Jeanne Ferrante thought she’d be a high school chemistry teacher. But then in college she says she learned two things—she was awkward in the lab and she aspired to a career as a college professor. That was a fortunate turn of events for UC San Diego, as Ferrante is now a professor of Computer Science and Engineering at UCSD, Associate Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering and the campus’ first Associate Vice Chancellor for Faculty Equity. Her passion for her work and for diversity issues has grown over the years. She has helped establish numerous organizations at UC San Diego to advance service, networking and professional development of students, faculty and staff. She has also been honored as a UCSD Community Champion for Diversity and has received the Athena Educator Pinnacle Award for her diversity leadership efforts.

Ferrante: My role is to help remove any barriers to equity—in our procedures, processes or culture—and to promote a positive academic environment for everyone, in terms of equal opportunity and fairness.

One example is our faculty recruiting process.  Our procedure asked each search committee chair to describe the criteria and process used to hire a candidate, but only at the end of the process.  There is a great advantage to having search committees agree in advance on the criteria they’ll be using and what their process will be, especially if later there is disagreement.  So we’ve put forward a new “best practice” of asking search committee chairs to have that discussion and describe their process at an earlier stage of the recruiting process.

I also think part of my job is to educate and ease concerns or confusion around the issue of diversity, for example, to debunk myths, such as there aren’t any great underrepresented minority candidates out there because they’ve already been hired by other universities.  It has been eye-opening to me to learn about the social science research on bias and assumptions in evaluation, and how we are all subject to bias.  It’s important for all faculty to be aware of this, and to guard against its pitfalls in any evaluation process.

Overall, it’s important to me that I make an impact, not just using my technical skills, but in a way that really makes a difference to the quality of people’s lives.

Ferrante: Faculty equity advisors are respected senior faculty members, and there are advisors in each division on the general campus, in Health Sciences and at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.  They work directly with the dean, department chairs, search committees and faculty in their departments to give advice and information on best practices to advance faculty diversity, including recruiting, advancement, climate and work-life balance issues. 

I meet with the faculty equity advisors as a group on a monthly basis.  We brainstorm issues and ways to facilitate a more positive academic culture.  This year we’ve been concentrating on recruitment, and next year we’ll concentrate on faculty professional development. 

Ferrante: When junior faculty arrive, they need to advise and manage students, apply for grants, teach courses, perhaps set up a lab, and conduct research.  They might not have taken a leadership role in any of these before.  How do we ensure that they are successful, and want to stay?  A great example is the National Center of Leadership in Academic Medicine program for junior faculty at UCSD’s Health Sciences, which provides its participants with workshops, time to develop their own strategic career plan, and an experienced senior faculty mentor who can help them navigate towards their goals.  The program has data to show it increases the confidence of its participants, and helps the university retain faculty members. 

Ferrante: It’s important to have a diverse faculty because we are role models for our students, particularly for those aspiring to academic careers.  For our students, we need to have a faculty that reflects our student body, and right now our student body is more diverse than our faculty.

We are working on advancing our faculty diversity.  California’s Proposition 209 says we can’t use any characteristics of a person— for example, gender, race or ethnicity—in hiring decisions.  However, we can and should have broad outreach when we’re recruiting.  One way we’re doing this is by making the areas considered in a search as broad as possible.  For instance, in engineering, for a number of years now our faculty ads all include the language that excellent candidates in all areas will be seriously considered.  By considering a wider range of applicants, we’re more apt to get excellent candidates.  I’d like to see this adopted as much as possible in other divisions. 

Ferrante: Don’t let others stop you from following your passion.  Be persistent, spend time with people you want to be like and be open to new opportunities. 

I was the first in my family to go to college, and I thought I would be a high school teacher because female teachers were readily available as examples.  When my college boyfriend went into a six-year bachelor/Ph.D. program, I thought, I can do that, I can go to graduate school, and maybe I’d like to be a professor.  That really opened things up for me.  I was also fortunate to have had a wonderful female math professor in college who inspired me further. 

Ferrante: Being a woman in engineering, and going to graduate school at MIT, I got used to being the only woman in class, which could be isolating and lonely.  And as you move through your career, it can become more difficult to find colleagues who understand what you do and the issues you face.  The Women’s Leadership Alliance and the Women in Computing group provide important social support and networking for women on campus.  And I’ve experienced firsthand how important a mentor can be in all phases of one’s career. 

The Team in Engineering Service (TIES) was inspired by a similar program at Purdue.  Students working in multi-disciplinary teams design, build and deploy projects that solve technology-based, real-world problems for the community.  Our students have strong technical skills, but they also need to learn how to apply them.  In TIES, students learn by doing; you can’t gain these skills by reading a book.  This is the kind of experience that enables our students to become engineering leaders, as well as encourages social responsibility by helping the community.  A number of students have said their involvement with TIES was the most valuable experience they had at UC San Diego, and that experience made a difference in their careers.

Ferrante: The best part of being a professor is nurturing your students, seeing them grow and develop, and go on to do great things. When you see that light bulb come on, after a student has been struggling, it’s very rewarding. It makes me want to make the university a better place for them.

Fun Faves

Favorite place on campus: The courtyard at the Jacobs School of Engineering

Favorite place on Earth: New Zealand

Favorite accomplishment: Creating new programs, such as TIES

Favorite part of your job: Learning

Favorite food: Dessert

Favorite hobby:  Gardening, running, painting, playing the piano

Favorite words to live by:  “Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting, my friend.” —From We Can Work It Out, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

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