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Washington State University
Washington State University Office of the Provost

Diversity, equity and inclusiveness practices for hiring

When it comes to hiring and retaining diverse faculty and staff, Lisa Guerrero believes it’s time to scrap some of the well-worn routines that hiring committees tend to fall into.

“Having been on search committees and knowing that everybody does the same thing every time, we shouldn’t be surprised when we don’t increase the diversity of our faculty and staff,” says Guerrero, associate vice provost for equity and inclusive excellence. “The only way to change that is to change what we’re doing.”

The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Practices for Hiring training is an outgrowth from the cluster hire program initiated by provost Elizabeth Chilton last year.

“In thinking about the cluster hire program, we considered how we could better attract and recruit diverse faculty,” Guerrero said. “The only way to do that is to change what we’ve been doing.”

The training is designed to address the entire hiring process, from the job posting, to the interview process. And Guerrero hopes it will be introspective for both departments and committee members.

“We really have to fore-ground that, in addition to being good in the field, you need to be conscious about pedagogy, and culturally intelligent,” Guerrero said. “Hiring committees have to sit down and re-evaluate the values that they’re looking for in a candidate, and what each of those values looks like in practice. It will take extra effort to establish a shared understanding of those values.”

The hiring committees for the 2021-22 cluster hire cohort will be the first to go through the training, next month. The training will then be available upon request for faculty and staff hiring committees across WSU.

For more information, contact Guerrero at laguerre@wsu.edu.