Public Affairs and Outreach

Other Agency – ADVANCE-PAID: Promoting Institutional Change at the University of Oklahoma and within the Big XII Conference

Mavriplis (primary – CIMMS at NSSL), Riley, Murphy, Murphy, Snyder, Kosmopoulou, Damphousse

Funding Agency: NSF

Objectives
Initiate awareness and institutional change for gender and other diversity at the faculty level at OU in the sciences and engineering, in the Big XII Conference, and outreach to the community.

Accomplishments
As part of this project, we have been organizing evens on the OU campus to inform faculty and build momentum for institutional change for faculty diversity. In December, we hosted the OU Academic Dual Career Couples for a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of being a dual-career couple at OU. Other events, such as a Distinguished Speaker Lecture Series and Brown Bag Lunches took place throughout the Winter-Spring semester.

Outreach to the community included organizing through the Oklahoma EPSCOR Office a “Women in Science” Meeting for 600 high school students from across Oklahoma in February 2007 at the Oklahoma City Omniplex.

We also trained ourselves for a workshop for Search Committee Chairs and a Chairs Workshop that we will implement at OU. We also met with OU administrators to inform them of the project and to determine what the project could do to help the individual colleges.

A climate survey has been developed and will be administered in the fall. Preparations for the Big XII Workshop on Faculty Recruitment, Retention and Leadership at OU 10-11 January 2008 are underway.

This project is ongoing.

High School girls listen to women scientists speak about their careers at the Oklahoma City Omniplex.