Action Items in Response to Faculty Concerns
Faculty Diversity
Because the college does not yet have a budget for the year, it is not in a position to launch a faculty hiring process. Nevertheless, the Implementation Team for Racial Justice urges the president's cabinet to develop new ways to enhance fulltime and tenure track faculty diversity. The team also urges the college to prepare for faculty hiring once it is able to do so. From our Institutional Research Office, it requests demographic data of faculty by department, as well as metrics related to faculty-student ratios, courses, and majors to understand our faculty hiring needs.
Curriculum Diversity
Last week, we noted that each academic department is required to have a student representative on its curriculum committee and urged chairs to ensure there are diverse student representatives on their departmental curriculum committees. We also recommended enhancements to ensure diverse student representation on Faculty Council committees. Today, the Implementation Team further recommends that each school develop a list of courses within its departments that relate to diversity issues and to discuss diversity of the curriculum with the School Student Advisory Council, which, last week, we recommended all schools create.
Faculty Service in Promotion and Tenure
The Implementation Team recommends that the college appoint a committee of interested faculty, chaired by Professor Sophia Suarez, to review best practices and recommend ways to measure and count faculty service and student mentorship in the promotion and tenure process.
Faculty Mentor
The Implementation Team recommends that the college select a faculty mentor to support junior faculty as they prepare for promotion and tenure and that it provide appropriate course release to the mentor. The faculty mentor will help guide junior faculty members, particularly diverse junior faculty members, to achieve excellence in research, teaching, and service as they prepare for promotion and tenure.
Faculty Complaints Against Faculty
Complaints against a faculty peer on the basis of membership in a protected class go to the Office of Diversity and Equity Programs. All other complaints about a faculty peer go to the dean of the school. The Implementation Team recommends that the administration review this process with CAP and Faculty Council, and underscore the prohibition on retaliation.
Faculty Support Fund
The Implementation Team recommends that the college fundraise specifically to support faculty working to enhance diversity at the college. The college needs a flexible funding source to support a number of faculty initiatives that support diversity including, for example, new programming, curricular development, research, release time for outstanding service, outside facilitation for training, and faculty start-up packages.
