A Symbiotic Solution for Facilitating Faculty Transitions in Engineering Academia

Two challenges to the logical shift in the nation’s engineering faculty demographics may actually become merged as a symbiotic pair of solutions. Underrepresented minorities (URMs) in STEM recently accounted for 6.3% of engineering faculty (National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, 2014), despite approaching nearly a third of the nation’s population (2010 Census). A central reason for the disproportionate representation is the continued need for effective mentorship and advocacy for these historically marginalized groups into and through the professoriate. Another sensitivity in the requisite shift in engineering faculty composition pertains to the effective transition of senior faculty who are of retirement age yet have the skillsets and desire to continue to be “active”. These two perceived “bottlenecks” in the engineering professoriate are simultaneously addressed by strategically matching retired (with emphasis upon “emeriti”) faculty as advocates-mentors for appropriately matched URM faculty. Synergistically, a transformative outcome could be more engineering faculty positions opening to an increasingly diversified pool of talent, wherein a generation of retired/retiring faculty advocate for their empowered successors. A pilot program, Increasing Minority Presence within Academia through Continuous Training (IMPACT), was accordingly implemented wherein seven emeriti faculty from a large engineering college were matched with ten URM engineering faculty and one URM postdoctoral associate (i.e., some emeriti faculty had multiple one-on-one assignments). The younger faculty stakeholders were from different engineering colleges, and each had near-term aspirations regarding their progression through academia. Protocols used for recruiting-matching and proactive intervention were key implementation measures. Both sets of participants have generally had positive outcomes from, and sentiments toward, this initiative; yet there have been some “lessons learned” (e.g., establishing a minimal frequency of contact between emeriti and engineering faculty to which both are more rigorously held accountable). Introduction A new mentoring and advocacy-networking paradigm is proposed which brings together two stakeholder groups: 1) underrepresented minorities (URMs: herein emphasizing Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans) who are aspiring (i.e., progressing) engineering faculty and 2) accomplished engineering faculty who have gone through entire full time careers in academia and hold emeriti roles. Increasing Minority Presence within Academia through Continuous Training (IMPACT) seeks to create a synergistic pairing of these two sets of stakeholders based primarily, but not exclusively, on technical expertise. URM faculty have an opportunity to engage in activities designed to further their socialization process into the engineering academic profession and gain access to the vast insights, greater discretionary time, and, as appropriate, extensive contacts that the emeriti faculty have garnered over the courses of their careers. The project has the potential to impact the engineering faculty ecosystem by demonstrating a new method to support and engage diverse faculty by including an often-overlooked resource—senior retired faculty. Significant attention has been placed upon production of more URM science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) Ph.Ds. and their subsequent entry into the academy through programs such as the NSF Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP); yet more attention needs to be placed upon systematic and sustainable means of aiding their retention, tenure and promotion through the academy. There is growing disproportionality in the number of URMs that are engineering faculty. As described in the National Science Foundation (NSF) Solicitation PD 14-7680, URMs comprised 8.6% of assistant professors, 8.7% of associate professors, and 5.8% of full professors; yet, according to the 2010 Census they comprised 31.7% of the American population. Members of underrepresented groups may often be at a disadvantage for success in academia, because they lack access to informal resources and may be subjected to subtle biases (Jackson, 2004; Thomas & Hollenshead, 2001; Turner, Myers, & Creswell, 1999; Valian, 1998). Mentoring and advocacy are ways that women and URMs gain knowledge about important career information that many “majority” men are able to acquire through informal networks (Hyers, Syphan, Cochran, & Brown, 2012; Ibarra, 1997; Stanley, 2006; Thomas, 2001; Thomas & Hollenshead, 2001; Tillman, 2001). Mentorship and advocacy opportunities may still be lacking from senior (full time, practicing) professors for various reasons such as their continued workloads. A National Academies report (Johnson & Lucero, 2003) cites an article by Nyquist (2002), wherein a key recommendation was to help “... universities to enhance