[Hearts-of-GOLD] JEDI efforts as part of tenure/promotion

[Grady Dixon]

Thank you to those that responded to my inquiry. For the good of the group, I am offering a summary of the feedback I received. I have purposefully hidden everyone's email addresses to avoid spam filters and to prevent an extended back-and-forth that can clog inboxes, but this message includes 23 past participants of our Hearts of GOLD training sessions in 2017 and 2018, 26 people currently working on similar "next steps" ideas in geosciences, and 2 more who were looped into the discussion during responses to my first inquiry. There are 57 total recipients, and almost all work in a geosciences-related discipline.

Four people shared examples of how their institution has implemented such a plan:

  1.  The University of California System requires applicants as well as employees to address how they are improving diversity with their teaching, research, professional activities, and service. They offer some examples of how one might do these for each area (e.g., "including development of particularly effective strategies for the educational advancement of students in various under-represented groups"). The full policy, which is part of a larger document on "appointment and promotion," is here: https://apo.ucsc.edu/advancement/workshops-and-trainings/asst_prof_workshops/Workshop%20Materials/docs/eval-contributions-diversity-ucop.pdf
  2.  At Michigan State University, Faculty Senate passed a resolution to encourage DEI as part of the annual evaluation process. Some departments are already piloting this, and at least one has been successfully requiring this for 5 years. Currently, nothing is mandatory.
  3.  NOAA's performance plans for senior executives includes explicit requirements related to diversity and inclusion with a broader emphasis on "leading people" where it seems that further efforts could be rewarded.
  4.  Virginia Tech's promotion and tenure guidelines require that faculty dossiers include sections on "inclusive practices and diversity initiatives," "efforts to diversify the disciplines," and "service that promotes diversity and inclusion." I read the guidelines and it seems to me that the document inconsistently seems to make such efforts seems mandatory, optional, and supplementary depending on the section. Eric Kaufman explains them as an expected part of a dossier, so perhaps practice is better than the official verbiage. (https://faculty.vt.edu/content/faculty_vt_edu/en/promotion-tenure/_jcr_content/content/vtcontainer_76178668/vtcontainer-content/vtmultitab_copy/vt-items_0/download/file.res/Promotion%20and%20Tenure%20Guidelines%202020-2021.pdf)

A concern expressed by one person, which I also share, is the quest for establishing data-informed baselines of performance. The concern is that we won't know if we are improving if we haven't quantified where we started. The catch-22 is that many of our entities have such low/poor numbers of underrepresented groups that data are of little meaning and they often violate privacy because the people being measured are easily identifiable by their descriptors.

Another concern expressed by multiple people was the potential backlash of requiring everyone to participate in JEDI efforts.



My initial thought about the data question is to collect data about administrators rather than faculty. I want to question those department chairs, deans, and other "middle managers" who have been employed in hiring roles for 10+ years. I want to hear what they think the institution does well and does poorly. I want to hear their thoughts on why some underrepresented employees failed or left and why some stayed. Then, we take those data, no matter how anecdotal, and have them reviewed by current employees from underrepresented groups. I think the places where the two groups disagree can be used as "baseline" measures. This is a raw idea, but I like that it takes the microscope off the faculty and gives them more control over the assessment method.

As for the concern of requiring employees to participate in JEDI efforts, I envision a model where everyone works on a task that most of us acknowledge is important despite very few of us having formal training or experience. At my university, these tasks certainly include:

  *   Diversity and inclusion of students and employees
  *   Academic assessment
  *   Student recruiting
Perhaps there are other areas to be added. Currently, we try to force everyone to recruit and build better assessment tools, and we get significant resistance from those who are not good/efficient with these tasks as well as those who don't see the value. I am confident that JEDI efforts will receive similar treatment if required by everyone.

I appreciate any thoughts you are willing to offer.
______________________________________________
P. Grady Dixon
Professor and Dean,
Werth College of Science, Technology, and Mathematics
Fort Hays State University
pgdixon at fhsu.edu
he/him/his


______________________________________________
P. Grady Dixon
Professor and Dean,
Werth College of Science, Technology, and Mathematics
Fort Hays State University
pgdixon at fhsu.edu
he/him/his

From: Grady Dixon
Sent: Tuesday, December 1, 2020 4:19 PM
To: hearts-of-gold at mailman.ucar.edu
Subject: JEDI efforts as part of tenure/promotion

Hi, everyone.

I am currently working on a proposal to my university VPs to incorporate JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) efforts into annual evaluations and tenure/promotion expectations. My initial suggestion and discussions were met with skeptical but hopeful feedback from even our most experienced and motivated agents for change, so I want to provide some examples from other universities so this idea does not seem so impossible.

Do you know of any universities, government labs, or even specific departments that have implemented such expectations into their promotion/evaluation processes?

Any changes would have to be approved by VPs, faculty senate, and the faculty union, so it is a long process with lots of hurdles. Nevertheless, I am excited just to start the conversation.
______________________________________________
P. Grady Dixon
Professor and Dean,
Werth College of Science, Technology, and Mathematics
Fort Hays State University
pgdixon at fhsu.edu<mailto:pgdixon at fhsu.edu>
he/him/his

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