Advancing faculty diversity via recruitment: identifying the highest-impact opportunities - Blog - Interfolio

This is one post in a series on contemporary strategies for increasing faculty diversity and inclusive excellence in higher education. For a fuller picture, take a look at our free best practices checklist.

At schools that have been successful in improving diverse representation of faculty members during the recruitment stage, where do diversity officers focus their attention?

Administrators with ownership for faculty diversity face a common challenge: how to actually view accurate institutional data that would reveal patterns in what  is working and what isn’t.

There are a few key data points that the most progressive colleges and universities analyze annually, comparing them to trends across recent years:

  • Applicant pool diversity
  • The diversity of interview pools and diversity of candidates receiving offers—and how those compare to applicant pool diversity
  • How the offer acceptance rate for candidates from underrepresented groups correlates with the diversity of new hires

Having access to uniform and complete data for all faculty searches in all departments allows senior academic affairs leaders who are responsible for advancing faculty diversity to surface trends spanning the institution, set the most effective strategies, and direct scarce resources to the avenues with the greatest potential to impact change.

How does your institution compare?

To see how your school’s current practices lines up with contemporary leading strategies for advancing faculty diversity and inclusive excellence, take a look at our free best practices checklist.