Making WAVES: Women Academics Valued and Engaged in STEM
Making WAVES is a new initiative to increase diversity of faculty in STEM fields funded by the National Science Foundation ADVANCE Program. The $3.5 million, five-year grant to UMass Lowell is for an institutional transformation initiative led by the Center for Women & Work. The goal of the WAVES project is to implement interventions to disrupt interpersonal and institutional microaggressions that undermine the productivity and well-being of women STEM faculty.
Microaggressions are verbal, non-verbal, and/or environmental snubs/insults that slight based on gender and other marginalized group membership; they are notoriously difficult to address. survey results at UMass Lowell indicate that women STEM faculty experience a disproportionate number of microaggressions.
To shed light on small or not-so-small inequities and expressions of subtle bias, we encourage you to provide your confidential examples of microaggressions you or others have experienced. Your name will not be associated in any way with these comments, but we reserve the right to use them anonymously in our training and outreach activities
Provide Your Microaggression Example