faculty reward structures to encourage senior colleagues to mentor novice professors.” The connotation is that that there was limited engagement of junior faculty by these stakeholders; nonetheless, the support of predecessors as engaged role models remains pivotal to URM junior faculty success. Lack of informal socialization can impact women and URMs in multiple ways (e.g., evaluation, distribution of resources, and mentoring opportunities) (Jackson, 2004; Thomas & Hollenshead, 2001; Turner, Myers, & Creswell, 1999; Valian, 1998). Four systemic challenges to promotion and tenure were referenced in a National Academies report (Johnson & Lucero, 2003), and two of those (i.e., “chilly climate” and “turnover”) were directly associated with insufficient guidance and advocacy for the “young” (i.e., with respect to time in career) junior faculty. An immediate benefit of the current pilot is for URM engineering faculty participants to engage in activities designed to further their socialization process into their respective disciplines within the academy via the insights, networking and advocacy by well-regarded predecessors. An incentive for emeriti faculty is the opportunity to continue to engage in the discipline by providing technical and professional expertise and to contribute to a more diversified next generation of engineering faculty. The pilot is yielding valuable information needed to expand the effort into a viable full-scale mentoring and advocacy-network that includes more stakeholders that elect to participate. Concurrent with the pilot, multi-phased phenomenological mixed method research is being conducted to gain an in-depth understanding of the ways in which the URM faculty and emeriti faculty experience the opportunities afforded by the project. The research is aimed specifically at the hypothesized effectiveness of using emeriti “majority” faculty (i.e., primarily white, male) as strategic mentors-advocates for URM faculty. This paradigm and pilot network is intended to be a novel complement to prevailing approaches to supporting the retention, tenure and promotion of URM engineering faculty. The support model includes professional networking and advocacy by individuals who are uniquely situated to provide these resources—retirees. The new paradigm encompasses three domains of mentoring: (1) career development (emeriti faculty provide assistance in the retention, tenure, and promotion of URM faculty); (2) sponsorship (emeriti faculty create opportunities for networking, exposure, and visibility with potential research collaborators, teaching scholars, and grant program officers by promoting their disciplinary expertise); and (3) coaching (emeriti faculty share their wisdom about the discipline and provide professional and personal advice in successfully navigating academic careers) (Kram, 1985a; Kram, 1985b; Zellers, Howard, & Barcic, 2008). These domains are critical to faculty in STEM fields as they establish their professional identities and progress in their careers (Cawyer, Simonds, & Davis, 2002; Lechuga, 2014). All of the activities will aid in URM faculty professional socialization and serve to widen networking opportunities through emeriti faculty making direct referrals and recommendations from personal, professional contacts, as well as their own experiences. The advocacy-networking paradigm encompasses specific tangible outcomes associated with participation. For example, retirees will make resolute efforts, as appropriate, to introduce URM faculty to potential research collaborators, project officers, and others who may be in a position to recognize the talent and expertise of the URM faculty participants. Furthermore, there are indications that retired faculty can significantly supplement needed support for junior and mid-career faculty in a mutually beneficial manner. Retired faculty may appreciate the opportunity to support young scholars in their disciplines as a means of remaining active contributors to their respective fields and in engineering academia. Studies have shown that a key reason for reluctance to retirement is the concern with disconnecting from scholarly engagement (Conley, 2007; Ehrenberg, 2001; Finkelstein, Conley, & Schuster, 2016; Leslie & Conley, 2006). This concern is exacerbated within engineering, because it represents a field where continued engagement in scholarship has often been contingent upon resource-intense measures such as maintaining significantly sized lab resources and student groups. Finally, retired faculty represent an under-tapped resource, since they have completed full careers and thus have some unique “longitudinal” perspectives as well as the discretionary time to convey these perspectives. The two stakeholder groups (i.e., URM and retired engineering faculty) thus have respective professional objectives served by advocacy that can transform the engineering faculty ecosystem. This paper provides a detailed description of the implementation approach of the pilot effort, as well as emerging results,