Indiana University Bloomington
PAE-9: Support Programs for Future Faculty

The IUB Office of Strategic Hiring and Support has been involved in implementing programs that seek to recruit and retain minority faculty, and other universities might consider adopting similar programs of their own. The Strategic Hiring Program at IUB assists academic departments in hiring and retaining minority and senior women faculty through the development of tenure and mentoring initiatives and the provision of funds for faculty salaries. As of 2003-2004, 117 scholars from a wide range of disciplines have been hired by IUB as a result of this program—17 of which were hired within the School of Education, eight in the department of English, five in the Kelley School of Business and the department of history, and three in the departments of biology and psychology. Further, the minority faculty members hired as part of the Strategic Hiring Program compose a large proportion of the minority faculty in the School of Education. This school had 15 minority faculty members in 2002-2003, which composed 14.6 percent of the total faculty there. Thirteen of the 17 faculty members (76 percent) hired through this program by the School of Education remain at IUB. The diversity within the departments of English and history has also increased as a result of the Strategic Hiring Program; minorities constitute 7.5 and 8.7 percent of the faculty in the English and history departments, respectively. Neither the Kelley School of Business nor the departments of biology and psychology have more than two minority faculty members (and none have more than two percent minority faculty) in their respective fields of study. Perhaps if these three areas used the resources available through the Strategic Hiring Program, they might be able to increase the number of minority faculty in the same way that the School of Education has. The Office of Strategic Hiring and Support is also responsible for the Faculty Fellowship Program (FFP), which brings recent recipients of doctoral degrees to the IUB campus throughout the academic year and summer to teach and advance their research. The objective of the FFP is to provide participating departments and schools with qualified minority instructors and researchers that will lead to tenure track positions at IUB at the conclusion of the fellowship or in the near future (IUB SH&S undated). This program provides opportunities for professional development for the faculty fellows and also serves as a mechanism for identifying potential candidates for faculty openings. Even if a faculty fellow is not offered a job immediately, departments can use faculty fellowship program directories to identify potential qualified candidates when positions do open up. Another example of a program that creates opportunities for minority doctoral recipients to work in academia is the University of Michigan’s Martin Luther King Jr./Cesar Chavez/Rosa Parks (KCP) Fellowship program (http://www.rackham.umich.edu/Fellowships/guideln/2430.html). The KCP Fellowship program provides financial assistance for minority graduate students who are working on completing their doctoral degrees (and who are residents of Michigan). In return, the recipients must obtain an academic or administrative position within a post-secondary institution in Michigan or Illinois and stay in that position for a minimum of three years after receiving a doctoral degree. This program is designed to increase the number of minorities receiving doctoral degrees and the number of minorities with careers in higher education. The state of Florida has a similar program. The Florida Education Fund’s McKnight Doctoral Fellowship program (http://www.fl-educ-fd.org/mdf.html) grants annual fellowships to African Americans who are working toward a doctoral degree at Florida universities. The purpose of this program is to increase the number of African Americans who qualify for faculty positions at post-secondary institutions within the state of Florida. Turner, in an appendix of her monograph, Diversifying the Faculty: A Guidebook for Search Committees, provides a list of Web resources available that have information about other programs throughout the United States that are working to increase the diversity of faculty in colleges and universities. Search committees might find these resources useful (Turner 2002, 35). A report titled, "Diversity in Higher Education: Minority Faculty Representation at the Big Ten Universities [August, 2004]" further details these programs and can be found at: http://www.indiana.edu/~shs/docs/Minority_Faculty_BigTen.2004.pdf