Elsevier Foundation program wins Breastfeeding Friendly Workplace Award

The University of Rhode Island used its New Scholar grant to build a model lactation program

Science and engineering professionals are in high demand. Industry needs them to develop technology. Universities need them to teach. But there is a shortage of these professionals, and women are especially underrepresented in the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math. A study by Donna J. Nelson and Diana C. Rogers at the University of Oklahoma estimated in 2004 that women held just 3 percent to 15 percent of full professorships at the top science and engineering schools in the United States.

The Elsevier Foundation is addressing this shortage through its New Scholars program, which seeks to boost faculty retention by addressing issues of work-life balance that young scholars often confront and that may prevent them from building strong careers in science.

In 2008, an $80,000 grant from the Elsevier Foundation helped the University of Rhode Island develop their Transitional Support Program, a model lactation program enabling women scholars in the STEM fields to meet their parental obligations while on the job. A year later, the university’s state-of-the-art lactation facilities helped them win the 2009 Breastfeeding Friendly Workplace Award from the Rhode Island Department of Health.

”It’s these kinds of acknowledgments that inspire organizations to forge even further ahead,” said Barb Silver, ADVANCE Program Director and Elsevier Foundation project coordinator at the university. “This award will encourage decision-makers at URI to continue making progress in the arena of work-life balance and being a family-friendly workplace.”

ADVANCE is a program sponsored by the National Science Foundation that aims to increase the participation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers.

To date, the university’s Transitional Support Program has yielded four fully functioning lactation rooms across several campuses as well as a campus needs assessment, a well-supplied lactation library, strong ties to three community lactation consultants and a series of regular informational “brown bag” lunches. The group also researched and wrote a new university lactation policy to ensure that workers are able to use the lactation facilities without negative consequences. Having garnered support and space within the university administration, the program now aims to raise awareness in the university’s "New Scholars" STEM community and beyond. A graduate student is collecting research to finalize a program model by the end of the year to share with sister institutions.

The Foundation’s New Scholars program strives to find programs that can serve as sustainable, scalable and reproducible models across organizations whether focusing on mentorship, work-life balance, lactation policies or travel and child care.