University of Southern California

Guidelines for Application

Goal: A critical objective of the WiSE Program is to increase the representation of women among tenured and tenure-track faculty in engineering, science, and math. To achieve this goal, the WiSE Program provides funds to the Viterbi School of Engineering and the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences to supplement and embellish offers to faculty in these fields who will increase the representation of women in science and engineering. These funds provide incentives to deans, department chairs, and faculty to proactively recruit outstanding candidates who will increase the representation of women among the faculty. This supplemental funding is designed to address specific needs in a way that offsets barriers to advancement, and to maximize the chances of acceptance of the offer.

Eligibility: WiSE contributions to hiring packages will be considered for both hiring as part of an authorized search and for target of opportunity hires within WiSE-eligible departments. In both instances, the deans must provide the base salary and regular set-up funds for the faculty position.

  1. Hiring as part of an authorized search. In a standard search authorized by the dean, if the candidate who emerges as the first choice would serve to increase the representation of women in science or engineering, WiSE funds can be requested to supplement and embellish the offer. WiSE funds may not replace regular set-up funds or salary. Candidates at any rank (Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor) may be considered.
  2. Targets of Opportunity. When a department identifies a specific individual to be recruited as a target of opportunity, if the candidate is ranked at the top of the field at his or her seniority level, and if hiring the specific candidate will serve to increase the representation of women in science and engineering, WiSE funds can be requested to supplement and embellish the offer. The candidate should be in an area that fits into the department?s goals and should receive enthusiastic endorsement from the department's faculty and from the school dean. Candidates at any rank (Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor) may be considered.

Selection Criteria: Two factors will be considered in determining the WiSE contribution: academic excellence of the candidate and the extent to which women are underrepresented in the specific discipline.

  1. Academic excellence. The candidate must rise to be the first choice of an open, national level search in cases of hiring as part of an authorized search, or be judged to be at the top or his/her field at his/her seniority level by both the department and the deans in the case of a target of opportunity.
  2. Extent of the under representation of women in the specific discipline. Some disciplines have made greater progress than others in increasing the representation of women among tenured and tenure track faculty. In order to encourage faculty and deans to address the under representation of women in disciplines where progress has been slowest, priority for WiSE funds may be given to those areas.
USC Women in Science and Engineering
1042 Downey Way, DRB 140*
Los Angeles, CA 90089-1111
(213) 740-0996
(213) 821-5252

*The WiSE Suite is located in DRB 232.
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