Recruiting and Hiring Teacher-Scholars for Mission
Colleges and universities without racial and ethnic diversity in their faculty drastically limit their ability to provide educational experiences that produce “an empowered, informed, and responsible student capable of negotiating the inevitable differences in a diverse society” (University of Arizona 2006). Conversely, institutions with diverse faculty provide significant benefits for everyone in the campus community.
Not only can a diverse faculty prepare students to live and work in an increasingly complex global society, a professoriate marked by diversity:
(1) “promotes cognitive, social and emotional growth and development in students,
(2) increases and raises the level of intellectual discussion within the faculty, and
(3) adds multiple perspectives, theories and approaches to scholarship and the curriculum that students consume” (Milem and Hakuta 2000).
Thus, the Recruiting and Hiring Teacher-Scholars for Mission Initiative includes systematic efforts to recruit and hire an ethnically diverse, gender-balanced faculty which enhances the university’s educational goals, strategic objectives, and adds to the overall quality of the institution. Simultaneously, the Initiative provides professional development for search committee members on a variety of topics including the history of LMU, reflections on LMU’s Catholic identity, the Catholic intellectual tradition, ethnic diversity and religious identity in U.S. Catholic universities, benefits of faculty diversity, the definition of hiring faculty for mission, and legal and ethical principles and strategies for recruiting and hiring faculty.
Visit Provost Poon's faculty resources for more information.
*NOTE: As you review these materials, please note that the Faculty Recruitment boilerplate has been updated and can be found on page 35 of the Recruiting and Hiring for Mission and Inclusive Excellence brochure.