A $1 million U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) ADVANCE Partnership grant, Increasing the Participation and AdvanCemenT of Women in Information Technology (ImPACT IT), is being led by AIS member Eleanor Loiacono of the College of William and Mary as the principal investigator (PI), and Lakshmi Iyer of Appalachian State University and Elizabeth Long Lingo of Worcester Polytechnic Institute as Co-PIs. Michelle Carter of Washington State University and Adriane Randolph of Kennesaw State University complete the core team as consultants to the project.

The ImPACT project is focused on addressing the lack of gender equity within IT academia. In particular, the grant focuses on supporting women and under-represented groups in advancing to the rank of full professor worldwide. The project, funded by a three-year NSF grant, is specifically to collaborate with AIS to “create and institutionalize best practices and system to support women in their path to full professor; and reduce hidden and implicit bias. (WM announcement)”. The hope is that the results of this grant can be replicated and will be seen as a model for other academic associations.

There are many motivations supporting this grant which include that only 10% of IS full professors are women with only 25% of professors overall being women. IS women faculty have significantly lower job satisfaction than men. Within AIS, only 10% of the top leadership positions have been held by women over the 22-year history and only 10.5% of top awards (LEOs) have gone to women.

“The ImPACT NSF ADVANCE grant is designed to foster gender equity through a focus on the identification and elimination of organizational barriers that impede the full participation and advancement of diverse faculty in IS,” said AIS Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Eleanor Loiacono.

Using a three-pronged intersectional approach, ImPACT IT will:

1. Assess, develop, and improve AIS policies and practices, through a) collecting and analyzing intersectional data and b) conducting a self-assessment,
2. Create and institutionalize best practices and systems that support women in their path towards promotion to full
3. Iteratively review, pilot, and to reduce and mitigate hidden and implicit biases within the AIS and its members.

Since the launch of the project, the core team, AIS volunteer leadership, staff and members from all three regions have formed working groups to review existing data mechanisms, develop data collection measures with gender equity and intersectionality in mind, and review existing AIS processes. The team, along with a working group of AIS members is in the process of creating a self-assessment framework and identifying best practices for the association related to equity in mentoring, evaluating, and supporting associate faculty applying to full professor status. The project leaders have also started interviews with members from each region to determine how faculty navigate careers in IS.

To stay up to date with the project, visit https://impactit.pages.wm.edu.