NSF Advance-PLAN projectdesigned to address gender equity through policy change on a statewide level. The project isbased on the model of change that identifies effective change as a top-down policy drivenapproach through a central authority, in this case, a statewide board of regents that oversees allpublic universities. The model for top-down change is particularly suited to a small, rural statewhere a) n-values for gender related statistics at any institution may not be statisticallysignificant b) institutional relations allow for cross-state cooperation and c) size of theinstitutions allows for timely implementation and assessment of policies. In addition,intercollegiate cooperation allows for provosts of all six institutions to serve as
university andcomprehensive university respectively. The first configuration in table 4 shows (a)more academic scientists, (b) fewer graduate students, (c) fewer funding projects,and (d) fewer academic papers with higher consistency. This finding explains whyengineering advantage university policies pay more attention to the introductionand cultivation of high-level scientific research talents. The second configuration intable 4 shows that (a) fewer academic scientists, (b) more graduate students, (c)fewer academic papers and (d) fewer library resources with high consistency, whichshows that engineering advantage university attaches great importance toengineering innovation students. The third configuration in table 4 shows (a) feweracademic