Sponsored by:

and the following
partner programs:

Grant Proposal - WISELI

(for RESULTS OF PRIOR NSF SUPPORT click here)

BACKGROUND - Rationale for the proposed UW-Madison Institutional Transformation Initiative.

Despite advances, women continue to be underrepresented in almost all science and engineering fields, nationally.1-4 In 1997, women constituted 36% of life scientists, 22% of physical scientists, 9% of engineers, and 27% of computer scientists.1 In September, 2000, the Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering, and Technology Development (CAWMSET)2 issued a report which concluded that in addition to social responsibility, a workforce that includes more women, underrepresented minorities and persons with disabilities in science, engineering, mathematics and technologya strengthens business, academe, and government, and businesses and other organizations see a significant return on their investment when diversity is achieved.5,6 Furthermore, if the number of women in the scientific workforce was raised to the level of men, the enormous shortage of skilled workers in many areas could be filled. Given their representation in the college-age population, women are underrepresented recipients of science and engineering degrees at all levels, growth has been stagnant in many fields, and in academic institutions, women differ from men in terms of academic rank, tenure, and the type of school in which they are employed.1,2,7

Women drop out all along the path that would lead to successful careers in science and engineering.2,4 Reasons for this are complex, but among them are feelings of personal and professional isolation, lack of sufficient and varied role models, lack of mentoring, an environment perceived as denigrating to women, devaluation and marginalization of their professional contributions, frank gender discrimination, and a lack of institutional support for family issues that continue to fall predominantly on women.8-19 Vetter8 refers to the "triple penalty of cultural, attitudinal and structural impediments" that makes it more difficult for women scientists to persevere in their careers. As Cole and Singer demonstrated in a mathematical model, the aggregate effects of even minor negative "kicks" along the career path prevent women scientists from achieving their full potential.20

Academic science is part of a larger culture where, due to a complex interplay of biology, environment, and socialization, virtually everything is gendered.21,22 Valian14 refers to "gender schema" as a core of unconscious beliefs each of us holds about the behaviors, traits, and preferences of men and women. These gender schema account for the consistent findings that gendered differences in patterns of speech, use of language, eye contact, physical size, social roles outside the workplace, comfort with competitive behavior, willingness to be the center of attention, feelings of entitlement, tendency to internalize failures and externalize successes, and feelings of guilt related to performance as a parent all contribute to cumulative disadvantages for women across all professions examined. There is universal agreement that no single "magic bullet" exists to solve the issues related to women's career parity in science and engineering. Rather, a variety of interventions are needed in four general areas: 1) institutional policies and practices that disadvantage women,17-19 2) gender climate including attitudes and behaviors that are unsupportive of women's career development,11,12,16 3) a need to provide women in science and engineering with the knowledge and skills necessary for academic success,23-26 and 4) the absence of women in the pipeline at each academic level.4,24

The NSF ADVANCE focus on development of women leaders in academic science and engineering is an excellent strategy for stimulating institutional transformation. Academic scientists and engineers set the nation's research agenda, serve as role models and facilitators for others, inform policy makers, and teach future generations of scientists and engineers. Women leaders both within and outside academe have historically been the agents of change. For example, it was Congresswoman Connie Morella who developed and sponsored the legislation establishing CAWMSET, Nancy Hopkins at MIT who initiated the study of gender inequity that resulted in systemic institutional change, and then Chancellor Donna Shalala who introduced the Madison Plan to increase the number of women and underrepresented minority students, staff, and faculty at UW-Madison.

The opportunity to apply for an Institutional Transformation Award designed to increase the participation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers comes at an ideal time for UW-Madison for the following reasons:

• John Wiley, newly appointed Chancellor, has mathematically modeled hiring strategies to increase faculty diversity27 and has publicly stated that improving campus climate is his top priority.28 Led by the Committee on Women, behaviors that contribute to an adverse climate are being defined, local manifestations are being assessed, and alliances with deans are being built.29
• The President of the UW-System, Katharine Lyall, has performed a system-wide gender climate evaluation that named women's academic leadership development a top priority.30
• Well-established gender equity programs including a Women Faculty Mentoring Program (since 1989),31 Sexual Harassment Information Training Initiative (since 1999),32 Dual-career hiring initiatives (since 1997)33 and longitudinal Gender Pay Equity studies (waves in 1992, 1997, 2001) are in place and can be analyzed for impact.34
• A longstanding Committee on Women (faculty and staff) reports to the Faculty Senate and has worked with senior administration on many of the existing gender equity programs.
• UW-Madison is in an ideal position to address pipeline issues: it is second among all U.S. universities and first in the Big Ten in the number of doctoral degrees conferred in science and engineering,35 has a unique undergraduate learning and living program for women in science and engineering,36,37 and has an active Graduate Women in Science chapter.38
• The presence on one campus of six different colleges with a minority of women faculty in the biological and physical sciences (Colleges of Engineering, Agricultural and Life Sciences, and Letters and Sciences; and Schools of Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, and Pharmacy) provides an opportunity for comparisons across an unusual range of academic units.
• The unique UW Learning through Evaluation, Adaptation, and Dissemination (LEAD) Center offers the unparalleled ability for substantive program evaluation.39
• The presence of faculty with expertise in cultural anthropology and linguistics provides the opportunity to infuse scholarship from multiple disciplines into the proposed transformation.
• UW-Madison's top-ranked Business School is an ideal partner for developing leadership workshops and exploring a Time-Stretcher Service.
• The recently built Fluno Center for Executive Education, a centrally located, immersion-learning facility for up to 100 people, is an ideal site for leadership training programs.40
• The goals of this proposal converge with the personal and professional commitment of the PIs to improve gender climate at UW-Madison and to foster the academic careers of more women. Both have demonstrated an ability to effect positive, systemic change.11,41,42

