Recruitment Resources

BACKGROUND
During the past few years, many members of the UA community have devoted a great deal of thought and effort to issues related to diversity. The UA has been found wanting in many areas related to diversity by a wide variety of internal and external studies: The NCA Report, the Millennium Report, The Grace Report, the Campus Diversity Climate Assessment, the Committee of Eleven's report titled Diversity at the University of Arizona, and several reports of the Commission on the Status of Women. These reports and their contributors have called upon various University offices to respond. While there are many different agendas and no cohesive agreement yet on definitions and philosophies of diversity, several consistent themes have emerged:

1. The climate for many UA employees continues to be a frustrating and inequitable one;
2. We need to move from the rhetoric and discussion phase into an action mode soon;
3. A crucial locus of any diversity action plan must be the search and hiring processes.

Because the offices of the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Human Resources both provide leadership and support roles in the search and hiring processes, we are responding to this sense of urgency with initiatives to address areas of diversity that fall appropriately within our domains. Much of the emphasis will be upon faculty, where the gender imbalance and under representation of racial and ethnic groups is especially evident, but the tools are applicable elsewhere.

DEVELOPING MORE SUCCESSFUL SEARCHES AND HIRES
The offices of the Vice Provost and Human Resources are ultimately responsible for many aspects of the search and hire processes. To assist search committees to attract candidate pools that include qualified women and members of underrepresented groups, our offices will provide workshops and guidelines for search committees and administrative personnel in the early fall. We will team with the office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action and the UA Attorneys' Office to develop useful resources and solid search process protocols.

In the late summer we will be distributing written guidelines for search committees specifically aimed at creating a more diverse faculty. Our offices are collaborating to create a website that will contain a wealth of information aimed at promoting diversity on our campus, with links to other important sites and continued updates on best practices, both at UA and elsewhere. This site will build upon the many excellent ideas already in place at UA, and will incorporate new ideas currently being developed by the Deans' Subcommittee on Diversity, the Diversity Coalition, and the President's Council on Diversity, among others. Many of these ideas will contribute to more proactive and inclusive searches, and better, more thoughtful hires.

CREATING A BETTER PIPELINE
While there is much we can do immediately to improve our sensitivity to diversity and to improve our searches and hires, we must also look at the longer view. The UA can play a major role in attracting women and young students of color into higher education, and into educational tracks that may lead them into academic careers. Through targeted initiatives in K-12, and through the development of networks with peer institutions, we can begin to track the most talented young students from underrepresented groups in K-12 and bachelor's programs, and guide them into programs that will eventually provide the scholars of the future.

The Office of Human Resources is developing a national database to allow UA to track outstanding minority and women students and scholars in all fields. In time this database will become a major resource for many future searches.

CREATING A PLAN
During the spring of 2002, Elizabeth Ervin, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, has worked on a sabbatical project titled Toward a More Diverse University of Arizona: A Blueprint for Action. It will be released this summer. The blueprint will provide a framework for a plan, and is oriented toward action, responsibility, and accountability at every level of the institution. Again, it emphasizes faculty as the focus, but the contents are transferable to all employee groups. It will be an open framework, able to embrace emerging ideas and capable of continual renewal. The report will be placed on our joint website as soon as it is released to the campus.

It is both exciting and challenging to see the movement toward a more diverse campus. We hope that our efforts can join with the efforts of many others committed to seeing UA become a welcoming place for students and employees of all beliefs and backgrounds.

Blueprint for Action
Dean's Diversity Subcommittee Proposal
Guide to Succesful Searches
Diversity Action Plan
Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs
UAINFO

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This site is maintained by Office of the Provost, The University of Arizona Administration Building 512, PO Box 210066 Tucson, Arizona 85721-0066 phone: (520) 621-1856     fax: (520) 621-9118 email

November 2002; updated September 2004, April 2006
http://academicaffairs.arizona.edu