A team of Oakland University faculty will conduct research and implement a plan over the next four years to increase the participation of women in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics departments, in thanks to a grant received from the National Science Foundation in September 2011.

Kathleen Moore, associate dean for the College of Arts and Sciences and biochemistry professor at OU, jump-started the idea after attending a workshop at Wayne State University. She and a colleague decided to submit a proposal in order begin a program like this at OU.

“It’s not that we were screaming there’s a problem, but when you look at the statistics, some of our departments have a good representation of women and some have none,” Moore said.

Bradley Roth, a professor in the department of physics, is one of the faculty members working with Moore on this project.

According to Roth, the NSF is the main federal agency that supports science in the United States. In addition to the sciences, the NSF helps engineering fields.

“They put a high priority on (the project),” Roth said.

The grant will help figure out what can be done to enhance both the attraction of women to OU and the successful promotion to full professor.

“It’s an ambitious four-year project,” Moore said.

The first year of the grant will include a “mini institutional transformation study.” This means that Moore and her colleagues will gather information through surveys and focus groups to determine where women stand in OU’s STEM departments.

Moore said there are women with doctorate degrees in these fields of study, but they don’t represent a high number of tenure faculty.

“They are probably getting jobs but they aren’t getting faculty tenure track jobs, which is really for anybody in the academic science field,” Roth said. “They go on to become a professor at the university.”

Moore believes that it’s possible that female scientists aren’t attracted to OU because policies might not be sensitive enough to issues such as pregnancy and multiple career families.

Faculty in the STEM fields are often expected to continue establishing themselves through labs, research and obtaining their own funding year-round.

Moore said the university also wants to provide mentors for women interested in become tenured faculty members.

“We’ll definitely need four years to get this implanted,” Roth said.

Although it’s a four-year grant, the university wishes to get most of the research done in the first year.

For more information about programs and available grants go to www.nsf.gov.

 

Contact staff intern Misha Mayhand via email at [email protected].  Follow her on Twitter @Mac_Me_Over.