Over the last few years I’ve been chair of the Diversity
Committee at the college level and I think we’ve come up with some innovative
and cheap ideas to increase ethnic and gender diversity. We are mainly
targeting increasing gender and ethnic diversity at the faculty level and I’d
like to share two of the simplest of these changes that I think have the
potential to work anywhere. These are (1) the appointment of a Diversity
Advocate on every faculty search and student recruitment committee and (2) the
creation of a hybrid postdoc/assistant professor position to bridge targeted
hires to becoming stronger candidates for tenure track positions.
1. The Diversity Advocate position is simply appointing
someone already on any faculty search or student recruitment committee as the
person who will bring attention to diversity issues related to the search. This
person should try their best to contact groups, clubs or individuals
representing traditionally under-represented groups in the field related to the
search. So for instance a member of the search committee for a position in
Ecology could contact the Women and Minorities in Ecology
(WAMIE) Committee to ask them to spread the word among their
members about this search and to encourage their members to apply for this
position. Too often the pool of applicants for a given search have few
applicants that are women or members of underrepresented minorities. The
reasons for the paucity of underrepresented candidates varies (follow @DNLee5
and @AtheneDonald for
some answers). Having a Diversity Advocate ensures that someone is
trying to make an honest effort to increase diversity among the pool of
applicants. Likewise the Diversity Advocate could call attention to someone who
didn’t make the shortlist but is the strongest candidate not to make it among
those from traditionally underrepresented groups. It might be someone that the
department decides to add to the shortlist because it is otherwise not very diverse.
I’ve seriously seen several cases where this additionally invited candidate
blows everyone away and has gotten the job. The beauty of the Diversity
Advocate position is that you don’t need to add a new person onto a committee,
you are just appointing someone already on it to help advocate for diversity.
In our College we have a form that we ask each Diversity Advocate to fill out
and send to our Dean once the search is done. This tells us what was done to
increase diversity among the pool of applicants (http://science.lsu.edu/Faculty+Staff/Diversity%20in%20Science/item61566.html).
Examples
of what the Diversity Advocate can do:
(1) On
A Search Committee - encourage or seek out minority/female applicants from
other institutions to apply for a particular job opening for an upcoming search
(2) On
A Graduate Admissions Committee – ensure that applications from
underrepresented groups are properly treated and perhaps act to connect
potential faculty members with these applicants
(3) On
A Search Committee - encourage the department to bring in a 3rd or 4th
short-list candidate among the pool of job applicants if none of the top
choices are female or part of an underrepresented minority
2. We also recommend the creation of a hybrid
postdoc/assistant-professor position to target diversity hires for folks who
are not quite ready to join the tenure track. This position is not a postdoctoral
fellowship nor a tenure-track position but something in-between that is meant
to be a bridge to a tenure-track faculty position. The position can be used to
target postdoctoral students of underrepresented groups that don’t quite have a
strong enough CV to compete for a faculty position. The intent is to create
this position to allow the candidate to apply for grants and write papers in
order to become more competitive in a faculty search in the future (hopefully
at our institution but not necessarily).
(1) On paper to
be titled a “Research Assistant Professorship” but is not initially a tenure-track
position.
(2) The
candidate can apply as a PI for external grant funding and is expected to apply
(3) The
candidate will work in a fostering PI’s lab (mentor’s lab) as a post-doc would,
but with greater independence. Some funds will be provided for equipment that
would stay with the mentor’s lab and for disposables. Some funding may also be made
available for the mentoring PI’s as incentive to take the fellow under their
mentorship.
(4) Expected to
write and publish scientific papers in order to become competitive for an R1
position.
(5) Will have a
mentoring committee (composed of at least three senior faculty) just like
assistant professors receive. This committee will provide feedback to the
researcher on their progress and will prepare a report for the Chair of the
department.
(6) Expected to
build CV to eventually apply to, and join, the tenure track.
This hybrid position is meant to help seal
the leaky postdoc pipeline where many underrepresented candidates drop out of
science because of the lack of opportunities. Unlike the Diversity Advocate
position this position actually costs money. However, it is a worthy investment
if the result is someone who becomes a strong candidate for a faculty position
that would have otherwise become another statistic.
I’ve been on three diversity committees: once as a graduate
student, once in my department, and now as chair at the college level. Just
having one of these committees in your department should be a must if the
faculty are serious about dealing with issues of diversity. I’ve seen real
progress being made by the suggestions of these committees.
