Leveraging Promising Practices: Improving the Recruitment, Hiring, and Retention of Diverse & Inclusive Faculty

Abstract

Institutions looking to make headway into the persistent challenge of recruiting, hiring, and retaining a more diverse faculty are often looking for a playbook of best or promising practices to aid their efforts. While there are no one-size-fits-all solutions for the context-specific challenges facing universities, research on promising practices and the experiences of underrepresented group (URG) faculty provide indicators of the necessary elements of programs, practices, and interventions to increase the institutional and national diversity of faculty.These recommendations for promising practice are grounded in the research literature and should help institutional leaders to structure their interventions to best tackle these challenges. These promising practices urge institutions to:• Foster relationships all along the faculty career pathways.• Democratize knowledge about processes, standards, and norms.• Rethink recruitment and hiring strategies.• Address the conditions of faculty retention and success.• Celebrate diversity regularly.• Expand definitions of excellence for faculty accomplishments.• Question the roots “objective” or “neutral” criteria internally and externally.• Ensure values of diversity, equity, and inclusion are deeply embedded in decision-making.This report offers suggestions and guidance for institutions, including the importance of conducting a thorough self-assessment, the danger of reaching for promising practices before identifying the root problems, and a framework for developing a holistic, comprehensive and systemic approach to institutional change for inclusion that addresses the systemic, structural, values and cultural dimensions simultaneously.

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