Honoring Candis Claiborn

Dr. Candis Claiborn became a faculty member of Washington State University in 1991, after earning a doctorate in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University. Dr. Claiborn has been one of the more influential leaders throughout her tenure at WSU, as the Dean of the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture over the past decade, and also the ADVANCE at WSU National Science Foundation (NSF) grant Principle Investigator, as well as one of the program’s “founding members”. The impact of Dr. Claiborn’s contributions in both roles ensures an enduring legacy, especially in the ongoing efforts aimed at articulating and implementing the objectives of ADVANCE at WSU.

As a woman in academia, and one of the traditional STEM disciplines, Dr. Claiborn saw a need for establishing additional support for other faculty women, to help ensure their recruitment and retention. Dr. Claiborn said that she noticed maintaining women in STEM field

academic positions presented challenges and noted her own observations were consistent with the model often referred to as the “leaky pipeline” insofar as women tend to leave academia at multiple points throughout their career. These “leaks” are due to numerous reasons that include a lack of role models and mentors; challenges associated with balancing work and life responsibilities; dual career issues; and implicit biases as well as overt discrimination that result in women being overlooked for leadership opportunities, reviewed more harshly in tenure decisions, or passed over for tenure track positions. These issues often lead to women leaving their positions all together, or failing to advance to the same levels and/or at the same pace as their male counterparts. In light of these concerns, Dr. Claiborn made it her mission to make WSU more inclusive, focusing on tenure-track women in the STEM disciplines.

To achieve the objectives associated with this important, yet challenging goal, Dr. Claiborn assembled a team with a diverse spectrum of expertise to draft a proposal that would bring the National Science Foundation ADVANCE program to WSU. Two revised proposals later, the WSU ADVANCE Institutional Transportation program was funded by an NSF award and on its way to becoming established and sustained at WSU. As a result of these effort spearheaded by Dr. Claiborn, women tenure-track faculty in STEM disciplines have access to resources and opportunities made available through ADVANCE programs.

These programs vary in their specific intended targets, yet are united by a common vision, articulated by Dr. Candis Clairborn to include the following areas:

Increase the percentage of women faculty in target science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines and underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in all disciplines.
Support policies and practices to enhance the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women and underrepresented minority faculty.
Foster a positive, inclusive work environment through programs and career-development opportunities that include support at critical work/life transition points for all faculty.
Engage the WSU community to further the NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation goals.

In its institutionalized form, the ADVANCE at WSU program continues to stay true to these initially established goals, mainlining its efforts to engage the WSU community in efforts to ensure an inclusive faculty-friendly workplace, and in supporting individual faculty members eligible for our programs. As the intent is to sustain ADVANCE at WSU activities going forward, Dr. Claiborns’ efforts will surely continue to bear fruit long into the future!

The material on this site is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant No. 0810927. 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.

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