Try to name three male scientists other than Albert Einstein. Done? Now try the same with female scientists except Marie Curie.

If you are not a spirited observer of academia, chances are the second task would seem much more difficult than the first.

We tend to implicitly associate man and scientists. Research in 2006 (White, J., & White, B., 2006) utilizing the Implicit Association Test (IAT) suggests that participants, on average, ranked engineer as 2.32 on a scale of 1-7, where 1 equals absolute masculine, and 7 refers to absolute feminine.

The premise that "only men can be engineers" results in institutional sexism in STEM fields. Women are statistically undermined as they only constitute 27% of all STEM workers in the US, according to a 2021 US Census Bureau report. The gender expectation in STEM fields also results in adverse experiences for women, as only 59% of women reported experiencing no gender discrimination, compared to 96% of men (Settles, Cortina, Buchanan, & Miner, 2013).

Some institutions are attempting to change this. The National Science Foundation initiated ADVANCE program in 2001, aimed at increasing gender representation in STEM-related organizations. Between 2010-2019, Dr. Melissa Latimer worked as the Director of the ADVANCE program at West Virginia University.

She was one of only two female faculty members in WVU's sociology department, which still had a male-centric leadership structure despite having 50% female PhDs. She had worked to change this gender landscape to 50/50 throughout her years as a chair. “But we had never had a female faculty member go all the way to the rank of full professor, which is the highest rank,” said Dr. Latimer.

Men’s exclusive right to education had been presumed and rooted in institutions during their establishment. “When our campus was built,” said Dr. Latimer. “It was designed for man to teach men how to be engineers.” Dr. Latimer found it difficult to dismantle a biased structure from within: “because it's so close to us, because you're talking about reflecting on the job we're doing, it's also hard to see it.”

“When our campus was built, it was designed for men to teach men how to be engineers... because it's so close to us, because you're talking about reflecting on the job we're doing, it's also hard to see it.”

— Dr. Melissa Latimer

However, it is not hard to see the toxicity brought by narrow gender expectations in the field. It impacts men as much as women. A queer male engineer felt excluded and ultimately left the program because of his peers' intolerance of his sexuality, Dr. Latimer recalled. “Because he was an engineer, he was expected to be highly masculine,” recalled Dr. Latimer. “It was toxic to him.” His peer, who seemed to have no problem embracing the masculine expectations, was unable to understand his frustration. “They would ask him, ‘oh, are you on your period?’ ‘Is that why you’re acting this way?’” Dr. Latimer recalled.

Dr. Latimer has been changing the department culture to create a welcoming environment, for instance, changing faculty meetings into a space for sharing. “Lecturing won’t be effective because it’s asking for passive reception,” said Dr. Latimer. “ Instead of reading a list, we start meetings by sharing what was meaningful for faculty members.”

Outside WVU, the ADVANCE program improves STEM faculties’ experiences through cross-institutional connection. Its annual Principal Investigator meeting provides a welcoming space for new disparity-disrupting solutions. “People will be sharing their best practices and asking questions,” said Dr. Latimer. “It was about getting the ideas out as fast as possible.”

Dr. Latimer and the ADVANCE team are also trying to make the hiring process more effective by focused talent searches and expanding national open surveys. “We’re trying to teach people to do that more frequently,” explained Dr. Latimer. “if we keep running faculty searches the way we have in the past it will take 100 years to diversify our faculty.”

Changing an institution with 6,000 staff members and 2,500 faculties is going to take time. However, the advancement is never made by a quick fix, but by building a working model. “We were effective because we approached everything as if it was a pilot, if we worked, we expanded it to other departments,” said Dr. Latimer. “Not ‘we're going to do it for five years.’”

The ADVANCE center at WVU has trained over a hundred faculty members, each capable of giving similar workshops and bettering faculty experiences in STEM exponentially.

“You need as many partners as possible,” said Dr. Latimer. “We all have to be collaborating with each other and in sync with each other and supporting each other simultaneously.”