Purpose – This paper aims to highlight interventions that promote female (and male) faculty’s ability to balance work-family issues at a specific academic institution, in response to a demand in the literature that examines the intersection between research and implementation of organizational policies within a university setting. Design/methodology/approach – Using a case study framework, the researchers present qualitative experiences and quantitative data to evaluate the successful application of a work-family balance and organizational climate improvement initiative within an academic setting. Findings – By highlighting specific examples of work-family and climate initiatives at the individual, organization, and community levels, this case study presents several ways in which academic institutions specifically, and organizations generally, can implement policies that make a difference. Practical implications – Successful implementation of work-family balance and family-friendly organizational policies can positively impact employees. Originality/value – Our goal is to highlight and provide data showing a specific example of how female (and male) faculty members’ experiences can be (and have been) improved in a prototype institution.
This paper reports on an engineering faculty survey designed to provide insights into why under represented (women, African American men, Latinos, and Native American men) enter academia. There continues to be a shortage of participation from these groups in the engineering field and even with all the efforts of people, foundations, and agencies, the numbers are not increasing. Determining what the factors are that motivate and encourage young people to pursue Ph.D.s and then select academic careers, is vital to the economic growth of America.
Purpose – Mentoring of junior faculty members (i.e. professors) in higher education has been documented to be critical to their academic success which most often takes the form of receiving tenure and/or promotion to higher academic ranks at universities in the USA. A “junior faculty member” would be defined as someone who has not yet been tenured or promoted and is usually within the first five years of their academic appointment. However, mentoring relationships can sometimes be difficult to build and momentum for continuous mentoring throughout the pre-tenure period can be a challenge to maintain. One of the concerns identified by mentees is the importance of regular meetings with mentors and the concomitant difficulty of knowing what to address in these meetings so as to make them productive and helpful. Mentors, most often senior faculty members, note that they do not always know the most relevant issues to discuss with junior faculty during mentoring meetings. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – In an effort to address these issues, the authors describe here the development of using creative technology to support a new mentoring system that provides structured prompts and reminders to both mentors and mentees and uses tools to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the mentoring relationship. Findings – This paper highlights a pilot program, describing the rationale for and stages in the development of an e-mail-based and mobile-based program to improve the quality of mentoring for junior faculty at one higher education institution. Focus group data provided by stakeholders (e.g. faculty, department chairs, and associate deans) are provided. Originality/value – Professional development and academic success for junior faculty members may be strengthened by greater attention to formal mentoring strategies such as the one described here.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.