Faculty Affairs and Academic Programs
Advancing Faculty Diversity through Improved Climate and Retention Programs. Data Leadership
UCLA, 2019-2020
Project Principal Investigators
Jerry Kang and Margaret ShihProject Abstract
UCLA will construct “EDI Scorecards” that go beyond traditional diversity dashboards. Ordinary dashboards are often criticized as either “irrelevant” because they do not provide the right baseline for comparison, or “incomplete” because they only count demographics. UCLA’s project will implement two innovations: the provision of customizable comparator baselines (e.g. graduate student population, percentages at peer institutions, etc.) so that raw statistics can be interpreted according to appropriate context, and the inclusion of equity and inclusion metrics, which can be measured separately, and possibly aggregated into a composite score. By providing these next generation data mirrors not only to leadership, but also to faculty, UCLA expects to make it easier to hold deans and departments accountable for their performance, especially at formal reviews, and to strengthen the voice of rank-and-file faculty who feel unheard, by providing them with useful facts and more information.