SEE DATA: Spaces of Empowerment for Equity and Diversity: Advancement Through Access

The Spaces of Empowerment for Equity and Diversity: Advancement Through Access (SEE-DATA) project at Portland State University (PSU) aims to identify, understand, and improve the workplace experiences and retention of faculty in STEM fields who have been traditionally minoritized and marginalized based on gender, race/ethnicity, and other intersectional identities (e.g., sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, national origin, immigrant status). The project will collect, analyze, and map data about faculty’s experiences at PSU to inform programs and policies that seek to foster the retention and flourishing of a faculty that more closely resembles the diverse student body at PSU.

It is anticipated that the SEE-DATA project will significantly contribute to improving institutional equity.

SEE-DATA will take an intersectional approach to data collection, management, analysis, visualization, and dissemination by combining qualitative, quantitative, and socio-spatial data, techniques, and mapping tools with the goal of conveying more nuanced understandings of the equity landscape and “ecosystem” for diverse faculty members than has been established to date elsewhere. The scope of the methodology that the project will develop will be applicable to STEM departments across the university and to other institutions.

The project’s strengths-based self-assessment methodologies will contribute to a toolkit for capturing and visualizing the dynamic interplay between the multiple lived identities of STEM faculty as they are manifested in the institutional landscape, thus supporting ADVANCE goals for expanding intersectional equity strategies and interventions. This project addresses limits in extant sources of data (e.g., numerical counts, climate surveys) on the intersectional factors affecting academic STEM recruitment, workplace experiences, retention, and promotion.

Outcomes will be expected to advance a clearer and deeper understanding of individual empowerment pathways and institutional systemic change levers in advancing faculty equity in STEM. Knowledge generated will be disseminated via avenues such as a project webpage, public seminars, and conferences geared to professional and general audiences, as well as through networks within PSU, at other colleges/universities, with professional organizations nationally, and via the ADVANCE Resource Coordination Network (ARC) and StratEGIC website.

The NSF ADVANCE program is designed to foster gender equity through a focus on the identification and elimination of organizational barriers that impede the full participation and advancement of diverse faculty in academic institutions. Organizational barriers that inhibit equity may exist in policies, processes, practices, and the organizational culture and climate.

ADVANCE "Catalyst" awards provide support for institutional equity assessments and the development of five-year faculty equity strategic plans at an academic, non-profit institution of higher education.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.