As part of ongoing efforts to increase diversity across the University, officials are taking new steps to diversify Duke's applicant pools for upper-level administrative positions.
Under the new guidelines, all hiring short lists will go through a checkpoint to ensure the pool of applicants is broad enough. A list of the candidates under consideration will go to the search's direct supervisor and to the Office of Institutional Equity. If the candidates do not represent a sufficiently broad spectrum of backgrounds, the department will be encouraged to expand the search before proceding to the hiring phase.
"This shouldn't be a special step," said Ben Reese, vice president for institutional equity. "This should be the way we recruit the best people for one of the best institutions in the country."
OIE has had the authority to advise on searches since a 2001 University task force for recruitment and retention of minority administrators recommended the office's increased involvement. A representative from OIE participates directly in searches for senior level positions, but the consultation process for other administrative searches has remained uncodified until the recent guidelines.
The new process is not an affirmative action program, as it affects only searches. "This is about just expanding the net but still hiring the most competent person," said Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta, who is currently overseeing two administrative searches. "I don't think it affects the hiring in any way."
By many standards, the University is doing well in terms of equal opportunity hiring. Following a 2001 audit of affirmative action and equal opportunity programs, Duke earned an award from the federal government for its "exemplary voluntary effort" to increase diversity at Duke. Nonetheless, the University's 2004 Affirmative Action Plan for Equal Opportunity revealed that the University's staff in upper management positions was persistently less diverse than the available pool of candidates.
"We took it upon ourselves to improve, and what we're doing now is gaining support to improve," said Joe Furman, program coordinator for OIE.
In order for the diversity of Duke's administration to reflect the composition of the applicant pool, the University's minority hiring rate "must not only keep pace with the ever-increasing availability but also significantly surpass the current availability, to make up the deficit of past years," according to the affirmative action report.
In 2004, minorities constituted 9 percent of administrative employees at a pay level of 14 or higher--a group that includes vice presidents, executive directors, directors, deans and some managers--but the labor market availability was 15 percent. Duke University Health System boasted smaller gaps between the level-14 administration and the pool, but underutilization was still noted in several divisions.
Throughout the University and DUHS as a whole, the number of women in high-level positions is roughly consistent with market availability, despite revelations from the recently completed Women's Initiative that women are under-represented in some sectors.
Unlike specific diversity-enhancing efforts designed to hire minority candidates, such as the Black Faculty Initiative, the new applicant pool guidelines are meant to change institutional culture so that seeking out candidates in minority groups becomes an automatic part of any search. "What might seem like a focus thing is part of the process to get to business as usual," Reese said.
Officials hope that as advertising for open positions becomes the norm, the preliminary candidate list will be broad enough that no issues about a lack of diversity will arise.
Many University departments already direct efforts at publicizing job openings to minority candidates by advertising in trade publications like Black Issues in Higher Education and through support networks and organizations.
Moneta said diversity has always been a consideration in drawing an applicant pool for a position, particularly in areas that affect students. In the search for a director of student health, for example, Student Affairs instructed the firm conducting the search--which is still in progress--to include diversity as a factor when assembling candidates.
It is too soon to tell whether the wider-based searches will have the desired effect on administrative diversity.
"The regular recruiting will hopefully be diverse," Reese said, adding that the program will "teach [diversity seeking] so that it happens with greater frequency."
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