Mentoring Pathways A Small Wins Approach to Fostering Faculty Development

Substantial scholarly work has documented the lack of persistence among females in the academic STEM pipeline. While intervention efforts over the last several decades have increased the number of females earning graduate degrees, far fewer of those remain in higher education throughout their professional careers. In the past, this pattern was attributed to overt discrimination, but today it is more commonly the result of "tiny cuts" within female faculty careers resulting in professional and social isolation. Through an examination of the implementation of Auburn University's Strategic Diversity Plan and the ADVANCE Auburn project, this chapter proposes a "small wins" solution to improving success and retention among female STEM faculty through a multifaceted approach to faculty mentoring.