By: Sarah Watamura, Professor and Chair, Psychology
Over the past decade, the psychology department has increased attention to processes that support thorough consideration of diversity, equity, and inclusion in hiring. This effort aims to increase awareness of common biases and decrease the impact of bias on the recruitment and hiring processes. This is an ongoing area of growth with iterative and reflective evaluation each hiring cycle.
Processes we have found helpful:
- Approach to position descriptions.
- When a position becomes vacant, we take an inclusive approach to generating new areas of foci and do not endorse a replacement model (hiring in the same content area).
- Inclusive Position Advertising
- Search ads are circulated for input by the area and DEI office, and specific attention is paid to advertising and dissemination as broadly as possible (beyond the list of outlets supported by DU).
- One committee member is dedicated to process.
- Our department is comprised of three main disciplinary areas. A tenured faculty member outside of the recruiting disciplinary area is selected by the department chair to attend to the recruitment process, with specific attention to inclusive and equitable procedures consistent with university, college, and departmental policies and priorities—including with respect to diversity and inclusion, providing consistent evaluation across candidates for the position as advertised, and monitoring for equal and inclusive contributions by all search committee members. This person also monitors an anonymous feedback link that any search committee member can use to raise process questions.
- Clear rubrics on how to evaluate the record, including how to evaluate the DEI statements.
- Prior to initial candidate review, the committee develops a rubric for how each aspect of the record will be evaluated. This includes how candidate foci will be evaluated relative to the ad; how the strength of the candidate’s record will be evaluated; how DEI statements will be evaluated; and how recommendation letters will be evaluated. Consistency across searches for strength of record, letters and statements is monitored by the department chair.
- Chair-verified DEI training
- The department chair and search chair work together to provide information for search committee members regarding training times and links and will verify when each search committee member has completed the training. Before the search committee beginns the initial review of candidates, the committee will meet to review the process and discuss any questions from the DEI training with an eye towards highlighting changes from the prior search year.
- Comprehensive Review of Candidates
- All candidates are reviewed by both the department chair and the search chair for the first pass, using a rubric, and they then meet to discuss which candidates to forward to the committee for full review. The committee also has access to all applicants and are encouraged to confirm their agreement with the initial cut.
- Additional checks on compositional diversity at each step
- The department requests checks on the compositional diversity of the pool at every step, beyond what is required by the University.
- Universal design for learning considered
- Candidates are provided supports to equalize participation in the interview process to their best potential. For example, candidates are provided a transparent review of our process, timeline, and anticipated number of participants at each step. Candidates are provided support during tech check to be sure they have good audio and video quality before the interviews begin, questions are provided in the chat to reduce the auditory speed demand, and all candidates are offered multiple opportunities for breaks during in-person interviews, access to a private office to support any personal or medical needs (e.g. lactation), and support for moving around the building and campus to avoid individual candidates having to raise these needs.
- Guidance provided to the full department on inclusive interview practices ahead of visits.
- Ahead of each set of in-person interviews, the full department is provided with guidance for “do’s” and “don’ts” during the interview process.
- Criteria for evaluation, inclusive of best practices in evaluating DEI, are provided to the full department at the point of soliciting ratings.
- At the point of requesting input from the department on faculty candidates, we provide guidance on best practices for evaluating potential for contribution to DEI, as well as specific prompts for input on distinct aspects of their record. Each rater is asked to indicate in what settings they interacted with the candidate, whether or not they reviewed the paper record, and how confident they are in their assessment of that domain. These ratings are solicited from all faculty and graduate students immediately after each in-person interview, and after the final interview to solicit comparative opinions.
- Resources
- All candidates are provided a list of faculty affinity groups, the DU factbook, HR resources and benefits, and resources for dependent children and other family members.