Sletten is Co-PI on NSF Award

Sarah Sletten, Ph.D. has been named Co-Principle Investigator (Co-PI) on the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s award titled, "ADVANCE Catalyst: Improving Gender and Foreign-Born Equity among STEM Faculty at the University of North Dakota. Dr. Sletten is an Associate Professor with the Biomedical Sciences Department within the University of North Dakota's School of Medicine & Health Sciences.

With ADVANCE support, the University of North Dakota (UND) seeks to understand and improve disparities among its STEM faculty through an institutional self-assessment with a particular focus on women and the foreign-born, two groups who make up nearly half of UND’s STEM faculty. Preliminary assessments indicate that despite UND’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equity, inequality appears in several areas among STEM faculty, including salary, tenure, promotion, and contract percentages. To guide the proposed institutional self-assessment, UND will follow an intersectionality framework that encourages identifying social and organizational processes in addition to identifying relative differences between social status categories. A mixed-methods approach of online surveys, in-depth interviews, and focus groups will be used to collect data on objective outcomes and the relational experiences of underrepresented STEM faculty. Throughout this process, UND will work with internal and external advisory boards and subsequently design a five-year strategic equity plan. This plan will propose long-term, sustainable strategies to empower and advance underrepresented STEM faculty and encourage equity discussions across UND. The diverse, interdisciplinary team has research and academic backgrounds in gender, immigration, intersectionality, higher education, STEM outreach and education programs, and equity policy. The team is also a combination of gender, race, internationality, rank, and academic appointment. The team’s desire is the same, however: to improve equity at UND and help others beyond our campus.  

Other PIs on the project are Justin Berg (UND Sociology), Carolyn Ozaki (Education, Health & Behavior), Julia Zhao (Chemistry), and Donna Smith (Equal Opportunity & Title IX).