How many people practice "Diversity Lite"?

[Hibush]

However--and this is what we are actually working on--many standards are tailored so that they unintentionally exclude qualified people who come from different groups than the people who first designed the standards. Those standard do deserve thoughtful modification so that you can consider more people who are qualified, and people who have valuable merits that you didn't previously consider.

I'm kind of curious about this. If a standard was "tailored" then that implies it was created with some apparently worthwhile purpose. If in the process, it "unintentionally" excluded qualified people, then it should be a pretty easy sell to "re-tailor" it to retain the original purpose but without the same unintended consequences.

Can you give a concrete example of this? Specifically, I'd like to see an example of how the original goal was preserved, rather than merely removed or eroded, while creating a more inclusive process.

I am in applied biology where societal impact matters. Our department has a great track record serving our traditional stakeholder base. However, there are other parts of society that would benefit from our expertise that we are not reaching. A new faculty member who could engage with groups that we don't currently reach would have a different background in some respects, while still having great strength in the underlying scientific discipline. Our process is really well designed for evaluating candidates who relate to the existing stakeholders. But it does not include things that help success with the others; in part because we don't know exactly what those are. We also need to make sure that prospects believe that this apparently focused department is serious about addressing the stakeholder they know when there is no evidence of that in the departmental website. 

Is that enough specificity to show how an excellent process can nevertheless .

In some fields the other stakeholders could be the ethnically URM part of society. But imagine an electrical engineering department in the 60s starting to think about hiring someone with digital skills rather than the analog engineering that brought the department to prominence. It would take a change in the hiring criteria and recruiting strategy.

[marshwiggle]

However--and this is what we are actually working on--many standards are tailored so that they unintentionally exclude qualified people who come from different groups than the people who first designed the standards. Those standard do deserve thoughtful modification so that you can consider more people who are qualified, and people who have valuable merits that you didn't previously consider.

I'm kind of curious about this. If a standard was "tailored" then that implies it was created with some apparently worthwhile purpose. If in the process, it "unintentionally" excluded qualified people, then it should be a pretty easy sell to "re-tailor" it to retain the original purpose but without the same unintended consequences.

Can you give a concrete example of this? Specifically, I'd like to see an example of how the original goal was preserved, rather than merely removed or eroded, while creating a more inclusive process.

I am in applied biology where societal impact matters. Our department has a great track record serving our traditional stakeholder base. However, there are other parts of society that would benefit from our expertise that we are not reaching. A new faculty member who could engage with groups that we don't currently reach would have a different background in some respects, while still having great strength in the underlying scientific discipline. Our process is really well designed for evaluating candidates who relate to the existing stakeholders. But it does not include things that help success with the others; in part because we don't know exactly what those are. We also need to make sure that prospects believe that this apparently focused department is serious about addressing the stakeholder they know when there is no evidence of that in the departmental website. 

Is that enough specificity to show how an excellent process can nevertheless .

Thanks for the example. That helps. The trick that I see is based on what I highlighted above. Specifically, it would be a good idea if the department could identify criteria to identify other potential stakeholders, and figure out how to evaluate candidates' ability to serve them, especially if it can be done in advance of any actual search for candidates. If it's done retroactively, after looking at candidates, it looks like shooting an arrow and painting the bull's-eye around where it lands.

[mahagonny]

How about something called 'Diversity' straight up or on the rocks (hard knocks)? Works like this: you oppose ideas such as that changing the requirements so that underrepresented will increasingly be included. You hold on to the standards you have and when the underrepresented appear they will have succeeded purely through competence, which will be an instructive example to their children, and you are happy to see it because you like people and progress.

Lowering standards so people who can't do the job can be offered the job is indeed terrible. It helps neither the organization nor the poor victim of such a hire or matriculation.

However--and this is what we are actually working on--many standards are tailored so that the unintentionally exclude qualified people who come from different groups than the people who first designed the standards. Those standard do deserve thoughtful modification so that you can consider more people who are qualified, and people who have valuable merits that you didn't previously consider.

It is hard work, and made harder by the people who do a crappy job of it.

As a part time adjunct what I would dread is the edict and methodology coming from a full time academic (coordinator) who is not to any great degree, and in many cases, has never been in the field as a practitioner, and does it poorly, partly because we part-timers will not be paid for our time to be included in the process. This is not diversity. This is the ivory tower trying to decide how the world works while spending much of its time being insulated from it.

