Stevens awarded ADVANCE grant

The National Science Foundation, or NSF, is responsible for a lot of great doings, much of which impact all of us. If you have ever watched educational television, chances are good that the NSF helped to fund it.
If you’ve ever been a fan of Bill Nye, you can thank the NSF for raising him towards the public eye. Now, the institution has another reason to be praised, especially by Stevens students and the faculty who help them succeed.
Our school has been awarded the ADVANCE Stevens grant for $550,000 for the purpose of rewarding and maintaining the stellar performance of the women professors at the university.
As part of the NSF’s PAID (Partnership in Adaptation Implementation and Dissemination) program, instilled specifically for the promotion of gender equality within the realm of STEM, Stevens received a particularly significant amount from such an esteemed governmental institution.
Many of the factors that contributed to the reception of this award include the very rapid growth of course offerings, post-graduation career opportunities, and – of course – the enrollment and employment of female students and faculty, respectively.
“ADVANCE Stevens supports the strategic plan’s focus on improving faculty diversity,” said Susan Metz, director of diversity and inclusion at Stevens and principal investigator of the grant.
“The NSF grant provides resources to facilitate efforts to eliminate bias, primarily unintended bias, present in the minds of men and women and embedded within policies and practices of organizations that make it more difficult for women to succeed in academia.”
However, because women are seen as having equal potential for success to their male counterparts, they now receive the same opportunities to achieve such goals.
Because of the exemplary social and academic progress made within the Stevens community due to the inclusion of women, said women have rightfully earned the financial edge to ensure the “Sustainable Culture” that the ADVANCE grant promises.
A major socioeconomic issue these days includes the wage imbalance between male and female employees for the same work, and ADVANCE Stevens helps to bridge that gap.
“The grant aims to broaden and strengthen professional networks to facilitate retention and advancement of faculty within both groups – a potential national model and source of best practices,” Metz adds.
“Women represent more than half of the population, more than half of those enrolled in higher education, and nearly half of the workforce, yet they are persistently underrepresented in STEM fields,’’ remarked President Nariman Farvardin.
“Unless we as a society do everything we can to harness the talent of women – as well as others who are underrepresented in the technical fields – we are under-utilizing resources sorely needed to solve the complex challenges the U.S. faces in the 21st century. I’m delighted that Stevens is playing a leadership role in this important national effort.”
Since the inclusion of women to the university in 1971, Stevens has seen a rise of prestige and excellence in both its world view and the world’s view of us.
It is truly about time that the female population of Stevens receives the accolade of such national recognition, for it is the women and their various successes to which the university attributes much of its progress.