New Paradigms for Diversifying Faculty and Staff in Higher Education: Uncovering Cultural Biases in the Search and Hiring Process

In the last ten years, many colleges, universities, boards, and agencies have jumped on the diverse faculty/staff hiring bandwagon not only by issuing resolutions, policies, and mandates but also by inventing programs, initiatives, and strategies all intended to increase the number of faculty and staff of color in predominantly White institutions. The statistics illustrate the results: 80-90% of faculty and staff in most colleges and universities are still White. In fact, as Turner (2002) points out, “efforts to diversify the faculty continue to be amongst the least successful elements of campus commitments to diversity” (p.14). So, why, despite the best intentions, are most of these programs and policies failing to increase faculty/staff diversity? With the “window of opportunity” for diverse hiring limited to the next fi ve years or so of faculty retirements, many higher education administrators and bureaucrats are scrambling desperately to find an answer, especially since the growing gap between a multicultural student body and a monocultural faculty/staff has become an educational and political problem. Unfortunately what is often overlooked in the diverse hiring conundrum is the crucial role that both search committees and institutional culture play in the recruitment and retention of diverse faculty and staff at predominantly White colleges and universities.