The NCWIT Academic Alliance (AA) Recruitment and Engagement Team is responsible for reaching out to potential new members. Currently the Academic Alliance comprises nearly 650 representatives from over 275 institutions. These institutions include two-year and four-year schools, research universities, community colleges, minority serving institutions (MSIs), and historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), which offer degree programs ranging from Associate's degrees through PhDs. With the increasing number and diversity of institutional members, this team also focuses on increasing engagement between members. There are two activities that have recently been the focus of the team, increasing engagement and providing more benefits specific to NCWIT members to increase the value of their membership in the Academic Alliance.

Recruitment and Engagement Project Team Goals:

• Continue to work to get the partnership program off the ground and thriving
• Get new members to set achievable goals, to increase their engagement with the Academic Alliance
• Set up a database listing member institutions and their areas of expertise, to facilitate matching of skill sets
• Continue to recruit new institutions to the alliance

Recruitment and Engagement Project Team Activities:

The Project Team facilitates a partnership program where two school/department representatives form a mentor-mentee pair and help each other increase the number of women in their programs. These representatives commit to a one-year partnership to work together on recruitment, research, or other relevant outreach activities. Example activities are exchanging information and best practices, starting collaborative projects and even writing joint grant proposals. Mentors and mentees were matched based on interests, geographical proximity and school type, and were invited to initiate a mentoring relationship and commit to a common goal, a frequency and method of communication and duration of the partnership. 

The Project Team has created a program that will facilitate NCWIT members to interact between members at professional conferences and workshops. It will be possible for AA NCWIT members to post their attendance at a conference via the NCWIT Facebook page and so connect with other AA members attending the conference, but also with members from the different alliances or with local members who are not attending the conference. We are currently working out the logistics of how best to organize this for maximum visibility and minimum information deluge.

If you would like to contact the Recruitment and Engagement Project Team for more information about their goals, activities, and resources, or if you are interested in joining the Recruitment and Engagement Project Team, please send an e-mail to ncwit-re@googlegroups.com.