A grant from the National Science Foundation is helping the PVAMU and Texas A&M University assist female faculty in their professional endeavors.
PVAMU received an $850,000 grant to fund an ADVANCE-PAID project with the goal of creating a program aimed at assisting female faculty in navigating and advancing through the professoriate ranks and entering into academic administration at Historically Black College and Universities (HBCU) in Colleges or Schools of Engineering and Technology.
Fourteen HBCUs, including Jackson State University, Norfolk State University, Howard University, are participating in the program. The faculty members selected for the program are exposed to professional development, leadership workshops, mentoring, professional coaches, seed grants and a female faculty repository.
“The project has impacted more than 49 participants in one or more of the slated activities and over the coming year, which represents about 81% of potential participants represented,” said Dr. Felecia Nave, associate provost and associate vice president for Academic Affairs. Nave is also the principal investigator of the project.
“When the project was awarded, there were 55 women faculty ranked at the assistant, associate and full professor ranks. This totaled about 8% of the total faculty at the targeted institutions. Over the past 3 years, we have experienced a modest increase to 60 women faculty, that are assistant, associate or full professors, and are tenure track or tenured across the 14 HBCUs,” Nave continued.
Nave said ADVANCE-PAID seeks to increase the retention and advancement women engineering and technology faculty through the professoriate and into administration.
At the start of the summer, the PVAMU/TAMU ADVANCE-PAID Professional Development Workshop was held in Houston. The conference programming sought to assist female faculty in their professional development and growth. The slate of presenters and facilitators included internationally renowned scholars in their respective fields of expertise.
The project is funded through 2014.
For additional information about the project, please visit our website at www.advancehbcuwomenfaculty.org.
