The ADVANCE program is designed to foster gender equity through a focus on the identification and elimination of organizational barriers that impede the full participation and advancement of women faculty in academic institutions. Organizational barriers that inhibit equity may exist in areas such as policy, practice, culture, and organizational climate. The ADVANCE Institutional Transformation (ADVANCE-IT) track supports the development of innovative organizational change strategies within an institution of higher education to enhance gender equity in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines.Florida International University (FIU) is the 4th largest public university in the U.S. and the 2nd largest in Florida, with over 54,000 students with over 80% from underrepresented groups. FIU's goal for this ADVANCE-IT project is to develop institutional structures, processes, and climate that builds an affirming and fair workplace. There are four objectives within this project: (1) Address issues that impede the recruitment, retention, and promotion of women STEM faculty, particularly women of color, to better reflect the demographics of the FIU student body; (2) Educate faculty about biases and "microclimates" (the local social climates that positively or negatively impact the work experience of faculty within the institution); (3) Develop strategies and tools to help move faculty from insight to action to promote gender equity; (4) Develop the Advance Florida Network comprised of the Florida metropolitan research universities (FIU, University of Central Florida, and University of South Florida). The FIU project includes two social science research studies that will add to our knowledge of equity in STEM academics and strategies to foster equity. The first study will increase our understanding of "microclimates" and the role of the majority faculty in setting the climate of a department. The second study will investigate the long-term impact on the behavior of participants in the Deep Change Program intervention which includes training on inequity and using strategies to intervene.
