The Development and Evaluation of an ADVANCE Professional Developments Series to Promote Institutional Transformation

This paper reports on the development and assessment of a professional development workshop series implemented as part of an NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant at a large, private university. The goal of the grant was to increase the representation and advancement of women STEM faculty; it utilized a multi-frame organizational analysis approach (Bolman & Deal, 2017) to examine the organization and the approaches created by AdvanceRIT to change the organization. Evaluation results indicate that the series helped individuals strategically advance their careers, offered opportunities to learn from other women in academia and expand their networks, and share strategies to intervene against implicit bias and discrimination. At the institutional level, evaluation results suggest improvements to culture, including broader awareness of equity and discrimination issues and expanded networks across the institution. Series participants expressed a desire for more change and impact at the institution level.