Program History

AIDE-STEM builds upon the ADVANCE IT-Catalyst award (NSF HRD 1409841) received by CCNY in 2014. The grant sought to protect the advancement of women and BIPOC faculty in STEM as CCNY moves toward becoming more research intensive. The Catalyst team sought to understand the underlying challenges women and BIPOC STEM faculty face in achieving success in the professoriate. The Catalyst results indicated a lack of growth in STEM women and BIPOC faculty at CCNY from Fall 2010 to Fall 2014. It suggested a number of reasons women and BIPOC faculty were not advancing in the professoriate, chief among them a lack of mentorship for women Associate Professors. Data also indicated a disproportionate burden of service on women faculty as well as challenges and obstacles related to networking and lack of opportunities for collaboration.

At the conclusion of the IT-Catalyst award in 2017, CCNY convened two committees to understand the hurdles facing the faculty, including one during the COVID-19 pandemic: the CCNY Working Group on Diversity and Inclusion (charged in 2018) and an ad hoc Committee on Tenure, Promotion, and the Pandemic (charged in 2020). AIDE-STEM built its proposal for the ADAPTATION award based on the results from the IT-Catalyst award and survey results generated by the above- mentioned committees. The national level COACHE survey of 2019 also informed the work of AIDE-STEM.