It is time to raise gender equity efforts to a new level, not only in terms of launching comprehensive, multi-layered interventions, but in terms of rigorous evaluation of what works and what does not. At UW-Madison, 52% of all students are women and given the size of its graduate school, few peer institutions have comparable potential to nurture the careers of large numbers of women scientists and engineers. Within the past 15 years, UW-Madison implemented several gender equity programs and notable improvements have been documented including an increase from a 17% tenure rate for women in the physical sciences hired 1978-82 to 88% for those hired 1987-91 and increases in the biological sciences from 35% to 55%. Rates in both divisions are now almost identical for men and women.43 Women now comprise 23.9% of faculty overall and 38% of assistant professors, 32% of associate professors, and 17% of full professors. However, at present in the physical sciences women comprise 8.6% overall (5.7% in 1990), with 18.3%, 15.9%, and 4.8%, assistant, associate, and full professors, respectively. In the biological sciences comparable figures are 19.8% (14.7% in 1990), 41%, 22.1%, and 13.1%. Women comprise 21% of the deans and 15% of department chairs (see tables below).

VISION, GOALS, AND ANTICIPATED IMPACT - Our vision is to transform UW-Madison into an inclusive community where--irrespective of gender, race, or cultural background--all individuals are valued and encouraged to learn, teach, collaborate, explore, and share ideas. In accordance with the goals of ADVANCE, this proposal focuses on gender diversity in science and engineering. However, our proposed Institutional Transformation initiative lays the groundwork for the overlapping but unique issues facing other underrepresented groups in academic science and engineering, with the ultimate goal of further diversifying the national workforce. Our long-term goal is to have the gender of the faculty, chairs, and deans reflect the gender of the student body. We realize that this goal is not achievable in five years; however, the anticipated impact of the Institutional Transformation initiative is to transform UW-Madison into an on-going living laboratory which will promote gender equity for women in science and engineering and provide methods and analyses to measure intermediate indicators of success. A National Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI) will be established as a visible, campus-wide entity, endorsed by top-level administrators. WISELI itself will be part of the project design and will centralize collected data, monitor the success of the proposed efforts, implement a longitudinal data system, and ensure dissemination of best practices.

PERFORMANCE PLAN AND METHODOLOGY

EVALUATION - Evaluation will be a cornerstone of our Institutional Transformation at UW-Madison. A team of experienced evaluators will 1) perform a thorough environmental needs assessment and longitudinal study regarding the current status of women in science and engineering at UW-Madison complemented by in-depth anthropological and discourse analytic studies; 2) conduct annual "Issues Studies" on pertinent questions that need investigation, 3) provide formative feedback about the interventions that WISELI undertakes and about WISELI as an organization that will inform mid-course corrections and decisions; 4) institutionalize processes for longitudinal monitoring beyond the grant period; 5) provide summative data about the attainment of our specific objectives; and 6) disseminate results through writings and presentations.

Research Questions: Our evaluation is designed to address three overriding research questions:

1. What are the climate-related factors, barriers, attitudes, and experiences of women in science on this campus? (From their perspectives, what types of initiatives would help address the barriers?)
2. To what extent are our interventions and WISELI successfully addressing these factors? [Have the interventions resulted in an improvement in the capacity of the participants to succeed and what modifications are needed to make them more valuable? What changes are occurring, if any, in intermediate indicators at the levels of the individual faculty, the division/department, and the institution (e.g., Has UW addressed imbalances where apparent? hired retained, advanced more women? adopted and created policies to address needs?) What is the value-added of WISELI?]
3. To what extent can our model be replicated and extended to other campuses? (What features of our design were instrumental to success?)

Evaluation Team: Dianne Bowcock, UW-Madison LEAD Centerb, will coordinate our evaluation. Bowcock, who has considerable experience evaluating Women in Science initiativesc, will lead our baseline/descriptive study, gender climate surveys, carry out our annual "Issues Studies," and work closely with the WISELI Executive Administrator, PIs, and the Leadership Team, to develop and implement feedback and data-tracking processes about the initiatives and interventions. Amy Stambach, Departments of Educational Policy Studies and Anthropology, will spearhead an in-depth ethnographic study that involves a cultural analysis of gendered climate. As part of the ethnographic study, Cecilia Ford, Department of English, will analyze discourse dynamics among academic colleagues in departmental and committee meetings to determine whether and how the sense of marginalization that women report can be documented in naturally occurring professional encounters. The WISELI Executive Administrator will lead the examination of gender differences in institutional resources. Margaret Harrigan, Office of Budget Planning and Analysis, will be a member of the Evaluation Team. Statistical support for for developing predictive models of gender climate will come from Harrigan and Murray Clayton, Professor of Statistics. Thus, expertise in statistical and quantitative analysis will complement the descriptive and contextual information provided by Bowcock, Stambach, and Ford. In addition, we will use the UW Survey Center's superb infrastructure (coordinated by John Stevenson) to conduct our large-scale climate survey.

Noteworthy features of our evaluation plan are that it 1) has both formative and summative purposes; 2) uses both qualitative and quantitative methodsd ,44; 3) involves multiple researchers and complementary methods to provide triangulation; 4) uses iterative approaches built on existing data to shape next steps; 5) is designed to build capacity for WISELI to become institutionalized.

