The Ecampus team invites collaborators from Institutional Research and Institutional Diversity to review its recruitment and retention data for staff of color, and dialogue about the efficacy of diversity hiring initiatives in the past five years.
Through facilitated exploration, the team is able to recognize the limitations of marketing and outreach efforts. It seems attempts to recruit diverse faculty and staff in applicant pools has not met goals and expectations. Additionally, it is clear that the staff of color who submitted applications to available positions and met minimum qualifications were largely unsuccessful in advancing to the on-campus stage of selection processes. Less than 10% of applicants of color were extended an on-campus interview, compared with 40% of white applicants who were extended an on-campus interview.
Team members are shocked by the results of the dialogue and become defensive. Several leaders in the team contend that the statistics speak clearly to an equity issue within the department’s hiring procedures. The team agrees to invest in selection training and insist that 100% of search committee members complete the institution’s search advocate training. Team leaders also review budgets and reallocate resources to invest external firms to help recruit applicants of color and aid in facilitating first-round interviews.
- The Issue: The Ecampus team is confronted with empirical information that their recruitment and retention efforts for staff of color are fall short of espoused goals.
- The Deliberation: The team becomes defensive when engaging data from Institution Research that shows a trend of equity disparities adversely impacting applicants of color who applied to Ecampus. Team leaders assert that the analysis should be honored and encourage investment in team development.
- The Growth: The team is able to push past defensiveness and reckon with the equity disparities illustrated in the recruitment and retention data. The team makes progressive investments in learning and seeking outside support to transform the recruitment and selection process.