Transcript Recruitment and Hiring Initiatives

Recruitment and Hiring
Initiatives
Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar
Vice Provost for Diversity
University of Connecticut
2012-2013
Diversity: A Vision at UConn
The Academic Plan, 2009-2014, “Our World,
Our People, Our Future,” and Diversity
In our research and teaching, as in our outreach,
we envision an inclusive community that
celebrates diversity, promotes civility, advances
global awareness, and cultivates leadership,
integrity, and engaged citizenship in our
students, faculty, and staff.
Diversity and UConn
• Expands horizons: intellectual, cultural,
scholarly, etc.
• Enhances critical thinking skills
• Enriches educational experience
• Encourages healthy workplace and social
development opportunities
▫ Measurable institutional outcomes: graduation
rates, promotion, tenure, retention, etc.
Recruiting Underrepresented Faculty
• What are “diverse” faculty?
▫ Faculty can bring diversity to a given department, school or college in a wide
range of ways: intellectual, scholarship, race, gender, etc. The ways in which
diversity is defined remains dynamic.
• Age
• National Origin
• Color Race Ethnicity
• Religion
• Disabilities
• Socio-Economic Background
• Gender
• Thoughts and Attitudes
These categories are included in the University’s definition of diversity and were
approved by the University of Connecticut Board of Trustees in August 2002.
Unintended Challenges in Faculty
Hiring Process
• Problematic search committee composition
• Under utilization of informal and formal
networks
▫ Academic Leadership Team for Effective Recruiting & Retention
(ALTERR)Committee model in College of Liberal Arts and
Sciences
▫ Possible search committee members from outside of department.
▫ Identifying biases, subtle and otherwise in search process, e.g.
letter length, adjective use, personal life references, etc.
Our student body is diverse,
shouldn’t we be?
“Female student attrition in science and
engineering has been attributed, in part, to a
lack of female mentors and role models.”
Nelson & Rodgers (2006). A National Analysis of Diversity in
Science and Engineering Faculties at Research Universities.
Our student body is diverse,
shouldn’t we be?

~50% of all doctorate degrees in the USA are earned by women;
however, women constitute only 39% of full-time faculty nationally
(women earn 40% of doctorate degrees in science & engineering but
make up only 28% of full-time faculty)
 The most prestigious academic positions are occupied by even fewer
women
 Only 24% of academic full professor positions are held by women
nationwide (19% in science and engineering fields)
:
Huang (n.d.). Gender Bias in Academia: Findings from Focus Groups
Letters of recommendation:
common pitfalls
• Letters for men tend
to be longer than
those for women.
• Letters for women
tend to highlight
teaching and training
over research.
• Letters for women
tend to discuss their
personal details more
that those for men.
Trix & Psenka (2003) Discourse & Society 14: 191
Picking the short list:
• Having more than one female or minority
candidate de-emphasizes their
‘uniqueness’.
• Be open to the idea that there is more
than one way to measure excellence.
• Look for inconsistencies between letters
and CV to check for biases.
The Search Process
• The search committee should represent a crosssection of faculty that can bring diverse
perspectives and input into accessing resources
and professional networks.
• The search committee should meet with
representatives of the Office of Diversity and
Equity (ODE) to ensure close adherence to legal
regulations and university policy.
The Search Process, Pt. II
• Consult the Dean and Vice Provost for Diversity
for proactive advice, oversight or other input to
execute a successful search, utilizing the greatest
range of resources and securing the best results.
The Search Process, Pt. III
• Make available to all candidates access to
various resources at the University of
Connecticut and its surrounding communities. A
VP for Diversity website with links to
restaurants, religious institutions, universitybased centers and institutes is available:
(diversity.uconn.edu)
Recruiting Underrepresented Faculty
• Utilize formal and informal networks
▫ Personal and professional contacts should be
exploited to identify prospective candidates for
hire. Contacting colleagues at various institutions
for suggestions is encouraged. Identifying and
encouraging a “dream” candidate to apply can
prove effective.
