Promoting gender diversity in STEM faculty through leadership development

Abstract

PurposeThe advancement of equity, diversity and inclusion in higher education is dependent on institutional culture changes in academia. Faculty equity, diversity and inclusion efforts must engage departmental leadership. The purpose of this paper is to describe the growth and expansion of the ADVANCE leadership program at the University of Washington (UW) for department chairs that was designed to provide department chairs the skills, community and information needed to be agents of change within the academy.Design/methodology/approachThe paper chronicles the program’s growth from a campus-based workshop program to national workshops (LEAD) to a web-based toolkit (LiY!) to support institutions in running their own UW ADVANCE-inspired leadership workshops.FindingsThe paper demonstrates the success of each growth stage and the expansion of program impact.Practical implicationsThe paper offers recommendations for growing a model from a local to national scale and adapting the described leadership development model at other institutions.Originality/valueThe paper shares a successful model for equipping department chairs to be advocates of gender equity, diversity and inclusion in STEM and to be change agents in higher education.