Rutgers University Faculty Advancement and Institutional Re-imagination (RU FAIR) is a five-year program funded by a grant from NSF ADVANCE (Award: HRD-0810978) for Institutional Transformation designed to increase the participation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers by changing institutional culture and practices. Our programs examine institutional policies and practices that disadvantage women and work to improve the academic career trajectory of women through a long-term, systemic approach to institutional transformation.
RU FAIR ADVANCE builds upon the strong foundation of the university’s efforts to address issues of diversity and equity by offering several independent and parallel strategies to increase the retention, recruitment, and promotion of women in science, social science, engineering, and mathematics (SEM) disciplines at Rutgers University. The goal of the RU FAIR program is to remove barriers to recruitment and retention of women faculty, to advocate for greater diversity in senior leadership positions and to provide higher visibility to the achievements of Rutgers’ women faculty in SEM disciplines.
These goals can be summed as two overarching or meta-initiatives that are key to women's full participation and advancement in STEM and drive institutional transformation and RU FAIR activities: 1) Recruitment and Retention and 2) Leadership and Professional Development.
Five initiatives support our goals:
- Recruitment and Retention Initiatives:
- Develop a targeted strategy for increasing the number of women in general, and minority women in particular, on the SEM faculty of Rutgers University.
- Communication Initiatives:
- Enhance communication among faculty within a geographically and structurally complex multi-campus university.
- Build on exisisting initiatives to enhance our web presence and establish RU FAIR professorships within different schools and campuses.
- Sponsor social events, such as lunches and picnics, to give SEM faculty from different campuses more opportunities to network.
- Networking and Liaisons with Women's Programs Initiatives:
- Develop RU FAIR mini-grants for faculty development and to encourage interdisciplinary research across schools and campuses.
- Work closely with the nationally acclaimed Rutgers Institute for Women's Leadership (IWL) to deliver leadership training, to encourage research, and to develop interdisciplinary courses.
- Visibility Initiatives:
- Achieve greater visibility for our women faculty by creating a bigger web presence, instituting a lecture series, nominating our faculty members and postdoctoral associates for prestigious awards.
- Working with the Rutgers Media Relations to generate increased press coverage for their research accomplishments.
- Family Initiatives:
- Bolster the resources available for dual career families, families with children, and families caring for elderly members.
- Institute a dialogue among administrators, faculty, and staff concerning what changes in current campus structure, tenure regulations, and other policies would best accommodate the needs of families.
For more information, please download the Rutgers RU FAIR ADVANCE full proposal.
To view current and past Request for Proposals (RFP's) for faculty funding, visit our Funding page.