▫ Announcements on professional lists or websites
Recruiting Underrepresented Faculty,
Pt. II
• Cast a wide net: advertisements, job postings
▫ General-interest academic publications, such as
the Chronicle are important, as well as those
targeted to certain communities, such as Diverse
Issues in Higher Education (Ads to direct to
Husky Hire), specialty journals targeted to
underrepresented groups, other free options like
H-Net, various academic wiki sites are
increasingly used by younger tech-savvy job
candidates.
Recruiting Underrepresented Faculty,
Pt. III
• Utilize discipline-specific directories
▫ Many disciplines have very specific affinity-group
professional associations. Some, like the Association
for the Study of African American Life and History, are
more established and discipline-specific, but not
populated by a specific URG necessarily. Though
mostly black, many members of ASALH are white.
Others, like the Society of Hispanic Professional
Engineers, and Professional Advancement of Black
Chemists and Chemical Engineers or the Association
for Women in Science are, by design, populated by
URG.
Recruiting Underrepresented Faculty,
Pt. IV
• Consider scholars with long-term relationships
with colleagues and departments or programs.
▫ These may be scholars who have served as coP.I.s, co-authors or other professional
collaborators with UConn faculty.
Joint-Appointment Hires
• Consider the talent and resources of areas of
excellent at the University. The Women and
Gender Studies Program, Institute for African
American Studies, El Instituto and Asian
American Studies Institute provide great
possibilities for joint-hires.
Short-term options: Visiting Faculty
• There are models for visiting faculty in certain
fields. These may be faculty exchanges with
targeted HBCUs or HSIs. The John Hope
Franklin Humanities Center at Duke provides a
model for this. We may focus on STEM faculty
from schools with exceptional reputations like
Spelman College, Morehouse College and
Howard University.
Promote UConn!
• The University of Connecticut is a leading,
national major research university. The image,
reputation of UConn are such that we can
compete with major universities. People are
attracted to resources, supportive and healthy
environments, professional options and vibrant
communities. We have this. Keep in mind that
Ann Arbor, Ithaca, Urbana-Champagne and
Chapel Hill are not major metropolises.
Appendix: Resources for faculty Search Committees
We encourage faculty search committees to assiduously expand pools of job candidates, increasing
options for hiring the most competitive and talented faculty available. The following links provide
access to a diverse group of professional associations.
•
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
▫ http://www.stemedcoalition.org/ (home link)
▫ http://www.stemedcoalition.org/stem-ed-coalition-activities (Positions and Activities)
•
National Society of Black Engineers
▫ http://www.nsbe.org (home link)
▫ https://www.nsbe.org/login.aspx?af=NSBE&tp=jpc_dev%2Fjpc_login.asp&param=jid%3D
(Job Placement Center)
•
Association for Women in Science
▫ http://www.awis.org (home link)
▫ http://www.awis.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=3 (Career Center)
•
Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers
▫ http://www.shpe.org (home link)
▫ http://www.shpe.org/index.php/employment (Employment)
▫ http://www.shpefoundation.org/internships (Internships)
Resources for Faculty Search Committees II
Database Links
• Advance (Rice University)
▫ http://www.advance.rice.edu/nifpdb.aspx
• National Endowment for the Humanities
▫ https://securegrants.neh.gov/publicquery/main.aspx
• National Institutes of Health
▫ http://report.nih.gov/searchable_public_databases/index.aspx
(searchable public databases)
• National Research Council
▫ http://nationalacademies.org/about/awards/index.html
Resources for Faculty Search Committees III
Database Links
•
National Science Foundation
▫ http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch
▫ CADRE (K-12 research)
 http://cadrek12.org/nsf-dr-k-12
•
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
▫ http://mathflix.luc.edu/ContentIndex/nctm-content-index-computer.html
•
Ford Foundation
▫ http://www.fordfoundation.org/grants/search
•
McKnight Fellows for the State of Florida
▫ http://fefonline.org/mdf.html
•
Committee on Institutional Cooperation
▫ https://wwws.cic.net/programs/CICCourseShare/archive/ResourceList/courseShareWebTool