Reporting activities: Decisions about mid-course improvements will be guided by 1) ongoing dialogue with the PIs, Leadership Team, and Evaluation Team; 2) semiannual reports provided by the Evaluation Team; and 3) input from the External Advisory Team, which will convene annually. In years 3 and 5 a summative report will focus on the achievement of program goals. Conference presentations and articles based on the evaluation findings will be produced. The diversity of disciplines represented on the Leadership Team enhances the opportunity for broad dissemination.

Plan, Methods and Timeline
YEAR 1: Establish Longitudinal Data System. In year one, the Evaluation Team will establish systematic ways to track over time the efforts and outcomes of existing programs and new initiatives and gather feedback from participants across campus about their value and impact. Because the programs are so varied and the audiences and purposes diverse, our system will gather some consistent types of information across the different initiatives (e.g., number, status, names of participants) while offering a flexible way of gathering information about the achievement of the goals of individual initiatives. In addition, members of the Evaluation Team will conduct observations during selected activities throughout the period of the transformation. The data will be centralized at WISELI and become part of the longitudinal data base.

Establish baseline for in-depth impact study. Bowcock and Stambach will conduct in-depth hour-long individual interviews with a representative sample of thirty-two women out of 179 women faculty in the biological and physical science. This will provide a detailed baseline from which to chart the anticipated transformation over the five-year period. These interviews will investigate experiences as women in science and engineering at UW-Madison; attitudes about work, department climate and advancement; knowledge and use of resources to assist and support women; self-ratings on isolation, stress, health, and hopefulness; participation in gender equity initiatives; strategies for professional growth. Interviewees will complete a survey asking them to quantify their responses to some of the issues using existing or modified scales or instruments.11,16,45,46 The same thirty-two women will be interviewed early in year 5 to explore their participation in WISELI initiatives and to determine perspectives on personal, departmental, and institutional changes and impact. Thus, the interviews provide longitudinal perspectives and will provide an in-depth understanding of the impact of WISELI initiatives on UW women in science. Reports describing this information will be discussed at evaluation meetings with the Leadership Team.

Develop and Administer Climate Surveys. Data from the impact study will be used to develop a Climate Survey to be administered to all (men and women) faculty and scientific staff in the biological and physical sciences (n=2,400). The UW Survey Center will administer these surveys and return raw data to the Evaluation Team for analysis and inclusion in the longitudinal data system.

YEARS 2 - 4 : In year two we will analyze the climate surveys, continue to gather feedback on initiatives and interventions and create reports that summarize this information so that it can be used for improvement or the creation of new interventions. In addition, during years two through four we will conduct Issues Studies and an Ethnographic study including a discourse analytic component.

Issues Studies - In years two, three, and four the Leadership Team will use the data from the year one baseline study to identify a topic, issue, setting (college/school) or cohort (e.g., newly hired faculty women in science) that we will investigate further. These topics will be ones that the Leadership Team wants investigated in order to take specific action on or develop an intervention. Each year there will be a different focus that derives from the needs of the total project. For example, based on baseline studies and surveys, we may decide that child care issues among faculty women are critical; thus our issues study would investigate this topic by interviewing a sample of faculty. Or, the PIs may determine that a specific segment of women faculty have unique needs that we want to investigate (e.g., women in science within one year of tenure review). This design, which is intentionally open-ended, provides flexibility and allows WISELI to pursue research questions as they arise. The methods used in these studies will be interviews (both individual and group), surveys, and participant observation, as appropriate. The resulting data will be added to the longitudinal data system.

Discourse Analysis of the "Ignoring-my-ideas" Phenomenon - Professor Cecilia Ford, whose work is in discourse analysis, will examine whether and how the "ignoring-my-ideas" phenomenon described almost universally by women faculty can be documented in naturally occurring professional encounters. This work will involve observation, videotaping, transcription, and analysis. The analytic method involves rigorous structural and sequential mapping of the interactions and contributions of participants, with attention to verbal and non-verbal aspects of the encounters. Fundamental to such analysis is the fate of topics: the introduction, uptake, and development of ideas. In an effort to reduce bias, gender of participants will not be the initial focus of the analysis. However, if the participants themselves identify gender in their conversation, this will feed into the initial analysis. After mapping, the data will be inspected for the role of gender and the potential sources for what has been experienced and reported as marginalization in women's interactions in academic environments.

Ethnographic Study - The ethnographic study will use interview and survey data from the baseline study to determine key indicators of climate in each of the 6 colleges/schools. It will then investigate these key indicators using qualitative methods and participant observation. The ethnographic study will provide the Leadership Team with descriptive data useful for building an aggregate measure for climate that will be entered into the statistical model, prioritizing future interventions, and designing interventions that are meaningful to women in science and engineering. The work will involve: 1) participant observation at several key junctures, e.g., faculty meetings, classes, thesis defenses, and other rites of passage; 2) participant observation in laboratories and working spaces, where everyday interactions often reflect and produce gendered inequalities; and 3) informal open-ended interviews with male and female faculty to augment baseline year 1 data and to gain greater understanding of competing views that emerge in sites observed.

