Fostering Underrepresented Employees' Resilience and Zeal for Academia (FUERZA)

Project Summary/Abstract The broad, long-term objectives of the Fostering Underrepresented Employees’ Resilience and Zeal for Aca- demia (FUERZA) project are three-fold. The first is to enhance diversity in NIDCD’s extramural workforce by creating a mentoring network that allows for recruitment and retention of junior- to mid-career scholars from historically-excluded backgrounds. Our first aim is to recruit, hire, and retain at least five new faculty members from historically-excluded groups and to create a specific mentoring plan that will enhance their productivity and success. This number is equivalent to one third of our tenure track faculty, thus having the potential to substantially change our demographics. Our methods for this aim include incorporating best practices into hiring and advertising for positions, hiring in clusters to foster a sense of community, and using recruitment tools like the FUERZA plan itself, to attract the best scientists to our institution. We will provide FUERZA members with evidence-based mentoring, community building, access to professional resources, and commitments specific to underrepresented faculty (e.g., avoiding cultural taxation, resources to grow the pipe- line). Our second aim is to improve the mentoring skills of existing faculty members and improve the departmental culture in terms of both attitudes and policies so that faculty from historically-excluded backgrounds will feel welcome and supported within the community. This aim will be approached through internal and external trainings on cultural competence/humility and mentoring across differences. It will also center on ensuring we have clarity of communications – ensuring that all policies and procedures are accessi- ble and equitable. Our third aim is to hire and mentor ten undergraduate students from historically-ex- cluded backgrounds per year. With this multi-faceted approach, not only will we increase the number of re- searchers from historically-excluded backgrounds, but we will have created an environment that is inclusive and leads to retention and job satisfaction. With a network like this in place, we will be able to recruit and en- hance the experiences of faculty and students from historically-excluded backgrounds as well, making a sus- tainable, diverse, research pipeline. This is essential, as people who are doing research that affects health care intervention (as our field does) cannot do the best work if they do not understand and reflect the commu- nities that they serve. Currently, our field is not diverse, and this needs to change if we are to do the best sci- ence and serve our nation appropriately. To ensure that all aims are met, and met in a culturally responsive way, we will engage an Advisory Committee of outstanding scientists who are from historically-excluded back- grounds. They will be brought into all decision-making processes to ensure that the choices that are made al- ways include the viewpoints and expertise of people from underrepresented backgrounds. Moving forward, this plan should allow all faculty in our department to better support junior scholars from historically excluded groups, mentor diverse students, and improve our science.