Setting the stage for a decade of impact

Editor's note: In 2016, the National Science Foundation gave a group of leaders at The University of New Mexico a shot at reimagining how the university could best recruit, retain and promote women and minority STEM faculty.

Over time, the five-year, $3.3 million project became known as the ADVANCE at UNM initiative and grew into a community of mentors and change makers determined to improve campus climate, bolster research and foster success for all faculty.

ADVANCE, which was institutionalized under the Provost's Office after the NSF grant, is marking 10 years on campus. This series of stories, which will run weekly on Wednesdays through May, revisits the program's origins and early champions, the group's accomplishments and its future.

Top photo: Members of ADVANCE at UNM during one of their first team meetings at UNM in fall 2016.

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As a well-connected chemistry professor and special assistant to the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at UNM in the mid 2010s, Julia Fulghum noticed several concerning trends with faculty across campus.

Support for faculty going through the promotion and tenure process was tepid, and the process was seen by many as unclear.

Mentoring programs felt spotty, especially for women and minority STEM faculty.

Clunky purchasing policies and payment procedures took up valuable faculty time.

Faculty-specific communication on campus was lacking.

And faculty retention was a huge concern - in part because the process to bring new colleagues on board was problematic as well.

"The faculty search process had become so cumbersome that it was becoming a retention issue for current faculty, because they felt they'd never get colleagues because they could just never successfully get through the search process," Fulghum said.

In short, opportunities to improve faculty climate were plentiful.

Several colleagues suggested Fulghum and UNM political science professor Mala Htun, a well-known researcher whose work focused on social inequities, see what could be done.

The pair in 2014 applied for a National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant, which focused on recruiting, retaining and promoting women and minorities in STEM. They were rejected, but Fulghum saw potential in the reviews they received, and she spent time over the next 18 months refining the proposal.

The effort to convince the NSF that UNM needed help and that she and a group of other leaders had a solid plan was successful later in 2016, beating out considerable competition at the national level. Just 8 percent of applications that year for ADVANCE grants were awarded.

"You get those grants because simultaneously there are things that need to improve and there is a will to change. And it seemed like maybe this was the right time."

- Julia Fulghum, ADVANCE director

Fulghum became the director and Htun the deputy director of the program, which became known as ADVANCE at UNM, a name now synonymous on campus with faculty development and support. The grant was for $3.3 million over five years.

From the start, ADVANCE leaders knew that making things better for some faculty ultimately involved making things better for all.

"We realized quickly that if we wanted to make things more equitable, that meant they had to be more transparent, and that meant everyone had to know how UNM works, and what the opportunities are," Fulghum said.

"What if we?"

As the grant was funded and work got underway in the fall of 2016, founding members of the team often huddled in a stuffy conference room in UNM's Social Sciences building before the project had its own space on campus.

The group brought expertise from across campus - in political science, chemistry, sociology, computer science, communication and journalism, and education. Read more about the grant's original co-principal investigators.

Some knew each other, but others had been united around the idea of making UNM as supportive of and friendly to faculty as possible.

The team almost wasn't sure where to begin. It turns out they'd start with a few topics at once and see how it went.

"It was starting by trying to figure out how you start a lot of things at the same time. It was yet another 'we're gonna build this plane while we're flying' moment," Fulghum said.

There was a lot to build as part of the overall effort to support and retain faculty at the state's only Research 1 university.

The group's work would involve making sure the promotion and tenure process was clear and transparent.

It would build a network of faculty mentors, and a confidential place where they could navigate work-related challenges.

Project leaders planned to overhaul frustrating policies and procedures.

ADVANCE also needed a communication infrastructure to promote and celebrate research, teaching and scholarship, and to keep the community informed.

To begin to do all of that, group members in the early days frequently found themselves asking "What if we? . . . "

Figuring out a framework

The "what if" attitude and willingness to try new things was baked in from the beginning of ADVANCE, including in the discussion around a framework for the project.

Htun considered the question of "what if" a well-known managerial engagement model used by private companies was applied to the university.

