Posted: December 6, 2024
One of the metrics for faculty success at Lehigh often includes recognition through awards and prizes, however studies show women are less likely to win national awards for their scholarship than men (here's a recent paper about awards in psychology). This Fall, LU-WISE members chose to take a cue from a not often discussed playbook for success by agreeing to nominate one another for awards. First, LU-WISE started curating a list (with due dates) of prestigious awards for different disciplines. Second, members agreed to ask each other to be nominated and help support the nominees by contributing to the nomination packet, for example with recommendation letters. LU-WISE also took this approach towards the internal University Faculty Awards. While internal processes don't permit knowing who all the nominees are for a given award, we are proud to showcase the following women faculty were recognized at the November 2024 Faculty Awards Celebration.
Below is a snippet of the STEM women faculty awardees during the University awards November 2024 program. See all the recognized faculty here (includes staff awards from last semester).
| Alfred Noble Robinson Faculty Award | Kate Jackson |
| Hillman Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising | Ana Alexandrescu |
| Global Engagement and Internationalization Award | Fathima Wakeel |
| Hillman Faculty Award | Jennifer Swann |
| Inclusive Excellence Faculty Award | Vassie Ware |
| Lehigh Early Career Award for Distinguished Teaching | Whitney Blocher McTigue |
| Libsch Early Career Research Award | Jill McDermott |
ADVANCE endorses a multi-modal strategy to change the demographics of who is recognized. Women taking steps to self-promote and take steps to close these disparities is useful and one strategy. The other strategy is to change how the awards apparatus operates to be more inclusive and equitable, thus producing more diverse outcomes. This December 2024 article by Annmarie Caño in Inside Higher Ed builds on past research and action of AWIS and others.
- Conduct an intersectional data analysis of prior award winners
- Remove obstacles that bar entry to opportunities
- Create multiple paths to nomination
- Regularly nominate members of your unit.
- Increase awareness of bias in selection committees
- Create and use awards rubrics
What strategies should we tackle next to evolve our University and disciplinary awards processes? What are unit leaders and selection committees able to implement?
