Abigail J. Stewart - US grants

We are seeking funding to transcribe, code, and analyze data from a study to how parental divorce affects children. One hundred and three families participated in 1981-82 within eight months of parental separation; these same families are being seen again during 1982-83, one year after their initial participation. Our premise has been that children's adjustment during this transition period can best be predicted by understanding the qualilty of their family system functioning; furthermore, we believe adjustment will change too. Accordingly, we have gathered information that will allow us to describe the family units at each of the two post-separation times in terms of (a) their ability to satisfy several primary functions of a family (i.e., provision of material resources, physical protection, cohesion, regularity, nurturance, and companionship), (b) their interaction patterns (i.e., role boundary ambiguity, triadic tension, and enmeshment), and (c) the psychological adjustment of other family members. Children's adjustment itself will be characterized in terms of behavior problems, emotional adjustment, peer relations, school performance, and physical health. In general, we presume that families that satisfy their primary functions, that are not characterized by pathogenic interaction patterns, and that include well-adjusted family members will have children who show fewer negative effects of the separation; these relationships should generally hold true at both post-separation periods. However, a corollary presumption is that some family and individual characteristics will be more important that others and that which ones are most important may change from one period to the next. Consequently, our approach to data analysis will be to assess relationships between predictors and outcomes at each time of assessment, then to examine the ways in which family system functioning has both concurrent and long-term effects on children's adjustment.

This demonstration project grows out of planning grant activity, which designed a multi-level approach to adapting a successful, intensice two-week summer program to reach a broader audience of urban girls. The present project (GEMS, or Girls Explore Mathematics through Social Science) encompasses an integrated set of three programs designed to strengthen middle-school girls' interest, competence and confidence in mathematics and mathematics-related activities through engaging them in social science research on adolescents. All three progams offer a curriculum that is attractive to middle-school girls, and that encourages their interest in mathematics, science and technology through their pre-existing interest in social issues. All three programs enhance girls' technical skills and itnerests by building on their preference for collaboration and connection; and all three encourage contact with older, relevant model-mentors. The project includes a 10 week, Saturday morning version of the program (GO-GIRL or Gaining Options: Girls Investigate Real Life) that can be offered to urban girls, but retains the key features of high interest, hands-on experience, collaboration, and intergenerational mentoring; and a web based version of the program (SMART-GIRL or Surveys Mathematics and Research Technology: Girls Investigate Real Life) that expands the capacity of a popular existing website to teah girls how to gather and analyze survey data online. At both the University of Michigan and Wayne State University, this project will provide opportunities for the pre-service teachers of mathematics and social studies who are also students, to observe, train, and teach girls on a small scale. The project will yield an economical version of the GEMS curriculum that is usable in urban settings, a teacher professional development program that is exportable to other institutions, as well as appropriate support materials to enable others to implement this curriculum in other cities.

The goal of this project is to contribute to the development of a national science and engineering academic workforce that includes the full participation of women at all levels of faculty and academic leadership, particularly at the senior academic ranks, through the transformation of institutional practices, policies, climate and culture. The University of Michigan proposes to undertake three different types of interventions to improve the opportunities and circumstances of tenure-track women faculty in basic science
and engineering fields. These include: (1) a campus climate initiative, which will focus on activities (e.g., workshops, focus groups, climate surveys, consultation on increasing pools of female applicants in searches) that have been identified, or will be created, and made available to any interested science or engineering unit (a department or college) throughout the University; (2) a gender equity resource fund, which will provide new types of direct support to individuals; and (3) a departmental transformation initiative, which will permit a sequenced program of activities to be developed and tailored to a small number of units on a competitive basis. This sequenced program (including internal review or self-study, goal-setting, and a series of targeted activities addressing recruitment, retention and/or climate issues) will enable a sustained, committed intervention within a single department, as well as provide a model of change for other institutional units.
All three sets of programs will be evaluated by independent researchers. Evaluations will be conducted throughout the course of the Award, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Results of early evaluations will be used to revise
Programs.

This multi-level program is designed to improve the campus environment for women
faculty in science and engineering at the University of Michigan, and as a result to increase the successful recruitment, retention and promotion of tenure-track women faculty in basic science fields. The presence and success of these women faculty will in turn affect the expectations and attitudes of the many women and men who are graduate and undergraduate students in science and engineering fields. Many of these individuals will go on to have science and engineering careers themselves; because UM trains so many students, it is anticipated that the impact of this program will reach well beyond this university. Creation of a more equitable climate at UM will affect other campuses through the next generation of science and engineering faculty who will themselves train students, as well as non-academic work settings in which scientists and
engineers trained at UM are employed.

This project is supported by the NSF ADVANCE Program.
The overall mission of the ADVANCE Program is to increase the participation of women in the scientific and engineering workforce through the increased representation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers.

The proposed project will bring together effective elements from the current UM IT program to form a new activity, STEP (Science and Technology Excellence Program). STEP's goal is the creation of faculty change agents through intensive faculty study of key processes in the career trajectory of scientists and through intervention activities. The proposal draws on the social science literature regarding unconscious bias, accumulation of disadvantage, critical mass, and theories of organization and seeks to contribute a new model for intensified institutional change.
The project goal is to engage groups of male and female STEM faculty in a program of self-education and commitment to becoming active change agents within their academic institutions. The program will bring together several successful activities developed in the course of the UM ADVANCE Institutional Transformation project. This project will contribute a new model for intensified institutional transformation by engaging senior faculty in an intensive (concentrated) and extensive process of becoming change agents within a network of faculty committed to the same goals, and supported over time.

Broader impact: The program will directly reach 300 STEM faculty drawn from UM, the Midwest region, and nationally. The first cohort of UM faculty will participate in networks of later participants, some of whom will also take actions nationally within their disciplines, increasing the impact on the STEM fields. All faculty participants should become better advocates within their institutions and serve as models and leaders for colleagues. Because faculty participants will be operating in departmental teams and larger networks, they will also model alliances of men and women scientists and engineers. The project will include the development of a companion website that will serve several purposes. It will provide information about the model developed through this project, including resources, reading lists, and a toolkit for developing similar programs at other institutions. In addition, it will manage a discussion board to allow participants to maintain connections developed through participation in the program and provide opportunities to share information and as well as help one another problem-solve particular challenges.