The Ethnographic Study and the Issues Studies will be conducted in interaction. The Ethnographic Study will provide descriptions of two endpoints along a continuum, between which data gathered from the Issues Studies will be used to qualify contrasting scenarios. Procedurally, the Ethnographic Study will investigate a core set of issues holistically and "deeply." Building on existing research that demonstrates that despite discourses of gender neutrality in scientific settings women continue to experience gender-differentiating practices and interactions that are restricting47,48 the Ethnographic Study will examine the degree to which the organizational structures and divisions of labor within departments, in laboratories, in instructional settings, on grants, and in research collaborations and initiatives, contribute to the production and reproduction of career-impeding gender schemas and hierarchies. In order to help the Leadership Team understand how gender is objectified organizationally, the Ethnographic Study will examine women and men in interaction. In coordination with the ethnographic study, an analysis of language in interaction will be implemented. Two departments will be included in this component study. We will look for both strategies of inclusion as well as interactional patterns which may lead to problematic phenomena or the perception of them.49-51 The findings of the discourse analysis will feed back into other levels of the ethnographic study, enriching the description of the social situation of women in science and engineering at UW-Madison, and suggesting directions for future investigation during subsequent years.

Whereas the linguistic component conducted by Ford will observe how people communicate through speech and gesture, the Ethnographic Study will observe how gender is structured into the use of physical space and the division of labor. It will examine women's and men's differential use of space and time, their resource use and allocations, and it will observe how people aggregate by gender and other identifying markers. In focusing on women's and men's gendered interactions, the Ethnographic Study will broaden the scope of "gender" beyond its reference to half the population and will directly inform the Leadership Team's efforts to create systemic and lasting interventions that help women and men develop techniques for increasing women's impact in the fields of science and engineering.

Modeling Predictive Variables of Campus Climate - Through the interviews and surveys, we will derive a measure of "perceived climate." Then, using this measure as the independent variable, we will enter variables hypothesized a priori to be contributors to positive or negative climate (e.g. percent women in department, size of gender difference in assigned institutional resources, participation of department in climate-related workshops or training) as well as institutional variables (size of department, age of department, etc.) into a multivariate statistical model. In particular, we will employ discriminant analysis to identify attributes that predict or discriminate among those participants rating climate differently. Through an iterative modeling process, this type of model gives each variable a coefficient that indicates its predictive value and the model accounts for interactions between groups of variables. The respondents will be randomly assigned to two groups, and a model will be developed with each group, and then each model will be tested with the other group of respondents. Thus, we can use the output to assess the relative importance of each variable in affecting perceived climate. Analyses will be done by Margaret Harrigan (statistician contributed to the project by Office of Budget, Planning and Analysis) and Professor Handelsman in conjunction with her statistical collaborator, Professor Murray Clayton who have previously used predictive discriminant analysis to identify attributes that discriminate between bacteria that live on roots and bacteria that live in soil.52,53

YEAR 5: The climate survey will be administered again and second interviews will be undertaken with the same thirty-two women who were interviewed for the baseline study during year one. These interviews will explore their participation in WISELI initiatives and their perspectives on personal, departmental, and institutional changes and impact. The Evaluation Team will analyze longitudinal data and conduct a summative analysis of the varied data gathered over the five-year period. The Team will develop final reports. The PIs and members of the Leadership Team will disseminate the findings within the local and national scientific community.

EXISTING PROGRAMS THAT WILL BE EVALUATED FOR IMPACT AND MODIFICATION
The Evaluation Team will include in their longitudinal data system any existing data on the following programs, and will gather new data on these programs in their in-depth impact studies (years one and five), campus-wide climate surveys, and, as determined by the Leadership Team, the Issues Studies.

Dual career couples programs, tenure clock extensions, split appointments, campus childcare. The UW-Madison has several policies designed to accommodate women in the academic system. These include: extensions on tenure clock for parental or other familial responsibilities; a program for hiring dual career couples; and support, expansion, and subsidies for campus childcare. There are two examples in the social sciences where the desire of two members of a couple to share one faculty position was accommodated. It appears that these programs have had little impact on the number of women faculty in the biological and physical sciences. Therefore, as described in the Evaluation Plan, it is critical to examine them in detail and make modifications where necessary, especially in science and engineering. The findings will have policy implications locally and nationally.

Gender Pay Equity Studies. In 1992-93, an analysis of UW-Madison salaries demonstrated a pay gap between men and women that could not be explained by age, rank, or years since degree.52 The administration provided funds to be distributed by individual schools and colleges to female faculty who were judged to be under-compensated. Three committees, including the Committee on Women in the University, continue to monitor and propose interventions to achieve and maintain gender pay equity. The proposed initiative will focus on the process for and outcomes of salary equity for women in science and engineering as well as assessing the perceptions of this endeavor.

Women Faculty Mentoring Program. A campus-wide survey in 1989 demonstrated that women faculty were leaving UW-Madison voluntarily before the time of promotion. Consequently, a Women Faculty Mentoring Program (WFMP) was begun with staff and faculty salary support by the Provost. Senior women faculty from an outside department but within the same division volunteer to serve as mentors for junior women. The WFMP sponsors four Brown Bag Sessions annually, an orientation/training session for mentors and mentees, an annual Women Faculty Mentor Award, and an annual reception to welcome new women faculty and celebrate promotions. This past year, a Peer Mentoring Program was begun by the WFMP and has resulted in several groups including a peer mentoring group for women faculty of color and one for women faculty in physical sciences. Rates of tenure and departure43 are now comparable for men and women. An annual evaluation survey assesses the perceived benefit of the mentor relationship, the specific personal and professional areas the mentor has or has not been helpful with, and the value of the WFMP activities.

