About

UD ADVANCE is an institute focused on faculty development and success. Its broad goals are to diversify and strengthen UD’s faculty as well as to foster positive departmental climates.

The UD ADVANCE Institute started in 2014, when the University of Delaware received a National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant to effect large-scale comprehensive change and serve as a locus for research on gender equity and institutional transformation for academic STEM.

Between 2008 and 2013, UD held an ADVANCE PAID (Partnerships for Adaptation, Implementation, and Dissemination) grant jointly between the College of Engineering and the College of Arts & Sciences. Two workshops were developed under this program and held annually: (1) Best Practices in Faculty Recruitment, aimed toward faculty search committee members; and (2) Mentoring the Mentors, aimed toward senior faculty assigned as procedural mentors to junior faculty. This grant laid the groundwork for more comprehensive and effective strategies to be developed and left a measurable impact: Following the workshops, the number of women hires more than doubled in targeted departments; no pre-tenure women faculty left the ADVANCE-supported STEM departments; and promotion rates were higher.

Archived information from the UD ADVANCE PAID grant may be accessed here.