Through this campuswide initiative to increase best-practice-based faculty recruitment and mentorship, the university will maximize the likelihood that broadly diverse, well-qualified candidates for faculty positions are identified, recruited, retained and promoted. These efforts will expand utilization of the U-M ADVANCE Program’s STRIDE (Strategies and Tactics for Recruiting to Improve Diversity and Excellence) training among hiring managers and search committees and will establish guidelines and support for high-quality faculty mentorship.
Year Four Progress
This past year saw significant progress in four key areas. The ADVANCE Program’s STRIDE Committee held eight faculty workshops, setting a new attendance record of 317, for a total of 873 faculty in the last three years; adding Michigan Medicine’s STRIDE committee attendance the total jumps to over 1,000.
Launch Committees provided support and guidance to new junior faculty as they began their careers at Michigan. With the addition of the 2019 Indicator Report, our interactive institutional data now include three dashboards related to tenure-track faculty. In addition,a new committee named Respect in Striving for Excellence (RISE) and modeled after STRIDE, began offering an interactive workshop series on climate to faculty leaders.
STRIDE Faculty Recruitment Workshops
Twelve schools and colleges now require that some or all search committee members attend a workshop, and several others are working to implement the requirement. The Faculty Recruitment workshop is revised every year to reflect new research, data, and practices. Additional resources include an extensive reading list.
Launch Committees
Launch Committees provide support and guidance to new junior faculty as they begin their careers at Michigan. The ADVANCE Program currently oversees committees in CoE, SI, and LSA, with 245 new faculty “launched” to date. The program is being adopted by SMTD as well as several health sciences schools and colleges. While aimed at faculty retention, ADVANCE also contributes positively to faculty recruitment, climate, and the development of mentoring skills.
U-M Data and Analysis
The 2019 Indicator Report provides an in-depth look at tenure track faculty departure using both quantitative and qualitative (exit interview) data. Interactive institutional data now include three dashboards relating to tenure track faculty: faculty demographics spanning 1979-2018; a forecasting model for the composition of the faculty; and data on leadership and recognition.
RISE (Respect in Striving for Excellence) Committee
In year four, this new committee, modeled after STRIDE, began offering a climate-focused workshop entitled Raising Respect. Designed for faculty leaders (broadly defined), the workshop includes three sections: (a) What does research say about workplace climates for (dis)respect?, (b) How is the faculty workplace climate at Michigan? and (c) How can leaders foster a more respectful work environment? To facilitate a virtual community for campus leaders during the pandemic, resources, tips, and encouragement were shared via messages focused on the eight levers for shifting climate introduced in the workshop.
Responsibility: Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, ADVANCE Program