SU ADVANCE works to remove obstacles for women entering STEM fields
Courtesy of Marie Garland
Marie Garland said she wants to help women, specifically professors and students, entering STEM fields for their careers.
Women earn less than 20 percent of degrees awarded in engineering, computer sciences and physics, according to a 2015 study by the National Science Foundation. That’s something SU ADVANCE is working to change.
A resource for diversity and inclusion on campus, the program on Syracuse University’s campus seeks to remove the obstacles that deter women from STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and math.
SU ADVANCE executive director Marie Garland said it focuses on four key areas, including networking and recruiting, to make the university a better place for women in STEM to work.
Implemented on the SU campus in 2010, the program is funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation. Garland said several SU faculty members pursued the grant several years ago after seeing the opportunity to create change in a sometimes-overlooked area.
We’re much more of a resource than people recognize. We hear from faculty that they did not realize how helpful some of the things we can provide are until they had them.Marie Garland
The NSF requires SU ADVANCE to keep track of certain goals, including faculty search processes and the quality of interactions women in STEM have in their fields. Garland believes these guidelines benefit the program by holding it accountable for its work.
Garland said it’s easy to look at the increase of women in STEM positions on campus. She added, however, you can’t easily measure how dedicated faculty members are when it comes to building an inclusive university.
“It’s harder to measure commitment to an ideal than it is to say the number of people that were hired,” said Garland. “But the number of people hired really reflects a much deeper commitment among faculty to make a change in the overall climate in STEM departments.”
However, it’s not just faculty members who benefit from SU ADVANCE’s resources. Garland said students are able to thrive because of the program, making connections that might otherwise be unavailable.
Garland also makes it clear how invested she is in SU ADVANCE’s initiatives.
“I’m passionate about workplace equity,” she said. “It’s really rewarding to engage those issues and questions, knowing that I can make a difference for people in their everyday lives.”
Published on April 13, 2016 at 12:02 am