The team agreed to use the model of diversity promotion created by researchers Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev, which encouraged the engagement of managers and leaders in activities such as the recruitment of women and minority faculty.

Htun, who died in 2025, said the idea of using the model gave the research team a mission to analyze and assess the effects of trying a process at UNM that was used by large and well known corporations.

To see how the approach would fare, the project created a Social Science Research Team that over the next decade would gather data to understand the faculty experience, including through faculty and leadership interviews and faculty surveys. The data would help tailor ADVANCE's programming to current faculty needs and help it make recommendations to leadership.

The team included faculty in management, sociology, psychology and political science, and was a central pillar of the project. It would go on to conduct long term faculty surveys and interviews of leadership, junior faculty and people who left the university.

"The research team was the best way to organize the research arm of our local ADVANCE project," said Felipe Gonzales, a retired professor of sociology who was an original co-principal investigator on the grant and part of the research team.

"It made sense in order to address the complexities of the research by convening a team to discuss each of the research projects," Gonzales said.

Research team members got set up with the support of Abby Stewart, the former director of the University of Michigan ADVANCE Program and a professor of psychology and women's and gender studies.

Stewart said collecting faculty data at the start of the project was critical in helping ADVANCE truly know the challenges that faculty were facing.

"Having high-quality data is, and should be, very persuasive both to the community of faculty themselves and to administrators trying to find policies and practices that can mitigate problems and support faculty ambitions," Stewart said.

"UNM's program has excelled in producing both the data and good ideas about what remedies are implied by the data."

Cover images of reports done by ADVANCE in 2020. Team members conducted surveys and published reports throughout its 10 years. Explore the reports.

Faculty surveys on a regular basis

A staple of the work by the social sciences team was faculty surveys that would lead to actionable data about faculty well-being, work satisfaction, trust in leadership and other topics.

Some climate surveys had been done in the past at UNM, but the team decided to ask "what if" the surveys were repeated over time so crucial longitudinal data was gathered. The group set to work outlining a plan for the next five years.

"With ADVANCE and the climate surveys in particular, what we created was a systematic survey with validated measures," said Lisa Marchiondo, now ADVANCE's deputy director who at the time served on the research team.

"That's a big one, because many people think surveys are simply a matter of making up items. Our work was rooted in best research practices and implemented every two to three years so we have a consistent pulse and can track change over time. We also ensured that the recommendations and practical implications for leaders are at the forefront," she said.

To start, ADVANCE in 2016 found through two surveys that women and underrepresented minorities perceived a lower climate at UNM.

One of the studies identified four mediators, or reasons, that help explain the lower perceptions of campus climate by women in STEM. These mediators were discrimination awareness, seeing bias as problematic, lower university diversity values, and lack of trust in university leadership.

"By identifying these mediators, we're hoping to help give leaders tools they can use to improve climate perceptions," Marchiondo said at the time.

A separate study found that under-represented minority faculty at UNM also reported a lower overall climate at the university. However, URM faculty identified slightly different reasons for their overall lower climate perceptions, including work-life imbalance.

Data from those two surveys helped continue to lay the groundwork for ADVANCE programming. The surveys were part of six campus-wide climate surveys on faculty-related topics. Read the survey reports.

Ultimately, all the data collected by the team allowed UNM leaders to make evidence-based decisions to benefit all faculty, Marchiondo said.

"What I've been happy to see is that our leaders, especially upper administration, are really practicing evidence-based management, which is what I teach my students about," said Marchiondo, an associate professor at the Anderson School of Management.

"So, they base leadership decisions on evidence and the voices of their constituents, the faculty. They are really taking the climate surveys and the interviews that we've been doing seriously and making decisions based on voices and data,"

- Lisa Marchiondo, ADVANCE deputy director

Along with its general climate survey work, ADVANCE leaders also measured specific faculty sentiments, including a look in 2017 at the support from faculty and staff parents to test support for an alignment of the spring breaks of UNM and Albuquerque Public Schools.

