Message to USC Faculty
From: Michael W. Quick, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs; Elizabeth Graddy, Vice Provost for Academic and Faculty Affairs
September 18, 2018
In order to equip faculty with best practices on ensuring that a diverse pool of candidates is recruited and assessed fairly throughout the hiring process, last week we held a Fostering Diversity in Faculty Hiring training event at University Park Campus. We were pleased that a large number of faculty from across the university attended, and we have received a good deal of feedback that the training was a valuable experience.
We are pleased to announce a Fostering Diversity in Faculty Hiring training event on our Health Sciences Campus will take place Tuesday, November 6, 2018 at 11:30am at the Norman Topping Tower (Room 7409). We are grateful to have Professor Shaun Harper, director of the USC Race and Equity Center and nationally renowned expert on diversity and inclusion in academia, lead the training. As this is integral to our hiring practices going forward, this event is mandatory for all faculty search committee chairs and deans of faculty who were unable to attend on UPC. We encourage any faculty serving on search committees or who are interested to please take advantage of this training opportunity and RSVP here: bit.ly/HSCDiversity, or to Omar Villa at ovilla@usc.edu.
This training event is designed to help faculty appreciate the impact of implicit bias during traditional faculty searches and take an active approach to seeking out the most exceptional teachers and scholars without wrongly disadvantaging candidates based on flawed criteria and methods. As cultivating a community of diverse viewpoints is one of the key priorities set forth in our strategic plan Answering the Call, it is vital that we as a university conduct faculty searches that include and appropriately consider candidates of diverse backgrounds.
Again, thank you for playing an active role in our continuous commitment to diversity at USC.
Cc: Wanda Austin
Academic Senate
Academic Deans
President’s Cabinet
Provost’s Cabinet