Is Search and Screen Committee Training Required?
It is required for any employees who are going to participate in the search and screen process, including committee members and committee liaisons.
Why do we have to notice our meetings in advance?
Florida’s Government-in-the-Sunshine Law, section 286.011, Florida Statutes on Public Meetings, commonly referred to as the “Sunshine Law,” provides a public right of access to governmental proceedings, including certain public boards and committees, including search and screen committee meetings. Part of the requirements of the Sunshine Law are that meetings are to be publicly noticed in advance so that members of the public are able to make arrangements to attend the meetings if they so choose.
What academic literature can you provide that shows a faculty search process should be diverse?
The University Provost has charged all members of Search and Screen Committees to conduct diverse searches because a diverse, capable, and engaged workforce adds to the vibrancy of our campus community and advances our “student centered mission to create the next generation of thinkers, leaders, and problem solvers with the knowledge and experience to uniquely change the world.”
Academic literature on the topic from the past four (4) years includes the publications obtained using the following links:
- Newhouse, K. (2021). Class and Race in The College Classroom: Faculty interactions and student learning among racially diverse poor and working-class collegians (dissertation).
- Miriti, M. N. (2020). The elephant in the room: Race and stem diversity. BioScience, 70(3), 237–242. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biz167
- Casad, B. J., Franks, J. E., Garasky, C. E., Kittleman, M. M., Roesler, A. C., Hall, D. Y., & Petzel, Z. W. (2020). Gender inequality in academia: Problems and solutions for women faculty in STEM. Journal of Neuroscience Research, 99(1), 13–23. https://doi.org/10.1002/jnr.24631
- Llamas, J. D., Nguyen, K., & Tran, A. G. T. T. (2019). The case for greater faculty diversity: Examining the educational impacts of student-faculty racial/ethnic match. Race Ethnicity and Education, 24(3), 375–391. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2019.1679759
- Carey, J. M., Carman, K. R., Clayton, K. P., Horiuchi, Y., Htun, M., & Ortiz, B. (2018). Who wants to hire a more diverse faculty? A conjoint analysis of faculty and student preferences for gender and racial/ethnic diversity. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 8(3), 535–553. https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2018.1491866
- Kaplan, S. E., Gunn, C. M., Kulukulualani, A. K., Raj, A., Freund, K. M., & Carr, P. L. (2018). Challenges in recruiting, retaining and promoting racially and ethnically diverse faculty. Journal of the National Medical Association, 110(1), 58–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnma.2017.02.001
Why is EOI encouraging me to conduct an external search when I know I have the perfect candidate in my department?
The federal government expects public entities to conduct transparent search processes when filling positions. UNF is expected to select from a diverse pool of candidates and most of the departments at UNF are not very diverse and that makes it hard for a department to have a diverse pool of candidates from only internal candidates. An external search does not preclude internal applicants from applying for the position. In fact, the internal candidate should have an advantage by knowing UNF polices and procedures as well as having established relationships on campus. These factors should propel the internal candidate to the top of the applicant pool and then provide data to show that the most qualified person was selected from the available pool of diverse applicants in the event of an audit.
My search committee was not approved for lack of diversity. I know that Dora Explorer is Hispanic, so I know we have a minority on the committee. Why are you holding up our process?
What you perceive to be a person’s race or ethnic origin may not be what they have self-reported to Human Resources as their race or ethnicity. EOI must go by what Ms. Explorer has reported as her race or ethnicity and she lists herself as Caucasian. Therefore, you do not have any ethnic diversity on your search committee, and you need to correct that before moving forward in the process.
I have two strong candidates who have applied for the position and I’m afraid if we go through the process that we will lose them to other schools. Can’t I just interview both them and move forward?
If you only have two applicants for your position, you need to expand your search to attract more qualified candidates to apply for the position. Where have your advertised? Have you reached out to any professional associations to notify them of your vacancy? Have you used listservs in your academic area or your academic colleagues at other campuses? You must be able to demonstrate to the federal government that you advertised broadly and for a long enough period of time to attract diverse candidates BEFORE you are able to proceed with a limited application pool.
We have an applicant Kate Middleton, a citizen of the United Kingdom. Are we able to sponsor work visas? If that’s not a possibility, then should we remove her from the list of persons that we will interview for the position?
The Search and Screen Committee should limit its focus to the candidate’s credentials vis-à-vis the required education and experience required to perform the job. To raise issues of citizenship and visa status is not the purview of the Search and Screen Committee and can be problematic especially when the question involves a candidate’s national origin and could lead to claims of national origin discrimination.
What must be included in the minutes from the search committee meetings?
Minutes should include a summary of the general discussion any action items from the meeting. Minutes should also reflect the rationale for any and all recommendations made, including reasons for non-selection.
How many candidates are we to submit to the hiring official at the end of the process?
That depends. The hiring official should provide you with their preference at the beginning of the process. Most prefer three names, some want more. Seek guidance from your hiring official on this but remember, the list is an unranked list.
After submitting the unranked list to the hiring official, is the committee finished?
Almost. Before the selected candidate begins working at UNF, the department that hired the employee must ensure that a background check was completed, official transcripts have been received by UNF along with a signed offer letter and three letters of recommendation. All of these materials must be sent to human resources so the candidate may be processed for payroll.