Diversity Plan Goal 2
Achieve the critical masses of underrepresented populations necessary to ensure the educational benefits of diversity in faculty, staff, students and executive, administrative and managerial positions.
Diversity is more than presence, but a lack of diversity among faculty, students and staff impedes the educational process. Even among undergraduates, where the University achieves far greater diversity, the lack of a critical mass can place undue pressures on underrepresented students and interfere with all students experiencing the educational benefits of a diverse learning environment. Effective measures for the recruitment, support and retention of underrepresented students, faculty and staff are critical to the achievement of this goal.
Action Steps
Strategies to achieve diversity of presence must be tailored to the specific student, faculty and staff populations we seek to enhance.
For students, we must maintain and enhance outreach and recruitment efforts for students from historically underrepresented populations. Incentives for successful recruitment and retention of a diverse student body at all levels should be expanded. University recruitment practices require substantial policy and legal support and this support should be in place to assure the recruitment and enrollment of students who enhance the diversity of graduate and professional programs. In addition, the University should target resources to enable the establishment or expansion of programs for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students from diverse backgrounds.
For faculty, we must continually maintain our commitment toward achieving a diverse faculty. To achieve this goal, we must expand and publicize incentives and resources for faculty diversity, including the Diversity Initiative of the Provost's Office and the Carolina Post-Doctoral Programs for Faculty Diversity, and incentives for schools and departments to hire faculty from these pools and other sources. Further, faculty search committees and department chairs should be provided with assistance for implementing effective strategies to ensure the diversity of applicant pools. We should also foster and support faculty exchanges with historically minority universities and other institutions to increase the diversity of schools and departments.
For staff, we must continually maintain our commitment toward achieving a diverse workforce among EPA-non-faculty and SPA staff. To achieve this goal, we must continue and enhance outreach and recruitment efforts for staff from historically underrepresented populations as well as ensure sufficient professional development opportunities exist to develop a larger, more diverse pool of employees qualified for management level positions. Continued monitoring of staff applicant pools and hires is critical to evaluating the success of these efforts. In addition, on-going monitoring of salary and promotion to assure equitable outcomes for women and minorities at all levels of EPA non-faculty and SPA employment should be continued.
Illustrative Benchmarks
Examples of benchmarks that can help measure the success of recruitment, support and retention efforts include:
For Students:
- Increases in underrepresented student representation in applicant and enrollment pools at all levels, undergraduate, graduate and professional.
- Unit participation in recruiting incentives at all levels.
- Enhanced retention and graduation rates for students from underrepresented populations.
- Enhancement of academic, financial and social support programs for all levels of students, undergraduate, graduate and professional
For Faculty
- Position advertisements reflect diversity values.
- Enhanced diversity in candidate pools and hiring outcomes.
- Increase in department participation in incentive opportunities and post-doctoral programs.
- Equal Opportunity recommended search strategies are employed in faculty searches.
- Collaborative programs and research are developed with historically minority universities.
For Staff
- Position advertisements reflect diversity values.
- Increase in employee participation in professional development opportunities.
- Increase in diverse in-house applicants qualified for management level positions.
- Salaries are equitable based on occupational categories and are not disparate due to sex or race.
- Applicant and hiring pools exhibit diversity.