to local survey questions posed as an addendum to the Sigma Xi national postdoc survey, postdocs in Boulder think their environments lack effective career planning, professional development, and training in effective project management skills. PAC has worked for the last two years to provide programming with speakers from business, government, industry and academe who discuss working in national labs, leadership, hiring issues, writing effective resumes and CVs, and interviewing skills.

The Leadership Education for Advancement and Promotion (LEAP) project, led by Dr. Patricia Rankin, at CU-Boulder is funded through the NSF ADVANCE initiative. Its goal is to recruit and retain women faculty in the STEM disciplines. LEAP received $3.5 million from NSF and $900,000 from CU-Boulder. LEAP aims to 1) improve training for chairs, 2) develop department-specific workshops, 3) strengthen an across-campus recruitment policy, and 4) continue faculty leadership and coaching workshops. LEAP’s Leadership Workshops address both junior and senior faculty’s needs. They integrate male and female faculty to develop leadership skills for the university community. Speaker series also address women in science, gender in communication, and leadership in the STEM disciplines. LEAP also trains senior faculty to coach junior faculty and offers networking opportunities for women faculty. LEAP’s outreach efforts have funded the development of a course on bio-aerosols, supported the Engineering Corps, and addressed effects of mining on local communities. View the LEAP website at: http://advance.colorado.edu/