Exploring Best Practices in Building and Retaining a Diverse Faculty

Higher education leaders say the pandemic has changed how institutions handle faculty recruitment. Zoom interviews or other virtual connections have become commonplace. The desire to build more diverse faculties has grown over the past two-and-a-half years as colleges and universities have come to understand the need to connect with students who have felt disconnected and to bring more complex and inclusive thought to higher education.

“To successfully build greater faculty diversity, I recommend proactively creating a critical mass of minoritized scholars and cultivating broader communities of care,” says Dr. Lisa Hanasono, director of training and content at the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD), a provider of professional development in higher education...

...Dr. Catherine Chan, assistant vice provost for high impact practices at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says the dissemination of position vacancy listings involves thinking about different and non-conventional ways of reaching candidates. “Folks are now leveraging other avenues, including networks that are established by professional organizations or even professional conferences to reach out to … people from more diverse backgrounds when there is a viable, diverse pool to consider,” she says...