1.4: Diversity
Promote diversity through faculty hiring, retention, and program development Other Information:
Diversity in our faculty is essential to our success in each and every area we seek to develop. Close attention to hiring
and retaining a diverse faculty requires commitment at all institutional levels, ranging from senior administrators and deans
to department chairs and search committees. Through focused leadership and training, mentoring, policies, programs, and rewards,
we seek to infuse our community more fully with the complete range of perspectives and potential of human difference, including
racial, ethnic, linguistic, gender, sexual orientation, physical abilities, geographic backgrounds, religious affiliation,
and political convictions. Moreover, because the themes of interdisciplinarity, internationalization, and diversity are often
intertwined, we believe that accelerated and cluster hiring will significantly increase our diversity as well as deepen our
strength in programmatic areas, broaden the perspectives among our faculty and create a more inclusive university culture
and environment. Duke has witnessed the results of the 1993-2003 Black Faculty Strategic Initiative to recruit African-American
faculty, an initiative that more than doubled the number of black faculty. We advance our priority of diversity through a
number of mechanisms, including the Faculty Diversity Initiative, which uses central resources to encourage and enable the
hiring of women, minority, and minority women faculty in fields where they are underrepresented. The current plan reaffirms
this commitment and through outreach and recruitment sets the goal to achieve a net increase of 25 faculty from underrepresented
groups over the next five years. We will also continue to press forward on measures to attract, mentor, and support women
in science. The availability of Ph. D. applicants from under-represented groups in certain fields remains a significant issue.
To enhance the pool of potential faculty members, we will create a fund to hire post-doctoral fellows from under-represented
groups. We will also make special efforts to recruit graduate students from historically black colleges and universities and
like places from which we can increase our pool of diverse candidates. Hiring by itself, however, will not be sufficient.
Retaining these faculty members, assuring their ability fully to pursue their research and teaching programs, and building
community will also be critical. Minority, women, and minority women faculty members often face demands on their time exceeding
other faculty members because they are asked to serve as representatives on multiple committees and because, in addition to
their normal advising activities, they are sought out as informal advisors and mentors by minority students. Better accounting
for and rewarding these important activities for all faculty will be an administrative priority as will promoting faculty
research programs that bring disciplinary and interdisciplinary tools to bear on issues of race, culture, gender, and ethnicity.
Administrative oversight of these activities will be the responsibility of the newly created Vice Provost for Faculty Diversity
and Faculty Development.
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