Until then, the breaks typically did not align, and ADVANCE saw that as being un-family friendly, as it left faculty and staff with a need for child care while they had to work, and with a week off that they couldn't spend with their kids.

The survey found 82 percent of faculty parents strongly supported alignment. With that data in hand, ADVANCE worked with UNM President Garnett Stokes' office, who approached APS officials to advocate for alignment.

"If the breaks align, it's good for everyone," Fulghum said. "It's a no-cost change that could mean more family time for everyone."

Since the survey, the breaks aligned twice and ADVANCE still sees the issue of helping faculty parents as important.

Fulghum said the scheduling turned out to be more complicated than anticipated given the logistics and the number of people involved at UNM and APS.

"But this type of advocacy for ideas that support faculty in their personal lives - which ultimately can support them in their professional lives - is an example of all the things we looked at to support faculty," Fulghum said.

The social science research team would gather other data along the way, including a survey that found UNM's parental leave policy works well in units in which the leadership understands the policy. The policy also works well in units where leaders support faculty using the policy, and can help departmental faculty with the implementation and subsequent evaluation of faculty accomplishments, the survey found.

Understanding how parental leave was being used figured into the overall picture of faculty satisfaction, Fulghum said.

"Balancing parenting with teaching, research and all the other things was a common theme" in discussions ADVANCE had with faculty, she said.

To help faculty parents another way, the ADVANCE communication team 2020 launched an annual summer camp guide, which continues now as a way to save parents time when looking for summer activities for their kids. It is one of the most visited web pages for the program each year.

Caregiving by faculty on a larger scale - including for adults - would come back up again on ADVANCE's radar, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Faculty and leadership interviews

The social science team, which included several doctoral students over the course of the project as well, tasked themselves with faculty and leadership interviews to dive deeper into campus climate questions.

While exit interviews are commonly done at universities, the team asked "what if" team members also interviewed current UNM leaders as well as junior faculty.

All told, the team conducted 57 assistant professor interviews, 18 exit interviews and eight leadership interviews.

Gonzales said the interviews found that issues largely beyond UNM's control often led to faculty leaving UNM.

"The common reasons mid-level and junior faculty left had more to do with salaries and resources than climate issues. That was encouraging in some ways. State support and material resources were major factors."

Marchiondo said the interviews "added richness beyond numbers. The numbers quantify, but the interviews bring stories and details to life. The junior faculty interviews and exit interviews provided rich data around faculty experiences, especially tenure-track faculty."

Through the interviews, the team was able to understand "What were their experiences? What were the pros we should continue? What were the challenges and reasons people were exiting? Which of these, besides money, can leaders shape?"

The interview data was key in faculty retention decisions among others, Marchiondo said.

Highly visible work

One of the most visible parts of ADVANCE on campus continues to be its regular series of faculty development workshops.

Every semester, ADVANCE hosts a variety of events in categories including research success, the promotion and tenure trail, and building an enjoyable career. It works with internal partners across campus who work with faculty, and external allies including guest speakers from a variety of universities.

One of ADVANCE's original partners was the Faculty Research Development Office. At the time, it was headed by Mary Jo Daniel, who was also one of the original co principal investigators on the NSF grant.

Daniel said the collaboration came naturally.

"We (FRDO) were in a position where having more and more connections with faculty made sense and what we were trying to do in terms of research development for faculty aligned really well with the mission of ADVANCE," she said.

The groups went on to host regular research support workshops together over the decade, each contributing to and building a larger faculty development network.

"I think ADVANCE was really critical in helping faculty see and move forward through their whole career progression and research is a part of that," said Daniel, who is now retired.

One benefit of ADVANCE's work was its look at faculty lives with a wide lens.

"There are other things that feed into that and there are connections between their research and their teaching and their service and ADVANCE was really critical in helping faculty see the connections and find balance," Daniel said.

To try and help faculty find equilibrium, ADVANCE hosted other events including writing retreats and "Shut up and Write" events, which created dedicated uninterrupted writing time for grants, books chapters and more. By then ADVANCE had its own space on the corner of campus, set up for confidential meetings, coworking and a bit of relaxing.

