Female faculty members get boost at Marshall

The grant allows Marshall University to develop its mentoring program and find other ways to increase the number of female faculty members in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The grant is a two-year extension on a program that was started in 2006 with a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Marcia Harrison has taken the lead in the MU Advance Group in obtaining these grants. Harrison says it was important to start the program at Marshall and it will be equally important to continue it.

“We knew we needed more than three years,” she said. “We’ll need more than five years, but to have that extra time means that we can continue to make the program work.”

When the project started, Harrison says she and others worked with the faculty, staff and administrators to figure out what barriers were preventing women from entering these fields.

Harrison says it’s important to help women in these fields take care of their family while advancing student knowledge.

Also, Harrison says it’s important that the faculty be mixed so that students receive a diverse education.

“I think just in general when you can relate to the teacher that way you have different teachers to relate to, it makes a difference,” Harrison said.

Often, women who are scholars in these areas tend to go in to industry jobs instead of teaching, she said.

Harrison says she’s proud of the support the program has received from other female faculty at Marshall. They are working with human resources at Marshall to encourage potential female faculty recruits.

“We know that we have at least 70 percent of the female faculty in the S.T.E.M. disciplines, participating in some aspect of the program,” Harrison said.

Harrison says they will soon hold workshops for faculty to continue to come up with ideas on increasing the number of female instructors.