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Toolkits for Retention and Recruitment: Utilization and Outcomes

Sheila Edwards Lange and Joyce W. Yen

University of Washington Center for Workforce Development/University of Washington ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change

Abstract: The University of Washington has developed a faculty recruitment toolkit and faculty retention toolkit which have been widely disseminated on the UW campus and off campus at many other colleges and universities. The recruitment toolkit provides guidelines, ideas and strategies for conducting a proactive search for diverse candidates. The retention toolkit is a collection of best practices for retaining faculty across all ranks. In this paper, preliminary findings from search data, and interviews with department chairs and search committees about their experiences utilizing the recruitment toolkit are presented. The paper focuses on the impact that the recruitment toolkit has had on university searches, reviews the elements of the companion retention toolkit and explores implications for future uses of both on other campuses.

Introduction

Given the changing demographics of the nation, the need to diversify the faculty is well understood by academic administrators.[1, 2] How to recruit and retain a diverse faculty, however, is still an issue struggled with on many college and university campuses.[1, 3, 4] The primary tool used by many higher education institutions, affirmative action, has failed to produce significant diversity in the faculty. Further, despite its failure, affirmative action has increasingly come under political attack with court cases and statewide anti-affirmative action initiatives.[5, 6]

Over the last decade, higher education research has focused on alternative strategies to affirmative action as the primary means to diversify the faculty. Research has identified two key barriers to achieving faculty diversity: 1) flawed faculty search processes that proliferate faculties that are predominantly white and male;[3] and 2) an academic culture that is slow to embrace and retain women and faculty of color.[4, 7, 8] To address these two barriers, the University of Washington developed a Faculty Recruitment Toolkit in 2000, and recently developed a companion Faculty Retention Toolkit as part of its National Science Foundation sponsored ADVANCE program. This paper summarizes the history and intent of both toolkits, discusses preliminary data from an ongoing research project relative to utilization of the recruitment toolkit and offers recommendations for replication on other campuses.

The University of Washington Context

Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education

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Edwards Lange, S., & Yen, J. (2005, June), Toolkits For Retention And Recruitment: Utilization And Outcomes Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--14290