Faculty Diversity Hiring Toolkit

Create an inclusive culture within the University and within the academic unit

• Make sure that department/school-wide service is equitably distributed among faculty - *note faculty of color and women tend to perform more institutional service than their white, male counterparts
• Recognize and celebrate diverse scholarship and knowledge areas by inviting guest speakers from historically underrepresented groups throughout the academic year (as opposed to limiting such events to Black History month, for example)

Provide mentoring and sponsorship opportunities

• Offer access to opportunities for new faculty, especially publication and collaboration
• Budget for one or two early career women or faculty of color to attend a national professional development conference
• Normalize sharing successful grant proposals, promotion and tenure documents, etc.

Create a culture of social and intellectual connection

• Encourage faculty of color to participate in faculty writing groups peer mentoring and events for underrepresented faculty at the Center for Faculty Development and Scholarly Excellence
• Organize "brown bag" seminars within your department/school

Recognize and celebrate faculty achievements

• Use your dept/school social media to amplify contributions by underrepresented faculty
• Contact the Office of Faculty Affairs and/or University Marketing and Communication to share faculty accomplishments

As Loyola University Chicago’s mission statement asserts, we are “a diverse community seeking God in all things”.  The commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion evidenced and developed in this toolkit is, therefore, aptly understood as an expression of institutional mission. 

The Characteristics of Jesuit Higher Education, which is the primary source document guiding the Mission Priority Examen of the Society of Jesus, further explains, “Jesuit universities are always seeking to diversify their student populations and create equitable and inclusive academic environments. With their roots in a spiritual tradition, Jesuit universities are compelled to address historical exclusion based on race, gender, sexual orientation, disability or other identities—and the faculty have an irreplaceable role in assuring that academic life reflects this commitment.”

Inclusive Hiring Language

An inclusive position description goes beyond the mandatory Equal Employment Opportunity statement ("Loyola University Chicago is an Equal Opportunity Employer") by reinforcing and articulating the Loyola’s commitment to diversity, specifically that of the academic unit. The advertisement should signal that applicants from historically under-represented backgrounds should take a closer look at a position announcement. Such statements also communicate to all applicants that a commitment to diversity is an expectation of the position itself.

Search committees can begin by including in the job description a statement such as the one below by the American Association for the Advancement of Science:

The University seeks to increase the diversity of its professoriate, workforce and undergraduate and graduate student populations because broad diversity including a wide range of individuals who contribute to a robust academic environment is critical to achieving the University's mission of excellence in education, research, educational access and services in an increasingly diverse society. Therefore, in holistically accessing the many qualifications of each applicant, we would factor favorably an individual's record of conduct that includes experience with an array of diverse perspectives, as well as a wide variety of different educational, research or other work activities. Among other qualifications, we would also factor favorably experience overcoming or helping others overcome barriers to an academic career or degrees.

This statement indicates that the search committee is seeking individuals with diversity and inclusion related skills, individuals who can expand the unit’s scholarly inclusivity, and/or individuals who can engage with diversity issues in the classroom.

Strategies for Crafting an Inclusive Job Advertisement

• Emphasize LUC's efforts and initiatives that demonstrate diversity and inclusion as core values of the institution.
• Avoid excessive requirements, which limit a range of interests, backgrounds and experiences
• Describe how the position contributes to the University's diversity, equity and inclusion goals
• Use gender neutral language

Expanding the Search

• Contact affinity groups such as the Society of Women Engineers or the Association of Black Sociologists.
• Ask faculty and graduate students to help identify strong candidates, including women and minority candidates.
• Contact mentors who have a track record of mentoring underrepresented students towards faculty positions.
• Contact colleagues at other institutions to seek nominations of students nearing graduation or faculty interested in moving laterally, making sure to request references to underrepresented minority and women colleagues.
• Create a list of local post-docs and contact them.
• Task all committee members with making at least three such communications.

The word “fit” is typically used in two ways in faculty hiring. One usage of fit refers to matching candidates to program and departmental needs. The other usage means: “people like us.” Yet candidates who fit the first definition often run counter to the second because academic units require people with new backgrounds, original research areas and innovative pedagogies to keep up with the changing needs our students.

“It’s useful, therefore for members of search committees to have a serious conversation about what they as a group mean by the word fit at the very beginning of the process. This practice helps prevent institutions from eliminating candidates for reasons such as ‘she or he just won’t fit in here’ or ‘I just don’t see him or her as a good fit with the close-knit group we’ve developed in our department.' When people make these remarks, they almost always do so with the best intentions. But if the assumptions behind them go unchallenged, the pursuit of the wrong kind of fit can undo all your other efforts to achieve diversity for your program.”–John Buller, Best Practices for Faculty Search Committees

• The Facade of Fit in Faculty Search Process
• Common Barriers to Hiring for Diversity

Once a search committee has been established, all members of the committee must complete the anti-bias workshop for search committees provided by the Office of Academic Diversity prior to finalizing their position description.

Consider devoting your first committee meeting to discuss each other’s understandings of implicit bias. Examine patterns of previous searches in your unit. Your history of faculty hiring can provide useful insights before beginning the search. Key questions here include:

• What percentage of candidates from groups historically underrepresented in academia have applied for positions in your department in previous searches?
• What percentage of candidates from groups historically underrepresented in academia has your department/program brought to campus for interviews in past searches?
• If your department/program has hired persons from groups historically underrepresented in academia, what strategies did search committees use to bring about these outcomes?
• If persons from groups historically underrepresented in academia have turned down positions in your department/program, what reasons did they give for their decision?
• If your department has made no offers to persons from groups historically underrepresented in academia, consider changing your existing evaluation systems so they can better take into account the strengths of all potential candidates.

It is useful to consistently evaluate committee decisions to determine whether the pool of candidates advances the department’s and the University's faculty diversity goals.

To help determine if implicit bias is playing a role in the committee's decisions, some useful questions to consider are:

• What is the basis for including/excluding certain candidates? Where is there clear evidence and when do assumptions/speculations emerge?

• Do the demographics of the shortlist mesh with demographics in our applicant pool and with the national pool? (IPEDS is useful here)

• If a significant percentage of historically underrepresented candidates do not make it to the interview stage or the shortlist, consider why this may be the case. Can the pool be reconsidered with a more inclusive lens and/or can the search be extended?

• How has the committee ensured that candidates from groups historically underrepresented in academia are not being held to a different standard or set oof expectations in order to be considered "qualified?"

How are reference letters being assessed in the candidate assessment process? Research shows that letter writers often use significantly more standout adjectives to describe male as compared to female candidates. (Schmader et al., 2007)

• How has the search committee controlled for sub-field bias? We know that "novel contributions by gender and racial minorities are taken up by other scholars at lower rates than novel contributions by gender and racial majorities, and equally impactful contributions of gender and racial minorities are less likely to result in successful scientific careers than for majority groups."