University of Connecticut
PA-7: Support for Future Faculty Diversity

1. Support for underrepresented future faculty members: http://president.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/193/2015/08/2015-08-Draft-Diversity-Report.pdf UConn Graduate School and Business School, PhD Project http://grad.uconn.edu/prospective-students/applying-to-uconn/fee-waiver-policy/ http://www.phdproject.org/ – In collaboration with the School of Business’ PhD program,candidates are recruited for the PhD program through the PhD Project. The PhD Project was founded upon the premise that advancements in workplace diversity could be propelled forward by increasing the diversity of business school faculty. The PhD helps African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Native Americans attain their business PhD and become the business professors who will mentor the next generation of leaders Dean's Doctoral Scholars: http://education.uconn.edu/deans-doctoral-scholars/ Dean’s Doctoral Scholars Program. The DDS program is designed to attract the best and most diverse doctoral students to the Neag School. This fall the Neag School will welcome its first cohort of Dean’s Doctoral Scholars, who will each receive four years of funding to complete their degree. This outstanding cohort is very diverse, with five of the eight students from underrepresented backgrounds. As intended, the DDS program greatly enhanced efforts to recruit members of diverse groups in all of our advanced programs to later become faculty leaders. Targeted recruitment - Neag School of Education: Diversified faculty and teacher candidates. Through a commitment to targeted recruiting, strategic advice from the Neag School Advisory Council on Diversity, and faculty and administrator support, the Neag School has increased the percentage of diverse faculty from about 11% in 2006 to 19% in 2014. Teacher candidate diversity has increased from 11% in 2011 to 14% in 2014. • A major initiative launched by the Provost’s Office this past year is to have each faculty candidate include a diversity statement in their application materials. • Early in 2014, the Provost’s Office, with joint support from the Graduate School, began sponsoring two faculty per semester to travel to partner Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HIS) for research seminars aimed at recruiting underrepresented faculty and graduate students. The focus has been in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, and included the Departments of Physics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Geography.