[mleok]

However--and this is what we are actually working on--many standards are tailored so that they unintentionally exclude qualified people who come from different groups than the people who first designed the standards. Those standard do deserve thoughtful modification so that you can consider more people who are qualified, and people who have valuable merits that you didn't previously consider.

I'm kind of curious about this. If a standard was "tailored" then that implies it was created with some apparently worthwhile purpose. If in the process, it "unintentionally" excluded qualified people, then it should be a pretty easy sell to "re-tailor" it to retain the original purpose but without the same unintended consequences.

Can you give a concrete example of this? Specifically, I'd like to see an example of how the original goal was preserved, rather than merely removed or eroded, while creating a more inclusive process.

I am in applied biology where societal impact matters. Our department has a great track record serving our traditional stakeholder base. However, there are other parts of society that would benefit from our expertise that we are not reaching. A new faculty member who could engage with groups that we don't currently reach would have a different background in some respects, while still having great strength in the underlying scientific discipline. Our process is really well designed for evaluating candidates who relate to the existing stakeholders. But it does not include things that help success with the others; in part because we don't know exactly what those are. We also need to make sure that prospects believe that this apparently focused department is serious about addressing the stakeholder they know when there is no evidence of that in the departmental website. 

Is that enough specificity to show how an excellent process can nevertheless .

Thanks for the example. That helps. The trick that I see is based on what I highlighted above. Specifically, it would be a good idea if the department could identify criteria to identify other potential stakeholders, and figure out how to evaluate candidates' ability to serve them, especially if it can be done in advance of any actual search for candidates. If it's done retroactively, after looking at candidates, it looks like shooting an arrow and painting the bull's-eye around where it lands.

Indeed, I'm not sure why the evaluation criteria could not simply be stated as engaging with stakeholders in the community, state, etc. In particular, I don't quite see why the criteria needs to be made so specific to the traditional stakeholders that it would exclude other possibilities.

[Hibush]

However--and this is what we are actually working on--many standards are tailored so that they unintentionally exclude qualified people who come from different groups than the people who first designed the standards. Those standard do deserve thoughtful modification so that you can consider more people who are qualified, and people who have valuable merits that you didn't previously consider.

I'm kind of curious about this. If a standard was "tailored" then that implies it was created with some apparently worthwhile purpose. If in the process, it "unintentionally" excluded qualified people, then it should be a pretty easy sell to "re-tailor" it to retain the original purpose but without the same unintended consequences.

Can you give a concrete example of this? Specifically, I'd like to see an example of how the original goal was preserved, rather than merely removed or eroded, while creating a more inclusive process.

I am in applied biology where societal impact matters. Our department has a great track record serving our traditional stakeholder base. However, there are other parts of society that would benefit from our expertise that we are not reaching. A new faculty member who could engage with groups that we don't currently reach would have a different background in some respects, while still having great strength in the underlying scientific discipline. Our process is really well designed for evaluating candidates who relate to the existing stakeholders. But it does not include things that help success with the others; in part because we don't know exactly what those are. We also need to make sure that prospects believe that this apparently focused department is serious about addressing the stakeholder they know when there is no evidence of that in the departmental website. 

Is that enough specificity to show how an excellent process can nevertheless .

Thanks for the example. That helps. The trick that I see is based on what I highlighted above. Specifically, it would be a good idea if the department could identify criteria to identify other potential stakeholders, and figure out how to evaluate candidates' ability to serve them, especially if it can be done in advance of any actual search for candidates. If it's done retroactively, after looking at candidates, it looks like shooting an arrow and painting the bull's-eye around where it lands.

Indeed, I'm not sure why the evaluation criteria could not simply be stated as engaging with stakeholders in the community, state, etc. In particular, I don't quite see why the criteria needs to be made so specific to the traditional stakeholders that it would exclude other possibilities.

Two important point to reinforce. The criteria must be set before the search. But if the broader criteria are historically blind spots for the department, they are by nature hard to see. That is where the hard work comes in. Doing that work is Diversity Heavy.
The second thing that has to happen in advance of application review is to make sure prospective hires apply. Your school may be as invisible to them as they are to you. Doing that work is also Diversity Heavy.