Frank Conversation about Faculty IssuesTopic: Can we talk about race?
Friday, March 7th, 9:30-10:30 AM, Osprey Commons Faculty Lounge (Building 16, 4th Floor)
Despite efforts by Higher Education to bring diversity to college campuses, faculty of Color continue to be underrepresented among faculty ranks. A recent post in the Chronicle of Higher Education by an Associate Professor of African-American studies highlights the growing tensions around race bias in higher education and the attitudes of White Americans nationally. Recent research by the Harvard Business School suggests that as perceptions of race bias have decreased, perceptions of anti-White race bias have increased among Whites. Recent conversations among faculty on the UNF campus have highlighted the challenges faculty of Color face in feeling welcomed and supported by the UNF community.
Come discuss how these issues impact UNF and faculty across the nation.
We will meet in the Faculty Lounge on the 4th floor of the Osprey Commons.
OFE will provide the coffee and pastries.
Dr. Edythe Abdullah, Special Advisor to the President provided this link to a video showing a conversation among UNF leaders about hiring faculty with diversity in mind (on YouTube) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMnjzRqc1mw
ReplyDeleteHere is a recent Chronicle article suggestion that addressing White privilege in the classroom affects ratings of instruction satisfaction.
ReplyDeletehttp://chronicle.com/blogs/letters/white-privilege-is-alive-and-well-on-many-college-campuses/
Message from Dr. Edythe Abdullah, Special Advisor to the President
ReplyDelete> I thought I might take a moment to add a little more context to your email regarding what has been done to encourage diversity and inclusion. In addition to focus groups and a climate survey, I identified six significant sources of highly qualified PhD grads from underrepresented groups. After identifying those groups, SREB, Sloan, McNair, McKnight, Ford and several other minority fellowship programs, a number of faculty and staff attended conferences to recruit minority candidates. Additionally, the positions advertised this year, including the dean’s position was posted to their job ad sites. Faculty and staff attended, based on special negotiated rates I secured two conference with a plethora of newly developed information about the academic jobs advertised at UNF. Names were collected at those conferences and a data base created of each person who indicated an interest in working at UNF. We followed up by writing each individual a personalized letter ( From Provost Traynham) and providing more information about the institution and Jacksonville. A data base is being finalized by my grad assistant that includes all the contacts from these conferences and their organizations, institutions with minority fellowship programs for PhDs and the specific contact names for the faculty who supervise those programs. Moreover, a professional development video was developed and distributed to all the deans, department chairs and screening committee chairs titled “Hiring With Diversity in Mind.” The link is above.
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> In addition to that extensive conversations have occurred between I and Chief Diversity Officers at several model universities, including Penn State, Montana State, University of Wisconsin at Madison, FGCU, and Virginia Commonwealth to name a few. Those conversations have led to the following.
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> 1) An impending visit to Penn State to learn about all their exceptional and expansive diversity and inclusion initiatives
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> 2) A Summit, held in February with administrators, deans, chairs and underrepresented faculty led by nation diversity and inclusion expert Dr. Damon Williams
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> 3) The development of recommendations for enhancing the recruitment and retention of diverse staff ( under development now)
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> 4) Analysis of data on the entire institution including each department’s (academic and administrative divisions) diversity statistics
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> 5) The partial completion of a new professional development manual about hiring biases and how to overcome them in hiring processes (based on five national model recruitment and hiring manuals)
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> 6) An outline for a university wide framework for measuring successful diversity and inclusion objectives
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> 7) Work with several departments to help them develop diversity plans to meet either accreditation requirements or departmental goals.
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> 8) Work with several departments to enhance ad descriptions for jobs to include language re: diversity.
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> 9) UNF decision to compete for an NSF grant (ADVANCE) that funds initiatives to enhance the institution’s capacity to recruit and retain women and minority faculty. I have met with John Kantor and his staff and upon completion of the survey will call together a design team.
Here is a video of Neil Degrasse-Tyson about race, gender, and the need for science to do more to make a place for minorities.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.upworthy.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-reveals-that-hes-been-black-his-whole-life-hilarity-and-wisdom-follow