Adaptation: Adapting Successful Practices to foster an Inclusive, Respectful, and Equitable Environment (ASPIRE2)

The University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas) will be Adapting Successful Practices to foster an Inclusive, Respectful, and Equitable Environment (ASPIRE2) to significantly and systematically transform the campus in ways that will expand and enrich the diversity of its faculty in STEM fields and beyond. Through the ASPIRE2 Project, UT Dallas will adapt and implement successful activities to foster a more inclusive campus climate, recruit more women in STEM fields, (including women of color and women from underrepresented minority groups), and aid in the retention of all women faculty, in STEM and across campus.

The goal of the project is help UT Dallas, a major research university, better reflect and represent the world in terms of gender and racial diversity. By doing so, UT Dallas can better serve its community, state and country, helping solve the national crisis of the disproportionate lack of tenured-system women, especially in STEM fields.

The outcomes of the ASPIRE2 Project are expected to bring about structural and cultural transformation and tackle persistent problems in innovative and intersectional ways. The ASPIRE2 activities include: Climate (training for deans, department/program heads, and faculty will be conducted; a department/program head council will be formed; an Advocates and Allies Program will be developed; a biennial climate survey will be administered; and equity dashboards for the University and individual schools will be instituted), Identification and Recruitment (Activities include future faculty career development workshops, paying careful attention to the composition of and training for search committees, and providing faculty liaisons to search committees), and Retention and Advancement (strengthening the existing faculty mentoring program, creating a Women in STEM employee resource group, and augmenting existing workshops for faculty promotion and tenure).

This project will enhance the climate on the UT Dallas campus while broadening the participation and success among women faculty, particularly women of color and women from underrepresented minority groups. Building on existing efforts, UT DALLAS is well-poised to create a more welcoming and inclusive environment by adapting previously vetted initiatives and strengthening the relationships across campus between administrators, faculty, and staff through the ASPIRE2 activities.

Increasing faculty diversity will fuel new research collaborations while enriching teaching, learning and the overall student experience. 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 "Adaptation" awards provide support for the adaptation and adoption of evidence-based strategies to academic, non-profit institutions of higher education as well as non-academic, non-profit organizations.

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.