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GDI :: Hiring & Retention Toolkit 2

Hiring and Retention

An inclusive department hires and retains a diverse faculty, with particular emphasis on the representational needs of the student body.

What does a relative weakness in Hiring and Retention (or stated concern in this area) mean?  Each department may discover many meanings, but here are some things to consider.

  • Hiring and retaining a diverse faculty is not a priority, and there may be an assumption that hiring for diversity means lowering standards 
  • The department places little to no value on hiring faculty to diversify the department and/or to meet the needs of diversity present in the student population
  • Practices to hire a diverse faculty are minimal, nominal, uninformed, or haphazard
  • Faculty from underrepresented groups are burdened with the expectation to place a value on and pursue diversity in a way that faculty from overrepresented groups are not
  • There are few processes or programs in place to meet the diverse needs of faculty from underrepresented groups. Despite efforts to hire and retain diversity, there may be no evaluation of impact or outcomes.
  • Faculty from underrepresented groups are less likely to succeed in the department, at least in part, because the department does not equitably meet their divergent needs

It is well documented that hiring and retaining diverse faculty positively impacts student success, the curriculum, and departmental.  Colleges can no longer afford to sacrifice their profile by remaining predominantly white institutions. As the demographics of our student bodies change and become increasingly diverse, it stands to reason that our faculty’s composition should also diversify. An equally important and complicated issue is how to retain diverse faculty members once they have been successfully recruited to join our small liberal arts colleges.

It is crucial that all faculty feel supported by colleagues, their chair, and the administration and that new colleagues develop a sense of belonging in the department and at the institution. Yet underrepresented faculty face numerous challenges, particularly at predominantly white institutions with small faculties where compositional diversity is still a barrier. As Perry Greene writes, “Faculty of color often leave predominantly white institutions due to a lack of support and engagement with the institution. That can take many forms, including undesirable course assignments, a devaluing of their scholarship, poor support and collaboration on research efforts, and microaggressions in the work environment” (Inside Higher Ed 2018).

Just as a sense of belonging can predict success in our student population, so too can it predict the achievement and retention of our faculty. Any workplace climate characterized by disrespect or bias (implicit or explicit) threatens and damages its members’ sense of belonging and full engagement. Yet research has shown persistence of bias in the hiring process and in tenure and promotion processes, as well as a need for more alignment between stated or unstated institutional or departmental values and daily practices or the lived experience of underrepresented faculty. While institutional strategies and practices should bolster diversity and inclusion efforts, much can be done at the departmental level to address concerns regarding hiring and retaining diverse faculty.

Inclusive Hiring Strategies:

Greene states, “Faculty search committees may benefit from a facilitated, mindful approach to strategies for conducting active, instead of passive, searches.” Many excellent resources provide general guidance on intentional search and hiring processes (see below, especially Stewart and Valian 2018). These well-known strategies include writing job announcements that are broad in focus and explicitly signal an inclusive environment. Some other strategies tailored to the context of a small liberal arts college might include:

  • Seek training for search committees and/or for all department members through your HR department and/or external resources as needed. Consider partnering/collaborating with other departments or your faculty development office. If no training opportunities exist on your campus, consider working with other department chairs and your academic dean/provost to establish them or lobby for them as a clear demonstration of an institutional commitment to diversifying the faculty.
  • In the absence of formal training opportunities on your campus, share articles on inclusive hiring and bias with your colleagues, such as the ones below. Discuss the articles at department meetings and utilize them to write a strategic hiring plan to which everyone contributes and agrees to follow.
  • Note when underrepresented groups are overrepresented on the non-tenure-track and work creatively to move faculty from those groups to the tenure track
  • Use screening criteria that value the expression of inclusive teaching pedagogies and or research practices
  • Actively search for diverse applicants through personal contacts, graduate programs and organizations, professional organizations and conferences, and resources like HERC. Do not take a “wait and see” approach to the applicant pool. Small liberal arts colleges, particularly in rural areas, need to do more active recruiting and take a variety of creative approaches to ensure a large and diverse applicant pool.
  • Establish clearly stated criteria for evaluation and design clear rubrics as part of a structured interview process. Strive for measurable criteria based on knowledge, skills, and experience. Avoid “fit” as a criterion, which can bias hiring committees toward candidates who are “like them” (see Moody for list of biases).
  • Conduct blind reviews (with the names of candidates omitted) of CVs when possible
  • Use a rubric for rating diversity statements
  • For on-campus interviews, ensure candidates can interact with students, programs, and offices demonstrating institutional and departmental commitment to DEI. Honestly, engage candidates about the institution’s challenges in fulfilling DEI commitments.
  • Involve students in the hiring process and pay special attention to getting input from diverse students. Consider compensating key students and formally incorporating their feedback, avoiding the pitfall of performative diversity.
  • Identify an Equity Advisor outside your department to check your processes and procedures and to hold you and your department accountable, ideally with a standardized method. This could be a chair from another department with a proven track record in diverse hiring and retention, a dean or other administrator involved in DEI on your campus, or a colleague external to your institution with training in DEI matters.
  • Consider the following resources for more ideas and information:

