Collaboration and Gender Equity among Academic Scientists

Universities were established as hierarchical bureaucracies that reward individual attainment in evaluating success. Yet collaboration is crucial both to 21st century science and, we argue, to advancing equity for women academic scientists. We draw from research on gender equity and on collaboration in higher education, and report on data collected on one campus. Sixteen focus group meetings were held with 85 faculty members from STEM departments, separated by faculty rank and gender (i.e., assistant professor men, full professor women). Participants were asked structured questions about the role of collaboration in research, career development, and departmental decision-making. Inductive analyses of focus group data led to the development of a theoretical model in which resources, recognition, and relationships create conditions under which collaboration is likely to produce more gender equitable outcomes for STEM faculty. Ensuring women faculty have equal access to resources is central to safeguarding their success; relationships, including mutual mentoring, inclusion and collegiality, facilitate women’s careers in academia; and recognition of collaborative work bolsters women’s professional advancement. We further propose that gender equity will be stronger in STEM where resources, relationships, and recognition intersect—having multiplicative rather than additive effects

Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education in Geography

This paper describes the development, implementation, and preliminary outcomes of Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education (EDGE) in Geography, a multi-year project begun in 2005 to study the process of professional development in graduate geography in the U.S and sponsored by the National Science Foundation. As a research and action project responding to the needs of graduate geography programs, EDGE seeks to provide academic geographers with an empirical perspective of disciplinary as well as interdisciplinary and generic skills that M.A./M.S. and Ph.D. students develop as a result of graduate education. Related objectives are to understand how disciplinary skills are applied by geography graduates once they enter the professional workforce in both academic and non-academic professional settings, and to gauge the extent graduate programs are sufficiently preparing geography graduates for those careers. We begin by summarizing the research goals and design of EDGE, highlighting the roles and contributions of geographers and educational researchers, and noting the interplay and synergy between disciplinary and interdisciplinary methodologies and practices. To date, research has focused on: 1) assessing contemporary workforce competencies in professional geography and 2) examining the role of department climate and culture on student experience and faculty development within masters and doctoral programs. Although the EDGE research efforts are still underway, we present some preliminary research findings and discuss the implications of those outcomes for professional development in geography and related social and environmental sciences. Also discussed is the complementary nature of discipline-based and interdisciplinary professional development efforts

Discovering a new Indiana economy : the role of higher education

Rural areas ; Rural development ; Education ; Universities and colleges

Towards Convergence: How to Do Transdisciplinary Environmental Health Disparities Research.

Increasingly, funders (i.e., national, public funders, such as the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation in the U.S.) and scholars agree that single disciplines are ill equipped to study the pressing social, health, and environmental problems we face alone, particularly environmental exposures, increasing health disparities, and climate change. To better understand these pressing social problems, funders and scholars have advocated for transdisciplinary approaches in order to harness the analytical power of diverse and multiple disciplines to tackle these problems and improve our understanding. However, few studies look into how to conduct such research. To this end, this article provides a review of transdisciplinary science, particularly as it relates to environmental research and public health. To further the field, this article provides in-depth information on how to conduct transdisciplinary research. Using the case of a transdisciplinary, community-based, participatory action, environmental health disparities study in California's Central Valley provides an in-depth look at how to do transdisciplinary research. Working with researchers from the fields of social sciences, public health, biological engineering, and land, air, and water resources, this study aims to answer community residents' questions related to the health disparities they face due to environmental exposure. Through this case study, I articulate not only the logistics of how to conduct transdisciplinary research but also the logics. The implications for transdisciplinary methodologies in health disparity research are further discussed, particularly in the context of team science and convergence science

A Future of Failure? The Flow of Technology Talent into Government and Civil Society

This report is an evaluation of the technology talent landscape shows a severe paucity of individuals with technical skills in computer science, data science, and the Internet or other information technology expertise in civil society and government. It investigates broadly the health of the talent pipeline that connects individuals studying or working in information technology-related disciplines to careers in public sector and civil society institutions. Barriers to recruitment and retention of individuals with the requisite skills include compensation, a perceived inability to pursue groundbreaking work, and cultural aversion to innovation

Collaborative Crop Research Program

For over 30 years, The McKnight Foundation's Collaborative Crop Research Program (CCRP) has explored solutions for sustainable local food systems through agricultural research. The program grew out of the Foundation's Plant Biology Program, which was founded in 1983, and reflects the Foundation's long-time commitment to place-based grantmaking and learning from those working on the ground. In 2014, the Foundation engaged The Philanthropic Initiative (TPI) to develop a historic overview of the CCRP to capture its origins and evolution over the last 30 years. To develop this narrative, TPI interviewed past and current Board members, staff, consultants and grantees who had been involved at various stages in the lifespan of the program, and reviewed existing documents, reports and meeting notes.The report that follows is to serve as part of the "institutional memory" of The McKnight Foundation's Collaborative Crop Research Program. Its heavy reliance on individual recollections may detract from its precision, but such reflections bring to life the program's three decades of commitment, collaboration, and adaptation in an effort to contribute to a world where all have access to nutritious food that is sustainably produced by local people. While not an evaluative document, key moments of influence and impacts are noted along the way