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A Syracuse University initiative to recruit and retain faculty from underrepresented groups has restarted this fall despite a faculty hiring freeze.

SU enacted hiring freezes for faculty and staff in the spring to lessen the coronavirus pandemic’s financial impact on the 2020-21 academic year, said LaVonda Reed, associate provost for faculty affairs, in an email statement. Nonetheless, the university’s Diversity Opportunity Hires initiative has resumed, Reed said.

The initiative incentivizes SU’s schools and colleges to hire diverse faculty members by allowing schools to cost-share with the Office of Academic Affairs. The initiative will support 10 to 15 new positions, with funding split equally between the Office of Academic Affairs and the school or college.

“We continue to explore additional ways to increase the diversity of our faculty and hope to make other announcements soon,” Reed said.

Kishi Animashaun Ducre, associate dean of diversity, equity and inclusion for the College of Arts and Sciences, said the central administration has the means to fund the diversity hires initiative, not the individual schools and colleges.

Even as diversity opportunities resume, the university is reviewing its priorities before further restarting faculty hiring on a wider scale, Reed said.

SU announced the Diversity Opportunity Hires initiative in January. The program will support the university’s efforts to hire teaching and research faculty from diverse backgrounds through its signature and cluster hires programs, the university said in an SU News release.

Last November, nearly 150 faculty members signed a letter criticizing SU’s Cluster Hires Initiative for deprioritizing the hiring of diverse faculty. The letter came in response to a series of hate incidents that occurred on or near SU’s campus in November.

Diversity Opportunity Hires funding is designated for recruiting underrepresented faculty into open positions across all schools and colleges, including those that are not designated as cluster hires.

“We’ve already filled two of the positions,” Reed said, “one in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and another in the Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics.”

Both faculty members started in their positions last month, Reed said.
Despite the pause in hiring, SU was able to recruit an incoming group of faculty of which 9% are Black or African American, 3% are Latino, and 16% are Asian, Reed said.

“This year’s class includes MacArthur Genius Grant Fellow and world-renown artist Carrie Mae Weems and many others who bring outstanding talents in teaching and creative works, adding immeasurably to our university community,” Reed said.

Published on September 8, 2020 at 10:20 pm

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