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As the primary initiative during year 1, MU-ADVANCE has been working with several departments across the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines to recruit well-qualified candidates to open positions. MU-ADVANCE can promote the university to attract the most qualified applicants of both genders. Working with several search committees, MU-ADVANCE has assisted in a variety of tasks, including data entry and financial support used to pay for an expanded pool of on-campus interviewees. Several candidates that MU-ADVANCE met with commented that they had learned about the MU position for which they applied through the advertisement on HigherEdJobs.com, a subscription paid for by MU-ADVANCE. The opportunity for search committees to use this service will continue through next year, and should continue to broaden the applicant pool. Under sponsorship of the NSF, MU-ADVANCE began evaluating the diversity of MU’s applicant pools. As an initial examination, Figure 1 outlines the percentage of STEM Ph.D. graduates in both 1996 and 2005 (data from the National Science Foundation) and the percentage of qualified female applicants for 5 MU searches (A-E) conducted within our STEM disciplines during the 2006-2007 academic year. Although several of these searches selected female finalists at a rate well above the expected percentages, this figure demonstrates the amount of opportunity that MU-ADVANCE has to increase the diversity of initial applicant pools. We are confident that the outcome of these efforts will be more high-quality candidates of both genders. In year 2, MU-ADVANCE will continue to evaluate the diversity of qualified applicants. Also, based on a suggestion made by a search committee chairman, we will analyze the reasons why candidates accept or reject MU employment offers. The MU-ADVANCE office welcomes this type of suggestion, because by learning from all offers – both successful and unsuccessful – we may be able to increase the likelihood of future qualified applicants accepting positions at Marshall.
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