National Postdoctoral Association

Potential Interventions to Aid in Retaining Postdoc Women

A clearinghouse of promising practices

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C. PROGRAMS: EDUCATIONAL opportunities for postdoctoral supervisors

1. Mentoring training for postdoctoral advisors, including information on gender schemas (the implicit framework and biases we have about the relative gender roles; see [1]) and resources for “just in time” information.

Examples:

• Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Consortium of Harvard Affiliated Offices for Faculty Development and Diversity offers an Annual Mentoring course for faculty mentors. Course materials for each course are archived online. It also offers continuing education credits. 

• Brigham and Women’s Hospital also is piloting a Faculty Mentoring Leadership Program that provides peer mentoring and training for a small cohort of faculty.

• University of Texas at El Paso has a list of promising practices in the mentoring of faculty that could be adapted for use with postdocs and disseminated to postdoctoral supervisors--see “Good Practices in Mentoring” pages 7-10

• University of Michigan MORE program offers training in mentoring for faculty working with graduate students. Could also be adapted for postdoctoral mentors.

• www.researchmentortraining.org is based at University of Wisconsin-Madison and offers a series of resources, including multi-disciplinary curricula, for research mentor training programs.

2. Raise awareness among postdoctoral supervisors of issues involved with parental leave for postdocs and any existing policies. A critical part of this is fostering the establishment of clear communication with postdocs and finding ways to avoid negative consequences for taking leave.

Example:

• University of California Berkeley offers a guide to faculty and staff on work and family issues.

3. Provide training to postdoctoral supervisors on performance evaluations, such as including information on avoiding evaluation bias and gender schemas [2].

Examples:

• Tools like Georgia Institute of Technology’s ADEPT online tool could be adapted to educate both postdocs and their evaluators on ways to avoid bias. This tool focuses specifically on promotion and tenure scenarios, involving the learner in the evaluation process itself through case studies, but a mixture of tenure review and postdoc assessment case studies would make it pertinent to postdocs interested in becoming faculty.

• Similarly, CUNY Hunter College’s Gender Equity Program has developed an online tutorial on gender schemas. 

4. Workshops/education on the job market, targeting postdocs and postdoc supervisors and mentors, in order to foster better understanding of career alternatives to PI track to better match skills and interests as well as avoid any "crisis of expectations" with academic job market

Examples:

• Adapt workshops like Case Western Reserve University’s Professional Skills Program on, “Job Hunt: How to Find an Academic Position” to educate postdoctoral supervisors about the current job market.

5. Develop “how to” brochure/information for letter of recommendation writers.These should be shared with both postdocs and faculty.

Example:

• University of Michigan ADVANCE brochure for faculty on “Guidelines for Writing Letters of Recommendation”

• University of Arizona ADVANCE developed a handout with guidance on avoiding bias in both reading and writing letters

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[1][2] Valian, V. 1998. Why so slow? The advancement of women. Cambridge: MIT Press.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0819994. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.