The Chancellor's UW-Madison Climate Initiative. The central goals of the Climate Initiative are to determine how the climate issue is manifested on the campus and to create new opportunities for frank and open conversation. A coalition has been formed comprised of the Committee on Women, the Provost's office, and deans. The coalition will generate a dialogue, develop a set of recommendations of best practices, and establish methods for ongoing accountability. WISELI will keep women scientists and engineers central to the activities, evaluate the results of actions taken, and extend findings and productive initiatives to other campuses through dialogue with other NSF Institutional Transformation sites, CIC WISE forums, and national workshops.

Sexual Harassment Information Sessions. UW-Madison has embarked on a comprehensive effort to make sexual harassment a university community concern. This effort, backed by vigorous public endorsement by the administration, has involved refining and renewing an array of campus resources, designing and publishing informational materials, and offering informational sessions to all employees. Sexual harassment contact persons have been identified and trained in every school, college, and division. A cross-campus team of facilitators has presented informational sessions to deans, administrative teams, academic departments, and support units. These sessions use an inclusive, non-confrontational tone and, to personalize the experience, a case study approach. A website and brochures (Sexual Harassment: A Community Concern and Sexual Harassment: How to Respond When Someone Confides in You) present key principles, policies, and resources.32

Campus Child Care. While not all women in science and engineering need child care, acknowledging the importance of good child care and working to make it accessible are markers for a good climate for women.55 In June, 2000, the University Child Care Committee completed a comprehensive white paper on the status of childcare at the UW-Madison. The Committee and the Office of Campus Child Care are currently working on a number of specific initiatives, among them 1) continuing exploration of the relationship between employment conditions for child-care workers, University and/or union-based support for campus childcare, and parent tuition payments; 2) expanding care for low-income parents; and 3) expansion of infant, conference and extended hours care.

WISE Dormitory. To focus on stemming the loss of women from science majors in the first two years of college, the Women In Science and Engineering Residential Program (WISE-RP) was founded in 1995. WISE-RP creates a supportive and empowering community for women by housing 115 freshmen and sophomore science/engineering students together on adjacent floors of an all-women's residence. The program offers special WISE-RP sections of key courses such as general chemistry, organic chemistry, and introductory biology. About 25-30% of the WISE-RP participants are engineering majors, about 40% are biology majors, and the remainder are scattered among the other sciences. Now in its seventh year, the WISE-RP has had more than 600 undergraduate participants. Each year since the program's inception, WISE students earned significantly higher than average grades in both of our University's challenging two-semester gateway Chemistry sequences. They also have significantly higher overall GPAs than either UW freshmen women as a whole or a matched group of women science/engineering students from another dorm36 and are less likely to binge drink.37 As an umbrella program, WISELI will facilitate interaction between undergraduate women in the WISE-RP, Graduate Women in Science, and women scientists and engineers across campus. This successful program will be presented as part of the national workshops for administrators.

NEW INITIATIVES THAT WILL BE DEVELOPED AND EVALUATED FOR IMPACT AND MODIFICATION
The Evaluation Team will gather new data on these programs for the in-depth impact studies (years one and five), climate surveys, and, as determined by the Leadership Team, the Issues Studies.

Establish the Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI). Based on our experience with UW-Madison's Center for Women's Health Research (CWHR), having a centralized, visible administrative structure with space, a phone number, and a web site is a very effective strategy for addressing a number of impediments to women's academic advancement. As a result of the CWHR, women's health as a field of scientific inquiry went from obscurity to being one of the six Strategic Priorities of the Medical School, the focus of a Cluster Hire of three new faculty in the Biology of Sex and Gender Differences, the basis of a flourishing postdoctoral training program, and designation of UW-Madison as one of 15 National Centers of Excellence. Moreover, the CWHR has provided an effective and legitimate means of networking women faculty across departments, decreasing isolation, advocating for and mentoring women faculty, and linking women postdoctoral fellows in predominantly male environments with a variety of women faculty. We will use an analogous strategy in establishing WISELI. At a Town Hall Meeting, to which all UW faculty and staff will be invited, our plans will be announced and discussed. Articles in the campus-wide and individual college newsletters and the local newspapers will announce the NSF award and the establishment of WISELI. Space will be provided in the COE (new building to open June 2002) near the Dean's Office with prominent signage on the door. The Co-Directors (proposal PIs) will report directly to the Provost. A web page and letterhead will be developed by the Media Specialist from the CWHR and include links to multiple national and local sites relevant to women in science and engineering.

Examine the patterns of assigning institutional resources for uneven distribution by gender. Vice Chancellor John Torphy has agreed to assist in collecting information on start-up packages, assigned space, access to administrative support, assignment of teaching assistants, type of class (e.g. undergraduate vs graduate), number of graduate students and postdocs, and location of office and laboratory. Data not available in existing records will be gathered in interviews with departmental administrators, faculty, and on-site inspection by the Executive Administrator, PIs, and Leadership Team. Taking into account the complex factors involved in assignment of institutional resources, we will look for patterns that might disadvantage or advantage women faculty. If found, we will interview department chairs regarding the reasons for such assignment. We will compile a report of the results to present to the deans and senior administrators as a means to promote equitable distribution of institutional resources.

