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The Provost's Office provides excellent resources for faculty search committees. In addition, the FAS Dean's Office recommends the following to organize an effective search:
- Every committee must have an appointed diversity representative. The primary responsibility of the diversity representative is to partner with the search chair to ensure that all committee members are aware and informed of resources pertaining to implicit bias and search best practices.
- Note that diversity is not simply a demographic question. Diversity should be integrated as a part of the strategic vision for the search.
- Diversity representatives should write every search committee member and ask if they have tested for implicit bias. If they have not, they should take one of these quizzes.
- The diversity representative might want to circulate to search committee members this excellent article by our colleague Jenn Richeson, “More Diverse Yet Less Tolerant? How the Increasingly Diverse Racial Landscape Affects White Americans’ Racial Attitudes.” There is an abundance of scholarship addressing questions of bias and racial attitudes and engaging that scholarship might be one way to inaugurate conversations about diversity in the search committee. This reading list recommends other pertinent works on diversity in higher education. If the diversity representative decides to organize a discussion around a particular book, they may, in consultation with the relevant academic unit chair, apply for a departmental diversity and faculty development grant.
- It is not enough to post and advertisement for a position and assume an excellent applicant pool will appear.
- Once you begin to interview candidates, individual search committee members must be mindful about appropriate interview questions. Refer to the guide to unacceptable interview questions.