Achieving Faculty Diversity: Straight Talk from the Frontline About What Works

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Achieving Faculty DiversityStraight Talk from
the Frontline About What Works

• Myra Gordon, Ph.D.
• Associate Provost
• Kansas State University
• All rights to this presentation are reserved.
  For further information, contact Dr. Myra Gordon
  at mygordon_at_ksu.edu or 785-532-6276.

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Trends in Faculty Make-Up (Percentages)
1 All institutions (Milem Astin, 1993), entire
population of college and university teaching
faculty 2 Full-time faculty in degree-granting,
post-secondary institutions, ranked as
lecturers, instructors, assistant professors,
associate professors, and professors. Category
of other faculty was omitted. (Chronicle of
Higher Education, 2000) 3 Full-Time Faculty in
Higher Education by Race, Ethnicity and Gender
(Minorities in Higher Education, 2003)
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The Traditional Culture of Faculty Hiring on
Predominately White University Campuses

• Faculty rule
• Privileged activity
• Closed activity
• Little accountability
• Narrow faculty allegiances
• Faculty unaware of their biases
• Faculty searching for God on a Good Day

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Preparation for the Pilot Project on Revised
Faculty Hiring Procedures

• Reviewed all institutional data on diversity
  issues
• Observed how faculty searches were run
• Reviewed existing hiring policies, procedures,
  and paperwork
• Reviewed the literature for best practices

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• Compared best practices to existing practices
• Re-wrote the procedures
• Revised the paperwork
• Created the concept of hiring as a partnership
  vs. a privilege
• Designed and implemented a retreat for department
  heads
• Created the Deans Office Review Team
• Wrote a charging script for search committees

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What Works In Faculty Diversification

• Having committed, involved, and savvy leadership
  at the deans level works
• Introducing accountability at the deans level
  works
• Thoughtfully structuring search committees works
• Carefully writing position descriptions works

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• Really and continually searching for diverse
  applicants works
• Fair evaluation of candidates works
• Running a first class campus visit works
• Using profiles of excellence rather than rankings
  works

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Benefits Associated with Having More Diverse
Faculty

• Building new relationships
• Getting positive spokespersons out there
• Opportunities to increase the cultural competence
  of extant faculty
• Addressing bias and stereotypical thinking

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• Expansions to curriculum
• More active methods in pedagogy
• New directions in research
• Better ability to plan for the future
• More role-models for all students