Searching for Excellence and Diversity

Book excerpt: Recruiting, hiring, and retaining an excellent and diverse faculty is a top priority for colleges and universities nationwide. Yet faculty serving on search committees (or hiring committees) receive little or no education about the search process. Relying on both research and experience presenting hiring workshops to search committee members, the authors of this guidebook provide advice and recommendations for conducting an effective faculty search. The book includes practical suggestions for managing all stages of a faculty search as well as recommendations for ensuring that search committee members recruit women and members of underrepresented groups into their applicant pools and consciously avoid the influence of bias and assumptions in their evaluation of job candidates.