Challenges Of Changing Faculty Attitudes About The Underlying Nature Of Gender Inequities

Increasing diversity of the engineering student body requires at least one of two parties, either the incoming student population or the institution offering engineering programs, to change. Efforts to increase diversity in engineering have historically focused on changing the incoming student population. At Texas A&M University, the second alternative, changing the institution (by changing faculty) is being explored in an NSF-supported project “Changing Faculty through Learning Communities.” The project employs four mechanisms to promote change in faculty members: speakers, workshops, faculty learning communities (FLC), and matching grants to support women students. Specifically, the project aims to catalyze changes in the way faculty think about four concepts that are tightly linked to the concept of gender diversity: 1) mental models, 2) development and invitation, 3) personal vision and commitment, and 4) the culture of engineering and science. The following paper describes change mechanisms, highlighting FLC, and four changes that learning community participants report. Participants a) shifted from searching for external solutions to changing internally, b) recognized that faculty members help create a welcoming environment, c) realized that accumulation of subtle inequities create large disparities for women, and d) reported heightened awareness of mental models, gender schemas, and differences in ways men and women develop and communicate.