What Does It Take? Cultivating Inclusive and Equitable Environments for Faculty Diversity
Featured: The Michigan Daily
Date: October 7th, 2016 (Event)
Dr. Sam Museus, Professor of Higher Education & Student Affairs at Indiana University, Bloomington, is an expert on creating cutlurally engaging campus environments and has developed extensive models on how to improve how diversity is experienced and advanced for both students and faculty. Speaking the day after the release of the University of Michigan's Diversity Strategic Plan - a multi-year effort investing over $85 million in advancing diversity on campus and across everything Michigan does - Dr. Museus challenged the pervasive idea that:
"If we do these few things, we've done enough."
To introduce the NCID's new initiative to diversify academia, Dr. Museus presented an intricate model and tools for how to diversify faculty, providing insight in how to recruit and retain diverse faculty and how to make the ranks of academia more inclusive of diverse identities, scholarship, and methodologies. While recognizing the extensive challenges that diverse scholars and diverse scholarship face, Dr. Museus developed a framework that addresses cultural relevance and responsiveness in order to understand how institutions are experiencing faculty diversity and how they can identify areas of growth. Dr. Museus argued that institutions must move away from the microscopic when addressing diversity and instead create more comprehensive solutions, because initatives that are not integrative are simply not enough.
Joined by a distinguished panel of faculty and administrators at the University of Michigan (participants below), the NCID's Director Tabbye Chavous moderated a conversation following Dr. Museus's speech where the panel reflected on the current challenges facing faculty at Michigan, echoing many of the concerns that have informed Dr. Museus's framework for advancing faculty diversity. Dr. Andrew Martin, Dean of Michigan's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, closed the presentation with a special announcement and elaboration of the LSA Collegiate Fellowship, a five-year effort to recruit 50 postdoctoral fellows in the liberal arts to Michigan, meant to identify potential candidates for tenure-track appointments at Michigan who are diverse in training, identity, or interests. This is one of only a few programs at Michigan meant to increase diversity representation in the faculty, while we'll continue to look at how we're recruiting, training, supporting, and retaining faculty of all identites and at every level in order to build a more inclusive Michigan and faculty nationwide.
Panel Participants
Naomi Andre, Associate Professor in Women’s Studies, the Department of Afro-american and African Studies, and the Associate Director for Faculty at the Residential College
David Brown, Associate Vice President and Associate Dean for Health Equity and Inclusion, and Associate Professor of Otolaryngology
Fiona Lee, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Associate Chair, Department of Psychology and Professor of Psychology
Carla O’Connor, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Professor of Educational Studies