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In 1991, ORAU created the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Award program providing seed money for research of early career faculty at ORAU member universities. The Powe Awards are intended to enrich the research and professional growth of young faculty and result in new funding opportunities. Eligible applicants are full-time assistant professors at ORAU member institutions within two years of their initial tenure track appointments. Awardees receive a one-year grant worth a total of $10,000. Four hundred sixty Powe Awards were made from 1991 to 2011. This descriptive study presents a secondary data analysis of 258 survey responses received in a 2012 follow-up survey. The survey focused on Powe awardees’ careers, research activities, and perceptions of the Powe Awards. Key variables studied are awardees’ peer reviewed publications, research presentations, research grants, honorary awards, continued employment at institution where Powe Award was received, tenure obtainment, leadership positions, and awardees’ perceptions of influence Powe Award had on their careers. Quantitative analysis of closed ended responses was supplemented by qualitative analysis of open-ended questions. Study findings indicate that Powe awardees increase peer-reviewed paper publications and research presentations through their early and middle career stages followed by a decrease in their later career stage. Powe awardees earn grants increasingly throughout their careers and earned a total of 1,866 grants. Almost half of Powe awardees reported earning 210 awards. For Powe awardees (1996 through 2006), 88.1 percent of the survey respondents were awarded tenure and was awarded, on average, after five years of faculty service. Approximately four out of five survey respondents maintained continuous employment at the universities where they received their Powe Award. Powe awardees hold more leadership positions within their research communities than within their universities. Recipients of the Powe Award indicated in the open-ended comments that they gained confidence in their abilities as researchers early in their careers due to the Powe Award. Their comments also convey that the Powe Award funds are serving as seed money in the collection of preliminary data which is used toward earning future research grants.

This life history study provides insight into the career paths of six females who attained the highest career level – president – in their organizations by exploring the influence of mentoring, family support, and networking in their career trajectories.Three female senior leaders from Health Care and three female senior leaders from Higher Education in the Midwest participated in the study. The leaders’ personal experiences were captured in narrative form through personal interviews with the researcher and coded and analyzed for patterns and themes. Daniel J. Levinson’s adult development stages (Levinson, Darrow, Klein, Levinson and McKee, 1978) were used to frame the four phases of career progression in the participant’s lives and provide a foundation for a conceptual model depicting the influence of mentoring, family support and networking.Findings showed that the support of family was apparent throughout the female senior leaders’ lives and their career trajectories. Mentors were most prevalent during pre-adult, early adult and the first part of middle adult stages. As the careers of the female leaders progressed into the later parts of early adult and throughout the middle adult stages, the importance and active use of networking was critical to obtain and maintain their current senior leadership position.Three themes emerged in this study: (1) Informal mentoring facilitated the women’s climb up the administrative ladder to senior levels, (2) Strong family support was essential throughout the women’s career trajectories, and (3) Networking was important as a career management strategy.Recommendations include that employers integrate mentoring and networking programs into their human resource policies. Secondly, that educators integrate these findings into course curriculum to inform females of the importance of mentoring, strong family support and networking in their career progression. Recommendations for future research include interviewing women who are relatively “new” to senior leadership positions. In addition, it is recommended that researchers explore strengths and limitations of informal and formal mentoring programs for women aspiring to senior leadership positions and to expand beyond the two sectors explored in this study, and use the themes in this study as variables for a quantitative research study.