Study the impact and feasibility of moving outstanding non-tenure line researchers into faculty positions. Examination of data on staff positions indicates that we could increase the number of women faculty in many departments simply by converting academic staff positions to faculty positions for women who wish to expand their roles. A number of women on our campus who hold academic staff titles pursue independent research and have teaching reputations and credentials equivalent to those in faculty positions. Many of these women entered science at a time when nepotism rules, prejudices, or their own life choices prevented them from entering tenure-line faculty positions. In the present era, a number of these women might have become faculty members through dual career recruitments. In preparation for this proposal, we spoke to Acting Provost Gary Sandefur, Vice Chancellor John Torphy, and Associate Vice Chancellor Linda Greene who agreed to an exploratory study of the development of a program that would offer faculty appointments to selected non-tenure line women in science and engineering. WISELI will establish a working group, including representatives from the Academic Staff Council and administration, to determine the number of possible track switches and identify administrative, financial, and attitudinal barriers to accomplishing conversions. If such a program would have a positive impact, WISELI will work with campus administration to develop a systematic process for such track conversion.

Workshops for Department Chairs. UW-Madison has a successful workshops series on leadership designed for department chairs. In the series, chairs meet weekly with presenters who each address an aspect of being a chair. The purpose is not only information transfer but also building relationships that help them do their jobs more effectively. We will introduce a workshop on climate into this forum. This workshop will address the nature of climate, including real experiences of respected women scientists, strategies to address each of the manifestations of climate described above or discovered in our evaluation, and approaches to successful implementation of strategies.

Workshops on Laboratory Management. A workshop series on laboratory management will be developed for principal investigators. The focus will be on issues that affect women disproportionately, but will be advertised on the basis of improving the overall functioning of their laboratories. Topics will include learning how to motivate members of a team by positive approaches, resolve conflict, provide a supportive, respectful, and safe environment, and build cohesive, collegial teams. Development of the workshops will be led by the Office of Human Resources and Development and presenters will be faculty who run research laboratories and who are known to be supportive of women, deans, experts in conflict resolution and respect in the workplace, and graduate students. The workshops will be offered on campus every semester. We will work with deans and department chairs to encourage attendance by all faculty.

Celebrating Women in Science and Engineering Seminar Series. A Celebrating Women in Science and Engineering Symposia series will be initiated. Outstanding women scientists will be hosted each semester of the granting period (a total of 10 series). Funds for these have been contributed by the six deans who are administrative partners in the Institutional Transformation initiative. When these women scientists are at UW-Madison, WISELI will sponsor trans-departmental receptions, and schedule special sessions with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

Cluster Hire Initiative. Cluster hires, defined as a group of new faculty positions for research in an interdisciplinary area, began at UW-Madison in 199856. To date, the program has resulted in about 80 faculty hires in approximately 24 departments. A total of 150 positions is projected. Each year, a call for proposals is issued by the Chancellor and through a peer review process, 10-15 proposals are selected with 2-4 faculty per cluster. WISELI will work with senior women faculty in an interdisciplinary field of science or engineering to develop a proposal for a Cluster Hire. While we cannot restrict hiring to women at a public institution, the position vacancy listing can state that successful applicants must have demonstrated ability to mentor women scientists and that the position will work closely with the WISELI.

Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Programs and Workshop. Because women are often excluded from informal networks by which their male colleagues acquire information critical to successful professional development, alternative means must be sought. One way is to provide structured programs for women that provide the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve personal and professional effectiveness. Using the Fluno Center, a unique conference-residence facility for immersion-learning, WISELI will develop or explore development of a variety of leadership training modules. While the specifics of each module will vary with the audience (e.g. junior women, senior women, post docs, biologists, engineers, single women, women with children), topics will include how to chair a meeting, enhancing your cv, the politics of search committees, negotiating for resources, grant writing, how to use national professional meetings to maximize your chance of promotion, how to challenge unfair manuscript reviews, effective teaching strategies, how to be an effective manager, balancing career and personal life, time management, recognizing and dealing with gender bias, strategies for countering "the invisible women," the strategic use of humor, and how to say "no" and still be seen as a team player. To be as flexible as possible, different formats will be offered:

· agendas accommodating women who can only attend once
· an annual course with 2-3 day sessions 3 times per year with a certificate of completion from WISELI.
· "Summer Camp" for WISE moms, providing a week of day camp for kids and suggested activities for spouses while mothers attend leadership training conferences

In addition to workshops for women in academic science and engineering, WISELI will develop national training sessions for senior administrators (men and women) incorporating the principles established by WISELI's research and best practices.

Life Cycle Research Grants. Research grants will be available to women faculty at critical junctures in their professional careers (e.g. between grants, a new baby, parent care responsibilities). These grants are meant to be flexible and women may apply for varying amounts and academic purposes.

Endowed Professorships for Women in Science. In response to the NSF ADVANCE program, the Chancellor has included 10 professorships (20 million dollars) for women in science and engineering on the select list of targets for fundraising. This list sets priorities for the $1 billion capital campaign recently launched by the campus and therefore appearance on the list demonstrates a clear commitment to the Institutional Transformation initiative. Each professorship will be competitively awarded through a campus peer review process. Selection criteria will include quality of contributions to science and teaching, past impact on women in science, future plans for a leadership role in science. Each recipient will be provided financial support for 10 years but will retain the title of the endowed chair for the duration of her career.

Develop Networks, Promote Communication, Increase Visibility of Women in Science and Engineering. Women consistently cite professional and personal isolation as a contributor to a chilly academic climate. To address this issue, WISELI will develop list serves and email distribution lists to connect WISE faculty, staff, graduate students, and postdocs; maintain a web site, sponsor receptions for the Celebrating Women in Science and Engineering Seminar Series, publish a WISE Research Resource Book with a picture and academic sketch of each woman faculty member in the biological and physical sciences; and publish a newsletter on the web to provide updates on arrivals of new women faculty, accomplishments and milestones, and research news from the women faculty in science. The Leadership Team will serve as a nominating committee, actively seeking awards for eligible women at UW-Madison. Further linkages with other campuses will be achieved by sending women to the CIC WISE and other national WISE meetings.

