In 2022, City College launched the Advancing Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity in STEM (AIDE-STEM) initiative with a $1 million National Science Foundation ADVANCE Adaptation award, a continuation of the pilot ADVANCE IT-Catalyst grant. This grant—along with many other NSF awards– was unexpectedly terminated last year, despite having a year of funding left.
Despite the sudden setback, lead principal investigator Christine Li and co-PIs MC Binz Scharf, Karen Hubbard, Maritsa V. Poros, and Irina Carlota Silber are continuing the work with internal support from CCNY.
Building on this work from the award, the initiative’s goal remains — to implement intersectional, evidence-based programs targeting specific areas of concern to build a lasting culture of fairness and equity.
“Fortunately, we had already begun discussing how to make our work in these areas last beyond the timeline of the grant,” Poros said. “Thus, when the axe fell, we were ready to pivot.”
Prior to the cancellation, the team conducted a series of listening tours across the schools and divisions at the college to understand experiences surrounding mentoring and promotion.
“One of the things that came out of the listening session, for instance, is that we heard from one department that it is really good about mentoring faculty from assistant professor to associate professor and getting them through tenure,” Li said.
“And then as soon as they become Associate Professor, boom, nothing happens. There’s no help for them whatsoever. There’s no meetings to help them become full professors.”
Along with the lack of support, Li also noted a gender imbalance in professor rank and salaries. More women than men are associate professors and are not being promoted to full professor as quickly as men, particularly in Science and Engineering. All male veteran professors were near the top of the salary scale.
Li observed that some faculty were hesitant to share these concerns.
“And then there are some departments who are fearful about talking to us, and that is, of course, never a good thing,” Li said. “In one department, the faculty have no qualms…whether they’re tenured or not tenured, they just speak up. But that’s not true for all departments… and that is very concerning.”
Within the first year of the grant, the ADVANCE team compiled salary equity data, presented their findings to the Faculty Senate, and invited faculty to contribute to the initiative.
“I went through all the salaries, and I said, ‘these are the people who need to be addressed immediately’,” Li said. “We still have assistant professors who are tenured…they’ve been here 20 years. They should be associate professors.”
While detailing salary inequity was straightforward, demonstrating workload inequities was not as straightforward, as it has not been examined in great detail. A rubric was created to outline what counted as workload in some departments, which took faculty testimonies into account. It was found that faculty serving on multiple internal and external committees weren’t receiving credit.
After noticing these issues were spread throughout the college, and often intertwined, the initiative widened its focus beyond the STEM disciplines. Following multiple presentations, two resolutions were passed: to revive the dormant Salary Equity Committee and to create a Workload Equity Committee and a Faculty Mentoring Committee to address disparities.
“Institutionalizing our grant activities related to salary equity, workload equity, and mentoring of faculty is crucial to the long-term survival of this work because it takes an extraordinary amount of time and commitment,” Poros said.
The three committees, made up of eighteen faculty volunteers, will serve as a vehicle to continue the work of the ADVANCE initiative. The team also received bridge funding from CUNY to fuel further activities.
What started as a three-year grant with a team of five soon grew into a college-wide improvement project. The foundation has been planted, and the team notes that this is just the beginning.
“Although the creation of the three committees is an important first step, much work remains ahead and we hope to fulfill the challenge of sustaining the work of a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive college for our faculty and the campus as a whole,” Poros said.
“Ultimately, our work may also be used by other CUNY campuses and tailored to fit their specific needs and environment,” Poros said. “The ADVANCE program’s 20+ year history has shown that this kind of incremental institutional change around issues of equity can have long-term transformative benefits for an entire campus community.”
Mia Euceda served as an editor for Baruch College’s Ticker newspaper and Refract Magazine. Their work has been published in The New York Review of Books and Treble Zine.