Faculty Affairs and Academic Programs
Advancing Faculty Diversity Newsletter
Look here for the newest AFD updates!
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U SEE I WRITE Hosts Faculty Writing Retreat at UCI
June 9th, 2023
On June 9th, 2023, 50 faculty members met in Irvine for a six-hour long summer writing retreat. This event is the last in a series of writing retreats that have been hosted at the University of California, Irvine since 2016. Funded by the Office of Inclusive Excellence and the Advancing Faculty Diversity Program at the University of California Office of the President, U See I Write has been popular in the UCI community. The program brings together faculty from across ranks and disciplines, creating a larger sense of community and belonging. This year's summer retreat was attended not only by UC Irvine faculty, but also had participants from UC San Diego, UC Merced, UC Berkeley and the Office of the President.
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Advancing Faculty Diversity Program Hosts Spring Convening at UC San Diego
April 25th-26th, 2023
On April 25 and April 26, the Advancing Faculty Diversity Program (AFD) hosted a Spring Convening at UC San Diego. The event’s goal was to build a systemwide community of practice among faculty and administrators seeking to ensure excellence, equity and diversity in faculty recruitment, as well as working to develop equity-oriented interventions, data capacity and research to improve workplace climate and retention outcomes.
Douglas Haynes, vice provost for Academic Personnel and Programs, UCOP, welcomed 55 faculty and administrators — representing nine of the 10 UC campuses. Curated panels of AFD project leads presented on a range of topics, including recruitment, retention and improved climate, in support of building a university faculty that looks like California.
The two-day program included several featured presentations. The keynote address by Stella Flores, Ed.D., associate professor of higher education and public policy at the University of Texas at Austin, discussed the challenge and opportunity of the pursuit of equity in higher education. In a plenary address, Lisa Ordóñez, Ph.D., dean of the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego, led participants in an exercise in building capacity for leading during times of change. Finally, Executive Vice Chancellor Elizabeth Simmons and Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Becky Petitt provided a truly inspirational presentation on UC San Diego’s hiring plan.
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Advancing Faculty Diversity Program Builds a Community of Practice
October 24, 2022
On Oct. 24, 2022, Advancing Faculty Diversity (AFD) held its first in-person convening at UCOP since the pandemic.
It was important for AFD to bring together faculty and administrators from across all 10 UC campuses to build a systemwide community of practice centered around the project’s aims. Among the nearly 70 attendees were principal investigators from the project’s sixth and seventh year, Academic Senate leaders, and leadership and staff from several UCOP departments.
Fifteen of the Year 6 principal investigators shared information about their projects, which covered a wide range of strategies for faculty climate and recruitment efforts, including such topics as:
- Building the pipeline for African American faculty whose research is centered on ameliorating the desperately negative health effects of racial trauma in Black communities (UC Santa Barbara)
- Transforming UC San Diego from an emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution to a Hispanic-Serving Research Institution through a Latinx cluster hire initiative
- Mining text for bias in student evaluations of teaching (UC Davis, UC Riverside, UC Santa Cruz)
- Developing and implementing equity advocate programs (UC Merced, UC Santa Cruz)
Participants discussed strategies for ensuring excellence, equity and diversity of faculty recruitment; for developing equity-oriented interventions and research techniques to improve campus climate and retention; and for meeting the aims of the Grow Our Own initiative — part of the university’s 2030 goals of increasing the UC professoriate with more UC grads. Panelists from previously funded improved climate and retention projects shared details about their experiences. Keynote speaker Leslie Gonzales, Ed.D., of Michigan State University spoke on ‘Unsettling and Sharing Epistemic Space: A Strategy for Advancing Diversity.’ The event ended with a fireside chat between Provost Michael T. Brown and Vice Provost Douglas M. Haynes on the future of AFD — the first event Haynes has hosted in his new role.