Time-Stretcher Services. Balancing career and personal life are foremost issues for both men and women in academe2,7,9,30 but particularly for women who continue to assume the predominant responsibility for household management and childcare. WISELI will 1) work with Joan Gillman (Dir Special Industry Programs) and a student in Journalism to compile available time-saving services currently available (e.g. all home delivered services) and make this publication available to everyone at UW-Madison and 2) work with Professor Anne Miner (UW Business School) to explore a UW-Community partnership to develop a Time-Stretcher Service. This service would enable women and men working for UW-Madison to hire individuals to run simple tasks that would take time away from activities important to their personal or professional development.

Leadership Development of Non-Tenure Line Women in Science and Engineering. The scientific community contains a number of outstanding staff scientists who could be contributing more to the leadership in their respective fields. WISELI will promote the leadership development of these staff women in science and engineering by including them in the proposed initiatives and developing special leadership training modules for staff scientists.

ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE
Directors: The ADVANCE program at UW-Madison will be led by Professors Jo Handelsman (College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, CALS) and Molly Carnes (Medical School) who will be Co-Directors of the proposed Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI). To ensure the success of this important and complex enterprise, each is devoting 50% effort. While WISELI will be a campus-wide program, the ADVANCE contract will be based in the College of Engineering (COE). We chose this administrative strategy for the following reasons:

1) This arrangement most efficiently provides connection to all schools and colleges that are major stakeholders in this enterprise. Handelsman is a leader in CALS and as former Chair of the Biological Sciences Reaccreditation Process is a recognized leader in the entire Biological Sciences Division. Carnes is a leader in the Medical School and as Director of an interdisciplinary center and training grant, has well-established links with the Schools of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy, and College of Letters & Sciences, whose Deans are Administrative Partners on this proposal, and also with the Schools of Business, Nursing, and Education, and the Women's Studies Program. While neither Carnes nor Handelsman has ties to the COE, an essential partner, Dean Paul Peercy's willingness to house WISELI provides an ideal link with the COE.

2) The COE, which has the smallest percentage of women faculty, receives a necessary added advantage because the PI's can be both impartial advisors to Dean Peercy, and serve an ombuds role for women COE faculty. Furthermore, physically locating WISELI within the COE will increase the visibility of senior women scientists, a positive environmental change in itself.

3) The LEAD Center, which is directing evaluation of the entire gender equity enterprise, is administratively housed in the COE.

The Co-Directors will oversee the entire program directing each of the proposed initiatives individually or collaboratively; represent WISELI on key committees (e.g. Committee on Women, Women Faculty Mentoring Program Executive Committee); organize the initial Town Hall meeting; plan monthly Leadership Team meetings; work closely with the evaluation team; present biannual updates to the deans at the Chancellor's Leadership Council; informally advise chairs, deans, and women in academic science and engineering; prepare reports for NSF and UW administrators; organize External Advisory Team meetings; network with CIC WISE and national professional organizations; attend national forums to share best practices; publish results of the UW experience in scholarly journals; and write proposals to support additional research using UW as a living laboratory.

Executive Administrator: An Executive Administrator (1.0 FTE) at the doctoral level with experience in data analysis, program administration/development, who is effective at both oral and written communication is essential. The Executive Administrator will work closely with the Co-Directors and the Evaluation Team, develop materials for the public (brochure, web site), may represent WISELI at the request of the directors, interface with multiple academic units, and manage details of the collaborative agreement with NSF. The Executive Administrator will be located full-time in the WISELI office.

Support Staff: Clerical staff (0.5 FTE) will provide office support and a web master (provided by UW cost sharing) will maintain the WISELI web page.

Leadership Team: A group of outstanding scientists and engineers committed to the issues addressed by this proposal has been assembled into a Leadership Team that represents scientific diversity as well as a range of positions and perspectives. Represented are biological sciences (Allen, Sarto), physical sciences (Bier, Brennan, Durand, and Wendt), social sciences (Stambach), humanities (Ford), non-tenure line scientists (Tong), the director of the LEAD Center (Millar), and the Dean of the COE (Peercy). Being a member of the Leadership Team also provides a means to invest in leadership development of these women. In the first year, members of the Leadership Team will be sponsored to attend national workshops for leadership development (e.g. sponsored by their individual professional organization). They will also be sponsored to visit another NSF ADVANCE site and individual members will assume the lead role in working groups to develop specific initiatives. The Leadership Team will meet with the Co-Directors and Administrative Director monthly to plan and implement the proposed initiatives; provide links to women faculty within different divisions to facilitate dialogue, networking, and buy-in from the stakeholders in different units; present updates on WISELI activities at regular departmental or college faculty meetings; provide feedback and advice to the Co-Directors; serve as nominating committee to gather information on and nominate UW women faculty for institutional and national awards serve as review committee for the Life Cycle Grants and Celebrating Women in Science and Engineering Seminar Series; host visiting scientists and leaders for the Celebrating Women in Science and Engineering Seminar Series; disseminate findings within their individual disciplines; network with national organizations such as such as Society of Women Engineers, WEPAN, Women Chemists in the American Chemical Society, Association for Women in Science, Society of Women Engineers, Association of Women in Mathematics.

