Dr. Montserrat Fuentes – 2013 Equity for Women Award

The Faculty Category of the 2013 Equity of Women Award goes to Dr. Montserrat Fuentes, Head of the Department of Statistics for her major contributions to the equity and well-being of women at NC State.

Within her department, Dr. Fuentes recently promoted the establishment of a new Leave Policy for faculty that complements the University’s policies. This family-friendly policy allows for better work-life balance by allowing eligible full-time faculty to adjust course workloads accommodating family-related events such as child birth.

At the university level, Dr. Fuentes worked tirelessly on the Faculty Senate and is personally responsible for the new Parental Leave Policy for Graduate Students. Prior to the policy, a woman who became pregnant as a graduate student would lose her financial support and her health insurance at a time when she needed it most. Also, international students would lose their visa status. Many in the faculty senate were just not aware of the problems that graduate students were facing. Dr. Fuentes did the necessary research, educated the faculty senate, and worked through the Academic Policy Committee and the full Faculty Senate enabling policy change last May. The new policy allows graduate women to maintain their financial support, health insurance, and full-time student status during parental leave.

In addition to these major policy efforts, Dr. Fuentes, a Senior Scholar in the ADVANCE NC STATE program, often speaks to groups about women’s empowerment. For example, she was recently a featured speaker at the Advancing Strategic Partnerships: Women and Minorities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Conference as well as the North Carolina Symposium for Women in Mathematics and Statistics. Dr. Fuentes has been very supportive and encouraging to female students, faculty and staff. She was instrumental in the establishment of the NC State Women in Statistics Networking Group, which primarily provides support to female graduate students , She is strong advocate for female faculty pursuing administrative positions and leadership roles in professional societies and is very supportive of her staff’s career advancement into leadership positions. These examples of selfless caring for individuals as well as her policy reforms are why Dr. Fuentes is highly deserving of the Faculty Category of 2013 Equity for Women Award.