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Institutional Change (IC) Studios

The IC Studios will address the overarching problem of faculty dissatisfaction—especially among minoritized faculty including women and sexual and gender minorities (SGM)—at the University of Utah. The IC Studios will focus on three areas identified as priorities through our institutional self-study:

  • For most STEM tenure-line faculty, their work consists of research, teaching, and service, in varying proportions depending on department, career stage, and appointment type. ​

    New systems for communicating fair workload expectations and documenting and adjusting inequitable faculty workloads are needed. IC Studio 1 will convene leaders from across STEM colleges responsible for faculty reporting and lead the development of new faculty reporting systems. ​

    ​Members of this IC Studio team include those leading the development of the new platform, and we will work with them to ensure that this effort captures the breadth of faculty contributions. ​​

    IC Studio 1 will use the PDIA process to outline fair and equitable faculty workload policies and faculty productivity data collection processes, using data in an equitable way that acknowledges nuances and disciplinary differences.

  • As faculty progress through their careers, the kinds of support they need evolve. Thus, supporting faculty might include demystifying expectations for “productivity” (which vary across colleges and departments) and the acquisition of diverse skills (e.g., budgeting, project management, HR, grants, interpersonal relationships, mentoring, etc.). ​

    IC Studio 2 will use the PDIA process to improve existing support structures and community culture and practice, so that all faculty feel valued, fairly compensated, and that they have power in policies and practices that affect them.​

    ​Recognizing the deeply embedded culture of college-specific programs and policies, this IC Studio will create a framework for required supportive elements for which all deans will be accountable. This IC Studio will explore efforts to enhance faculty support across STEM programs, with an emphasis on minoritized (race, sexuality, ability, citizenship status) women in STEM.​

    While we will focus on addressing the needs of the most marginalized faculty, the advances made through this work will improve conditions and opportunities for all faculty across the progression of their careers.

  • IC Studio 3 will focus on improving leadership and institutional capacity for equitable systemic change. This IC Studio will build on the lessons learned through IC Studios 1 and 2 and will work towards the goal of long term sustainable implementation of institutional structures and policies that ensure a diverse future for STEM disciplines.​

    This process will develop new institution-appropriate structures for sharing problems, insights, and solution strategies. The creation of cooperative structures across colleges can make it possible to share best practices without an overly centralized approach that may fail to recognize the disciplinary needs of different areas. IC Studio 3 will engage key leaders on campus who will have already had exposure to the PDIA process through the activities of IC Studios 1 and 2.

The material herein is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. 2319989. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.