Administrative Partners: Administrative Partners include administrators across campus including the deans of the 6 colleges where women in science and engineering are under-represented. They will hear reports on WISELI at the biannual Chancellor's Leadership Council, contribute cost share; attend WISELI workshops on addressing issues and interventions that address the under-representation of women in their fields; and visibly support the goals of WISELI within their colleges.

Evaluation Team: The Evaluation Team comprises Dianne Bowcock, team leader, from the LEAD Center; an experienced program evaluator who directed and published the recent CIC WISE evaluation; a 50% staff person; Amy Stambach, an Assistant Professor in Educational Policy Studies and Anthropology who is interested in studying this initiative as a living laboratory; the Executive Administrator; Cecilia Ford, Professor of English; Margaret Harrigan, analyst in the Office of Budget Planning and Analysis; and John Stevenson who directs the Survey Center in the Department of Sociology. The Evaluation Team is responsible for designing and implementing a comprehensive evaluation plan so that we will be able to determine whether this initiative has indeed produced institutional transformation. They will meet at least weekly with the Co-Directors at the outset and less often as the program is implemented and the evaluation plan is underway.

Affiliates: The Affiliates of WISELI are predominantly women faculty at UW-Madison in science and engineering. This group includes representatives from campus gender equity programs, including the directors of Campus Child Care, Graduate Women in Science, the Wisconsin Emerging Scholars Program, and faculty in the Business School. The Affiliates will remain connected to WISELI through list serves, email distribution lists, attendance at selected WISELI-sponsored conferences and workshops. They will also provide input on selection of invited speakers, contribution to the bibliography and calendar on the WISELI website, and identification of local and national awards for which UW women faculty can be nominated.

External Advisory Team: An External Advisory Team has been assembled to contribute to evaluation, offer advice, criticism, and guidance. We have selected individuals who have experience in issues of women in academic science and engineering from different fields. Specifically, Joan King is the former Chair of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Tufts, currently self employed as a Coach for women in academic science, and President of Women in Neuroscience; Sally Kohlstedt is a Professor of History of Science at the University of Minnesota where she built the program for Women in the Institute of Technology and was integrally involved in efforts that increased the number of women faculty in this program by 50%; Sue Rosser is Dean of Georgia Tech and widely published in the area of women and science; Charlotte Kuh is the Deputy Executive Director of the Policy and Global Affairs Division of the National Research Council; and Denice Denton is Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Seattle and a former faculty member of the UW-Madison COE. The External Advisory Team will convene at the outset of the initiative and then annually, receive interim updates with invited feedback, and be available to the co-directors for informal interval consultation.

Sustainability Beyond the Funding Period. We expect WISELI to be sustained long after the NSF funding period because it addresses two core challenges on our campus: 1) it unifies and coordinates initiatives in gender equity and provides systematic access to women in science and engineering; and 2) it evaluates the impact of programs directed to achieve gender equity thereby providing a rational basis for resource allocation.

The Chancellor has committed to making the program sustainable through: 1) support for a permanent, full-time institutional researcher focusing on gender equity at UW-Madison; 2) inclusion of the endowed professorships for women in science and engineering in the list of fund raising targets; 3) commitment to attempt to raise funds for endowing core support of WISELI; 4) continued support of existing gender equity programs modified through the proposed evaluation for the benefit of women in science and engineering. Additional elements that predict a strong basis for sustainability are: 1) tuition costs from the WISELI workshops; 2) PIs' success in writing proposals for extramural support of research of UW-Madison as a living laboratory; 3) opportunity for a Cluster Hire supporting three new positions for women in science and engineering.

Dissemination. We will accomplish dissemination through the WISELI national workshops for women and administrators, presentations at national conferences in the scientific disciplines of the PIs and the members of the Leadership Team (which includes more than 20 professional societies), and articles in popular and scholarly journals. Furthermore, whenever feasible and appropriate, when the PI's or members of the Leadership Team are invited to present scientific seminars on other campuses, they will ask for the opportunity to present a second seminar about WISELI and its findings. This approach worked well for the dissemination of the results of Handelsman's previous NSF grant on reform of science education. We also look forward to being active participants in meetings with the leaders of other NSF Institutional Transformation programs and continuing to contribute to the dialogue around these issues in the CIC.

Footnotes:

a
In this document we use the term "science and engineering" to refer to the fields of biological science and physical science which at UW-Madison include engineering, mathematics and computer science. This terminology is congruent with the wording of NSF's strategic goal, as outlined in the Government Performance and Results Act Strategic Plan FY 1997-2003, to "strive for a diverse, globally oriented workforce of scientists and engineers."

b
The LEAD Center has acquired a national reputation for excellence in the evaluation of campus and outreach projects undertaken by SMET faculty at UW-Madison and its partner institutions. The methods the LEAD Center has developed, their experience base, and their knowledge of the relevant literature enable them to provide cutting edge evaluation for our project.

c
Bowcock authored "Evaluation of the CIC WISE Initiative." Final Evaluation Report (NSF HRD 95-55812). October 2000. Between 1996 to present Bowcock provided program evaluation for UW-Madison: College of Engineering, and the Departments of Computer Science, Pharmacy and Botany, and for the following science-based projects: Undergraduate Research Scholars, "Professional Development of Milwaukee Public Schools" (Science Education Partnership Act funded by NIH), and "Molecular Structures and Functions in University Curriculum" (CCLI funded by NSF).

d
Used together, qualitative and quantitative methods strengthen an evaluation, since they document change and identify the context for that change (Ragin 1994).