Fiscal year 2001 marked an important milestone in policies to attract and retain women in science and engineering. That year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) initiated an awards program called ADVANCE at a funding level of $19 million. The program supports efforts by institutions and individuals to empower women to participate fully in science and technology. The NSF explained in announcing the program that a category for institutional awards was needed because of an "increasing recognition that the lack of women's full participation at the senior level of academe is often a systemic consequence of academic culture." At the end of a special meeting held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in January 2001, a statement was released on behalf of nine U.S. research universities (the California Institute of Technology; MIT; Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale Universities; and the Universities of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and California, Berkeley) suggesting that institutional barriers have prevented women scientists and engineers from having a level playing field in their professions. "Institutions of higher education have an obligation, both for themselves and for the nation, to fully develop and utilize all the creative talent available," the statement declared, explaining that the signatories "recognize that barriers still exist" for women faculty, and that "this challenge will require significant review of, and potentially significant change in, the procedures within each university, and within the scientific and engineering establishments as a whole." For the first time in public and in print, the leaders of the nation's most prestigious research universities acknowledged the existence of institutional barriers for women scientists and engineers, suggesting that science and engineering might need to change to accommodate women. (Contains 2 tables and 1 endnote.)