2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Mentoring interventions, particularly mentoring that incorporates networking, have been effective at meeting the professional needs of women and under-represented minority (URM) faculty ​​(Austin and Laursen, 2014; Mendez et al., 2020). Women in STEM careers are reported to feel left out of networks and thus face decreased social and administrative support (Xu et al., 2011). The isolation of URM women in engineering in the xxx system is apparent in the fact that many xxx engineering departments have no more than a single URM woman faculty. Thus, despite current mentoring programs at each xxx campus, there is not a single other woman within their engineering department with whom they may discuss shared experiences of their intersectional identity. As part of the NSF funded ADVANCE grant (XXXX), in order to address this isolation and to provide mentoring and networking opportunities for women engineering faculty in the xxx system, particularly woman who identify as URM, a series of virtual (to enable cross-campus mentoring), small group setting (to incorporate networking) mentoring events were organized. These are three “speed” mentoring events each year with a short two-hour commitment for mentors. Mentees rotate to breakout rooms on topics of their choice, such as navigating tenure, proposal writing, building a research network, academic leadership, dealing with biases, and engineering education. There are usually 3 to 8 people in each session which provides an opportunity to make meaningful connections and broaden faculty networks. Note that there was no such cross-institutional program available in the xxx system before this initiative. Another aspect of this initiative that is unique is the emphasis on foreign born or trained women. Past studies have found that women born or trained outside the US face unique challenges in academia (Oka et al. 2022). Although the speed mentoring events are open to all, there is specific emphasis on those who are normally excluded from formal mentoring. Although we are only in the second year of this effort, we will report the post-event survey results which includes the demographics of the participants and will discuss the importance and impact of these events.