Faculty Search Committee Resources
Welcome to the A&S Faculty Search Committee Resources page. Here you can find links to resources and publications discussed in the A&S Faculty Search Committee Briefing that can assist you in conducting broad and equitable faculty searches to enable recruitment of a more diverse faculty in Arts & Sciences.
2018-2019 Arts & Sciences Faculty Search Committee Briefing Calendar
Statements on the Importance of Diversity for Columbia
Columbia University President Lee Bollinger’s Diversity Mission Statement
Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Carlos J. Alonso’s Statement on Diversity
Guide to Best Practices in Faculty Search and Hiring
The Office of the Provost has published a Guide to Best Practices in Faculty Search and Hiring, available at the provost’s website here. It provides guidance and suggestions to assist you in conducting fair and equitable searches. It also presents ideas on how to help your department lay the foundation for attracting a diverse candidate pool and successfully recruiting diverse candidates.
A&S Instructional Appointments – Search Process
For more information about the Search Process for instructional appointments within A&S please see the Search Process tab.
Provost’s Office Funding for Faculty Recruitments from Underrepresented Groups
This program is designed to support Schools’ diversity plans, and to assist the University in meeting placement goals established in its affirmative action programs, by advancing the recruitment of outstanding minority and female scholars in disciplines where the availability of qualified minorities and women exceeds their representation on our faculty. The goal is that the composition of our tenured and tenure-track faculty more closely reflects the national pool of qualified candidates. The program has two elements, Standard Search Recruitments and Target-of-Opportunity Recruitments.
For more information, please see the Requests for Proposals Web page provided by the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement.
Tools and Resources for Faculty Search Committees
Included in the Provost’s Guide to Best Practices is a Sample Candidate Evaluation Tool. It is provided as a Word document that you can customize for your search.
For departments and search committees interested in asking for and reviewing applicants’ Diversity Statements, here is an example of wording used in a job ad calling for a diversity statement, as well as an example of a rubric for evaluating diversity statements.
Recommendations provided by Abigail J. Stewart and Virginia Valian for how department chairs and faculty search committees can optimize their chances to recruit diverse new faculty.
Gender Bias Calculator
Use this site to assess a letter of recommendation that you have written to see which words are more typically associated with female or male gender. Based on this feedback you can decide whether or not to revise your letter.
Information to Share with Prospective Faculty Members
Columbia’s Office of Work/Life fosters the well-being of the Columbia community and its people in their pursuit of meaningful and productive academic, personal and work lives. The Office provides an introductory booklet which can be provided to candidates during the hiring process as an overview of the services and resources available to faculty members in Arts & Sciences.
The Office of Work/Life also offers dual career services to assist the accompanying spouses/partners of newly recruited faculty with the challenges of conducting academic and non-academic job searches in a new location. See the Faculty Recruitment and Relocation Service page for more information. For candidates whose partner is also seeking employment in academia, resources for dual-career couples are available through the Higher Education Recruitment Committee’s Web site.
Resources for Confronting Implicit Bias
Do You Have Hidden Biases? Take the Implicit Association Test
The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a test to measure unconscious bias, developed by psychologists at Harvard, the University of Virginia and the University of Washington. Unlike explicit bias (which reflects the attitudes or beliefs that you endorse at a conscious level), implicit bias is the bias in judgment and/or behavior that results from subtle cognitive processes that often operate at a level below conscious awareness and without intentional control. The IAT provides a useful window into the unconscious biases in your mind. Take the Implicit Association Test, hosted by Harvard University: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
Benefits and Challenges of Diversity in Academic Settings
For further reading on the benefits and challenges of diversity in academic settings, a pamphlet produced by the Women in Science & Engineering Leadership Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is hyperlinked here.
Nature Briefing Article: LGBTQ Scientists Are Still Left Out
Please read this article to learn more about the challenges facing LGBTQ scientists who report more negative workplace experiences than do their counterparts in other industries, or than do non-LGBTQ scientists.
REFERENCES from the Faculty Search Committee Briefing
Below are links to research and publications cited in the A&S Faculty Search Committee Briefing.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Smith, D.G. (2000). “How to diversify the faculty.” Academe 86(5), 48-52.
Valian, V. (1998). Why So Slow? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Wenneras, C., & Wold, A. (1997). Nepotism and sexism in peer-review. Nature, 387, 341-343.