Columbia’s Faculty Diversity Initiative began with an initial investment of $15M in 2005 and now stands at a total investment of $185 million. The current, university-wide iteration of the Faculty Diversity Initiative supports faculty recruitments, junior and mid-career faculty career success, pipeline programs and programming intended to enhance the climate of inclusiveness, among other initiatives. The Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement works closely with schools and departments as they strive to reach their diversity goals.
The following elements of this initiative will launch in the upcoming fall semester:
- Faculty Cluster Hiring. Cluster hiring is an intentional approach to recruitment that brings in multiple faculty engaged in related scholarship, often with transformative effect.
- STEM Cluster Hiring. We will offer additional research funding to facilitate similar successes in STEM areas across the university, which continue to grapple with yielding the highly sought-after underrepresented candidates that they have identified for faculty positions.
- Faculty recruitments in the area of Race and Racism scholarship. We are at a critical juncture in our nation’s collective consciousness, a time when structural racism and its pernicious effects are being laid bare. There will be two rounds of Race and Racism Scholarship faculty recruitments to build upon the existing expertise at Columbia and accelerate hiring in this area.
- Accelerated recruitment of Black, Latinx and other underrepresented tenured or tenure-track faculty.
- Faculty Service Awards recognize faculty members whose outstanding voluntary service has contributed significantly to the university’s diversity and inclusion efforts. This can include service on university-wide or school-wide diversity/equity committees, the mentoring of underrepresented students, the development/implementation of diversity or anti-racist training initiatives, etc.
- Addressing Racism: A Call to Action for Higher Education. We have developed multiple opportunities to engage faculty in the urgent work of addressing structural racism. Faculty are invited to participate across a number of programs, including panel discussions, book club events and conversation spaces. Additionally, the Mini-Institute on Addressing Anti-Black Racism, developed in collaboration with the Columbia School of Social Work, along with seed-grant funding opportunities, aim to enable collaborative dialogue, action, and insight towards racial equity.
Please contact [email protected] with any questions or concerns.
