Three strategies for engaging campus leaders in transformative initiatives to retain faculty of color.

Abstract

As data on the benefits of faculty diversity accrue, colleges and universities have worked toward this goal. However, faculty racial demographics have not changed significantly for many institutions. Many campus interventions seek to increase faculty diversity through hiring. Yet it is critical for colleges and universities to add faculty retention strategies to their broader efforts around faculty diversity for more significant changes to occur. From our internal data, and as part of our work with the University of Michigan ADVANCE Program, we identified four areas of intervention to improve the retention of faculty of color: climate, evaluation processes, leadership opportunities, and service equity. We then developed yearlong workshop programming for chairs and unit leaders to help them build a toolbox around organizational change to improve faculty retention. Based on our experiences, we offer the three strategies to promote institutional change in this area: 1) use data to identify challenges and make a compelling argument; 2) frame retention as preemptive; and 3) focus on both individual and structural change strategies. We hope these recommendations are useful to others engaged in institutional change efforts on their campus and can lead to meaningful improvements in faculty diversity across institutions.