CMU To Lead Alliance To Explore Equitable Career Advancement In Higher Education

Carnegie Mellon University will lead an alliance to develop a new career advancement model, Project ELEVATE, through the Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP), with Johns Hopkins University and New York University also part of the team.

The model will be funded by a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Effective summer 2022, the institutions will team up to develop a new model that promotes equitable advancement of early-career tenure-stream engineering faculty from underrepresented groups in STEM.

Project ELEVATE (Equity-focused Launch to Empower and Value AGEP Faculty to Thrive in Engineering) will focus on three major areas: equity-focused institutional changes that support the advancement of AGEP faculty; developing and sustaining an infrastructure that facilitates impactful mentorship of AGEP junior faculty in support of career advancement; and professional development that equips all engineering faculty and institutional leaders with skills to implement inclusive practices and to support career advancement.

Alaine Allen,(opens in new window) CMU College of Engineering associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion, will champion efforts as the principal investigator. The full CMU project team includes Shelley Anna(opens in new window), professor of�chemical engineering and associate dean for faculty and graduate affairs, and strategic initiatives in the College of Engineering and William Sanders,(opens in new window) the Dr. William D. and Nancy W. Strecker Dean of the College of Engineering, as co-principal investigators, and Neetha Khan(opens in new window), research development associate in the College of Engineering, as the project manager.

"Project ELEVATE will provide a framework for institutional change at private, highly-selective research institutions to enable all faculty to be members of a collaborative community," said Allen. "I’m proud to lead a project that will support equity design and implement strategies that increase the number of historically underrepresented STEM faculty and promote systemic change."

A representative from the University of Pittsburgh School of Education will serve as the internal evaluator for this project.