Retention Strategies

Understanding the situation and building empathy:

  • Gather and examine your data: Who has left your department and why? Who has received tenure, and who has not? What patterns emerge?
  • Note any non-diverse approaches to diversity.  When diversity is attended to, is it overly focused on one or two groups, giving less attention to other underrepresented groups?
  • Examine who participates in key decisions. Who has a seat “at the table” in department meetings? On important University committees? Who is recruited for leadership opportunities at appropriate career stages?  Are faculty with diverse experience (e.g., on non-traditional tracks) and identities (biracial, intersectional) recruited to diversify thinking and planning for all types of faculty and students?
  • If you have not historically conducted exit interviews, design a process for doing so. Include explicit questions related to belonging and inclusion. Consider asking someone outside your department to conduct the interviews to encourage honesty and openness.  Identify sources of accountability.  If there are none, become a leading department and request that the Dean’s office provides this accountability.
  • Get feedback from graduating seniors, especially from underrepresented groups.  Find out what they envision would be better if there were more faculty diversity in the department.
  • Openly discuss your data within the department and involve current department members in problem-solving and planning to address the findings. Be transparent with updates on progress.   Set clear metrics for improvement.
  • Consider the following resources for more ideas and information:

Enhancing departmental climate with a focus on retention:

  • Consider working with your colleagues to create a diversity statement for your department and share it widely on departmental web pages, etc. Remind your department that the articulation of the statement is an opportunity for department members to clarify and affirm their values. Use it when engaging in strategic planning and departmental assessment. Return to the statement often to revisit and revise as needed.
  • Align your statement with institutional DEI goals.  Submit your statement to administrative diversity personnel for approval.
  • Examine your department meetings for inclusive practices. For instance, allow pre-tenure faculty to speak first and/or provide anonymous modes of input. Invite non-tenure track faculty to join your department meetings. Send strong signals that all voices are valued by establishing meeting guidelines (link to example) and setting meeting times that do not conflict for any member.
  • Make visible the “invisible labor” of faculty in your department by assessing the work distribution in the department [link to the Inventory of Campus Work]. Who is doing what kinds of service, and is it distributed equitably? Who is teaching the most “service” courses? Who has the most advisees? Who has the most course preparations in any given semester? Who teaches at the most or least desirable hours? Check the data for patterns that may suggest underrepresented faculty are doing more. Additionally, consider instructing faculty to, if applicable, include these forms of labor in their tenure review narratives.
  • Are diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts acknowledged and rewarded? Is this work being adequately recognized in annual reviews and the promotion and tenure process? In departmental newsletters, webpages, and other venues?
  • What are tangible rewards for departments that do this work (carrots)? What are the demonstrable, measurable requirements for departments?  What happens if these standards are not met (sticks)?
  • Is professional development in diversity, equity, and inclusion a priority for your department, including for the Department Chair? Are such opportunities made available and encouraged? When colleagues attend DEI workshops and other opportunities on or off-campus, do they return their learning to the department? How often do you discuss professional development in DEI explicitly as a department?
  • Do underrepresented faculty have access to targeted mentoring programs? If these programs are unavailable within your institution, are they told about external programs and financially supported to participate in them?
  • Consider the fact that often, proportionally more contingent and adjunct faculty are underrepresented faculty. How can the department create an environment where underrepresented populations receive more job security and support?

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