Faculty Senate focuses on minority recruitment efforts

The University Faculty Senate called upon the faculty March 5 to make "extraordinary efforts" to recruit and retain minority members.

Voting on a resolution submitted by the Committee on Diversity and Affirmative Action, senators accepted some 15 measures intended to increase cultural and racial diversity among the faculty. The measures range from placing ads in specialized journals and web sites that attract diverse audiences to expanding the use of postdoctoral or visiting instructor status as a means of bringing minority faculty to campus.

In answer to a question by Sen. Jay Hildebrandt, Ted Davis, who chairs the diversity committee, said the resolution does not focus on sex or gender. Targeted groups include African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans.

"We do not justify the resolution based on minorities in the state or region," Davis said. "We believe these measures are reasonable for the University to advance its interests."

Among the other major efforts included in the resolution are:

• Continue dialog, both formal and informal, about race and race relations at the University;
  
  
• Develop a better understanding of the importance of recruiting minority faculty by meeting either formally or informally to discuss concerns;
  
  
• Identify and/or expand opportunities in the curriculum to reflect the teaching and research interests of minority faculty;
  
  
• Encourage search committees routinely to use their disciplines' professional organizations to identify potential minority candidates;
  
  
• Organize small conferences and workshops to attract and familiarize minority candidates to the University;
  
  
• Encourage the University to hire and/or promote minorities into senior administrative positions;
  
  
• Develop an interactive web site to receive information from potential minority candidates;
  
  
• Extend invitations to senior minority candidates to lecture at the University a semester or so before a faculty search;
  
  
• Establish endowed chairs that are attractive to senior minority candidates;
  
  
• Encourage departments to make the case to the appropriate dean for hiring the short-listed minority candidate if the minority candidate is qualified for the position and agreeable to the faculty of that department;
  
  
• Encourage the University to provide colleges and departments who have made significant attempts to diversity their faculty with special recognition and other incentives; and
  
  
• Increase graduate fellowship opportunities that will encourage minority students to apply.

A resolution introduced by Linda Gottfredson, education, to postpone action on the resolution until the University's lawyer provided an advisory opinion was defeated.

Gerald Turkel, professor of sociology and president of the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors, opposed the motion to postpone, urging senators to "vote on the merits of the resolution rather than unsettled legal doctrine." Turkel said that, if the motion passed the senate, the University would settle issues of law.

Provost Mel Schiavelli said, "Nationally, most universities of our size have about 5 percent minority faculty, whereas the University of Delaware has 4 percent. We have 1,000 faculty so that means that we have 40 instead of 50 minority faculty."

Noting that these numbers put the problem in perspective, he added, "If we find we cannot recruit in some academic areas where the pool is small, there will be other areas where the minority pool is larger."

He also reported on the exit interview by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which recently concluded its campus visit. "They made no recommendations that must be responded to, and they made only three or four suggestions," he said. "I've served on 40 of these evaluation teams, and I've never been on one that failed to give recommendations. We should be proud of such a laudatory report."

–Cornelia Weil