The purpose of the Visiting Scholar Program is to provide greater in-house consultation to chairs and directors regarding best practices for recruiting and retaining women in the sciences.  Rarely do campuses have personnel who specialize in all the areas of challenge to diversity.  Moreover, addressing many of these challenges requires more than a single interaction with an expert. 

The Program provides short residencies to scholars and consultants who specialize in helping departments and institutions address these challenges.  The visitors address a variety of issues including helping chairs become more effective leaders around recruiting and retaining women in the sciences, working with departments to create mentoring programs and conducting leadership workshops for women and others.  We use the Visiting Scholar Program to help us design programs for department chair training, mentor training, and other aspects of the ADVANCE Program initiatives.

In October 2008, Virginia Valian discusses her book, Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women. Her discussion of “gender schemas” makes visible factors that impede women's progress, and suggests ways to ensure fair treatment of women and men at the University.

For department chairs, Dr. Valian presents a talk entitled, Recruitment and Retention Guidelines that Enhance Diversity in Faculty Searches.