Contact:
Ashley Garcia, ARC Network Marketing and Communications Manager
garcia@equityinstem.org
WASHINGTON, DC, August 3, 2021 – The ADVANCE Resource and Coordination (ARC) Network announces Bethany Farmer as the Community Librarian.
Currently hosted on Mendeley, the ARC Network Resource Library is a rich collection of over 2,000 curated resources containing reports, white papers, briefings, unpublished manuscripts, toolkits, datasets, training videos, evaluation practices, and many other resources relevant to equity in STEM. All members of the community are welcomed and encouraged to join the ARC Library, access its resources, and add relevant resources – including their own work.
“We are thrilled to have Bethany join our team!” said Dr. Heather Metcalf, Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN) Director of Research and Constituent Relations and principal investigator of the ARC Network initiative. “The ARC Library is a core component of our resource coordination and community engagement missions. The very nature of the Library’s inclusion of work by equity in STEM change agents means that the Library also functions to support a greater awareness of who does this work, thus supporting networking and collaboration. Bethany will be a valuable collaborator as we continue to improve the ARC Network Library usability, accessibility, and applicability to the community’s change efforts.”
As Community Librarian, Farmer will serve as a resource specialist for the ARC Network community, curating, synthesizing, and disseminating resources to the community; connecting members with resources that meet their needs; and responding to information and resource requests. Farmer’s demonstrated dedication to promoting diversity and inclusion in information representation and access aligns with the ARC Network mission. She has served on multiple university committees to promote open access to information and reduce bias through inclusive language and representation in cataloging practices and collection development principles.
Farmer has a Master’s in Business Analytics from Lincoln Memorial University, a Master’s in Information Science from the University of Tennessee and a Bachelor’s in history and speech from East Tennessee State University. She has over a decade of library experience, including two years working in the Department of Energy Research library in Oak Ridge, TN. Prior to joining WEPAN, she was the Head of Technical Services at Lincoln Memorial University.
The ARC Network is funded by a multiyear grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under awards HRD-2121468 and HRD-1740860. The ARC Network seeks to achieve intersectional gender equity for faculty in higher education science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The ARC Network draws on the efforts of ADVANCE, the NSF’s program addressing systemic inequities in academic STEM, and produces new perspectives, methods and interventions with an intersectional, intentional and inclusive lens. The ARC Network transitioned to WEPAN as its home organization in February 2021.
# # #
About the ARC Network: Funded by the National Science Foundation ADVANCE program, Award HRD-1740860, the ARC Network seeks to achieve gender equity for faculty in higher education science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. As the STEM equity brain trust, the ARC Network recognizes the achievements made so far while producing new perspectives, methods and interventions with an intersectional, intentional and inclusive lens. Learn more about the ARC Network at www.equityinstem.org and on social media using #EquityInSTEM.
About ACCESS+: The Amplifying the Alliance to Catalyze Change for Equity in STEM Success (ACCESS+) Initiative, funded by National Science Foundation (NSF) ADVANCE Partnership grant #2017953, aspires to leverage STEM professional societies to accelerate systemic STEM culture-change to advance gender diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
About WEPAN: WEPAN is a non-profit educational organization founded in 1990. Recognized as the leading champion in North America for leveraging research and best practices to propel the inclusion of women in the field of engineering, WEPAN advocates to fully embrace diversity, equity and inclusion to meet the demands of today’s innovation and performance-driven business culture. Dedicated to advancing cultures of inclusion and diversity in engineering higher education and workplaces, WEPAN connects people, research, and practice to increase participation, retention and success of women and other under-represented groups in engineering from college to executive leadership. To learn more, visit www.wepan.org.
Enter your email below to receive monthly updates from the community and information about upcoming events.
