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Handbook of Best Practices for Faculty Searches

This document is meant to serve as a concise Handbook of Best Practices for hiring and retaining a diverse and inclusive faculty across the three campuses of the University of Washington, and thus it is meant to assist the university community in meeting its goals of promoting equity and of enhancing excellence through diversity. The Handbook is supported by an online Toolkit of sample materials and additional resources for search committees and unit leaders.

FACULTY HANDBOOK TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I.1  Interfolio

I.2  Hiring in a virtual environment

I.3  Share your best practices

PART 1: SCOUTING

1.1  Reimagining hiring as an ongoing activity

1.2  Important questions and cautions

1.3  Effective habits for scouting

PART 2: PREPARATION

2.1  Multi-year planning for hiring

2.2  Potential for cluster hires

2.3  Forming search committees

2.4  Informing search committees

2.5  Enlisting the support of the whole unit

2.6  Enlisting the support of key allies

2.7  Providing oversight for search committees

2.8  Debriefing search committees

PART 3: OUTREACH

3.1  Legal and policy aspects of faculty outreach

3.2  Writing and posting the job advertisement

3.3  Active recruitment and networking

PART 4: ASSESSMENT

4.1  Bias and the assessment process

4.2  Creating and implementing an assessment rubric

4.3  Creating and implementing an assessment plan

4.4  Preliminary interviews

4.5  Final interviews

PART 5: RECRUITMENT

5.1  Outlining a recruitment strategy

5.2  Making an offer

PART 6: RETENTION

6.1  After the search

6.2  Mentoring

6.3  Climate

GUIDE TO ONLINE TOOLKIT

DOWNLOAD ENTIRE PDF VERSION OF HANDBOOK

Units should plan to “localize” the Handbook’s suggestions to their specific needs, and units should develop conventions and tools relevant to their particular disciplines and to their particular missions in relation to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

For the purposes of this document, the concepts of equity and diversity are understood as the right of all faculty job applicants and all hired faculty to be treated with equal fairness and to have the opportunity to excel without bias due to their race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, or protected veteran status.

In addition to promoting equity and enhancing excellence through diversity, one of the broad goals of the Handbook is to encourage the university community to reimagine faculty hiring and retention as ongoing activities—as regular components of academic and professional life, rather than as special occasions or as reactions to particular circumstances. Another broad goal is to encourage units to work closely with university allies to coordinate hiring and retention efforts across boundaries of departments, schools, colleges, and campuses.

I.1 Interfolio

The University of Washington uses the Interfolio applicant tracking system for managing the search process for all academic personnel. For UW recruitment policy or process questions, please contact Academic Human Resources. For technical questions about Interfolio features and functionality, please contact the unit’s Interfolio administrator or help@Interfolio.com.

I.2 Hiring in a Virtual Environment

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, in autumn 2020 the Office for Faculty Advancement (OFA) teamed up with UW ADVANCE to offer a webinar on Faculty Hiring in a Virtual Environment. A recording of the webinar is available from the OFA and ADVANCE websites. Moreover, the Handbook has been updated to include references to virtual options throughout.

I.3 Share Your Best Practices

The Office for Faculty Advancement invites units to share their successful strategies and tools with us, so that we can share these with others and so that we can facilitate an ongoing conversation about best practices.

Next Section: Scouting