Appendix 3: A Diversity-Enriched Job Description

A Diversity-Enriched Job Description

A diversity-enriched position description reinforces and explicitly articulates the academic unit’s commitment to diversity. Explicit commitment like this is a beacon to diverse potential candidates, drawing them to look more closely at a position announcement. In addition, such statements indicate to all applicants that attention to diversity is an expectation of the position. Take, for example, this statement in the 2010 edition of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s 2010 Handbook on Diversity and the Law:

“The University seeks to increase the diversity of its professoriate, workforce and undergraduate and graduate student populations because broad diversity—including a wide range of individuals who contribute to a robust academic environment—is critical to achieving the University’s mission of excellence in education, research, educational access, and service in an increasingly diverse society. Therefore, in holistically assessing the many qualifications of each applicant, we would factor favorably an individual’s record of conduct that includes experience with an array of diverse perspectives, as well as a wide variety of different educational, research, or other work activities. Among other qualifications, we would also factor favorably experience overcoming or helping others overcome barriers to an academic career or degree.”

This statement indicates that the search committee seeks individuals with diversity and inclusion-related skills who can expand the unit’s scholarly inclusivity or engage diversity issues in the classroom. However, please note that committees including such language need to explicitly connect such experiences to their unit or the university’s strategic goals and need to include these competencies in their evaluative rubric explicitly. A candidate’s ability to contribute to the unit/university’s DEI mission has to be understood as a central component of their evaluation rather than a mere add-on.