Assessing departmental readiness to support minoritized faculty
Loading...
Links to Files
Author/Creator ORCID
Date
2024-02-27
Type of Work
Department
Program
Citation of Original Publication
Carter-Veale, W. Y., Cresiski, R. H., Sharp, G., Lankford, J. D., & Ugarte, F. (2024). Assessing departmental readiness to support minoritized faculty. New Directions for Higher Education, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1002/he.20494
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International
Subjects
Abstract
Though increasing numbers of racially and ethnically minoritized (REM) individuals earn PhDs and national initiatives focus on faculty diversity, challenges persist in recruiting, hiring, and retaining REM faculty. While a pervasive issue nationally, the literature predominantly focuses on faculty diversity at research-intensive institutions. This exploratory case study pilots a readiness instrument to evaluate the commitment and willingness of a biomedical department at a primarily undergraduate institution to embrace faculty diversity before initiating a postdoctoral faculty conversion program. We introduce the Community Readiness Model (CRM) into an academic context, offering academic departments a robust framework and tool to evaluate readiness and capacity to recruit, retain, and support REM faculty. Practical Takeaways Academic departments can be conceived of as a type of community. The adapted Department Readiness Tool can be a valuable method of evaluating a department's readiness to support the success of underrepresented minority faculty. Departments may score highly on some areas of readiness but relatively low on others, which provides insight into where time and resources should be invested to improve readiness.