Media Center > News Releases

July 6, 2004

SUMMIT SEEKS TO IMPROVE FACULTY DIVERSITY

SPRINGFIELD - Academic leaders at colleges and universities throughout Illinois will gather here for a summit aimed at promoting strategies to increase diversity within faculty ranks. The one-day conference - "Conducting Effective Faculty Searches" - will bring together academic officers, such as provosts, deans, department chairs, and diversity officials to hear national experts and to share experiences in using the search process to advance greater faculty diversity.

The summit, cosponsored by the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE), Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC), and the University of Illinois at Springfield (UIS), will be held July 20 at UIS.

The summit will feature panel discussions and breakout meetings on such topics as:

• "Setting the Context for Faculty Diversity,"
• "Creating Buy-in: How to Create a Sense of Urgency for Diversity and Inclusion,"
• "The Care and Feeding of Search Committees to Understand Diversity,"
• "Creating an Inviting, Inclusive Community - Within Your Institution and Beyond Its Walls,"
• "Examining Research-based Strategies for Faculty Diversity,"
• "Illinois-based Effective Practices for Faculty Diversity," and
• "Manifesting Your Commitment to Faculty Diversity."

Lessons that higher education can learn from the corporate experience with diversity will be the subject of a lunch keynote address.

The Faculty Diversity Summit is the outgrowth of a study of faculty diversity undertaken by IBHE last year. The study found a variety of subtle factors embedded in the search process for new faculty that can impede efforts to diversify faculties. The summit is aimed at identifying barriers and exploring strategies to overcome them.

Terry Nunn, IBHE senior associate director, is the conference coordinator and will spearhead implementation of recommendations from the faculty diversity study.

More information about the Faculty Diversity Summit, and online registration, can be found at the IBHE website, www.ibhe.org, or by calling Terry Nunn at 217/782-2551.