The time for writing meant a lot to Geography Professor Maria Lane.

"I was really struggling to finish my book due to the difficulties of balancing other professional and personal responsibilities," she said. "The ADVANCE writing retreats had a huge impact by connecting me to a supportive community and helping me carve out time to focus on writing progress," said Lane, now the Dean of Graduate Studies.

ADVANCE also was becoming known for its work to unravel the complexities of the promotion and tenure process.

"Faculty often arrive with no understanding of what's required," said Melanie Moses, a computer science and biology professor who is a member of the ADVANCE leadership team. "Through ADVANCE, workshops and dissemination of related materials, transparency improved significantly."

That proved true for Myrriah Gomez, an associate professor in the Honors College who attended a workshop on prepping for tenure to help her prepare.

"I remember the workshop was packed, and this immediately hinted to me how badly these workshops were needed on campus. The workshop demystified the process for me," she said. "Additionally, the post-tenure workshop was also useful, particularly the conversation around service loads."

- Myrriah Gomez, associate professor, Honors College

Over the years, hundreds of faculty in departments across campus have attended ADVANCE workshops. A large portion of the workshops have been in collaboration with the Faculty Research Development office, a key ADVANCE partner.

FRDO Assistant Director of Research Strategy and Programming Hannah Yohalem said collaborating with ADVANCE has been invaluable and bolsters FRDO's work with faculty in multiple ways.

"Through ADVANCE's newsletter and website, we reach a wider faculty audience for our programs and resources; our co-presentations allow us to extend our support beyond FRDO's research-focused mission to support faculty more holistically; and we value the ADVANCE leadership team as thought-partners who help make sure FRDO is strategically supporting faculty," she said.

Behind the scenes work

Along with ADVANCE's most visible work, team members were at work on less well known policy changes meant to benefit faculty.

ADVANCE collaborated with leaders from UNM Purchasing and other units, leading to improvements including several policies that are clearer, streamlined some purchase procedures, and improved training.

For example, team leaders including Moses set out to tackle procedures at UNM related to spending on research and travel that were cumbersome and aggravating.

"There's always tension between accountability and usability," Moses said. "Some procedures made it nearly impossible to spend grant money properly. Faculty shouldn't spend their time on unnecessarily complicated processes."

Looking back, Moses said part of the need was simply forging a connection between the people in charge of the policies and the people using them.

"Opening lines of communication between faculty and administration was critical," Moses said.

Communication component

Another "what if" of the early days involved seeing if the NSF would approve of the ADVANCE project having a dedicated communication arm. The work of this team would be to disseminate information about ADVANCE's programming, provide relevant faculty news, and highlight the successes of faculty.

Fulghum, who had worked on many other grants, knew she wanted one person in charge of a communication strategy. She envisioned a plan that included internal and external content creation and dissemination through a website, newsletters and other channels.

"I just knew that every project I've ever been on where they said, 'oh, yeah, we'll have someone do a website' had never worked. It needed to be a dedicated person," Fulghum recalled thinking.

At the time, the thought of a staff person focused on communication as part of a grant project was novel. But NSF program managers liked the idea and it became part of the approved proposal. The effort grew into a team lead by then-UNM multimedia communication instructor Kate Cunningham and comprised of multimedia communication interns who used writing, video, social media and design to keep the community informed.

Communication campaigns included a video series of UNM researchers working in the far flung reaches of the state; digital shoutouts and accolades for faculty; stories for the ADVANCE website and social media, and more. Later, the NSF would cite the communication program as a national model.

"Honestly - the stories that were written have been a huge benefit," Moses said. "They allow faculty to see each other's successes. That builds community."

The communication infrastructure, which included frequent emails, newsletters and a constantly updated website, proved invaluable over the next few years. The network was particularly important by the time the COVID pandemic came along in 2020 and faculty needed information and connections, Moses said.

"Communication and storytelling were critical to ADVANCE's success. Being able to get messages out was essential," she said.