Investing in Faculty Diversity at Rutgers 

All appointments funded through the programs are intended to advance Rutgers’ institutional goals of building diversity, equity, and inclusive academic excellence, as outlined in our Diversity Strategic Plan. Diversity refers to the variety of personal experiences, values, and worldviews that arise from differences of culture and circumstance. Such differences include race, ethnicity, gender and gender identity, age, religion, language, disability status, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, geographic region, and more.

As a university of more than 70,000 people, on four campuses located across the state of New Jersey, Rutgers is justifiably proud of its long history of serving students from first-generation, low-income backgrounds, as well as immigrants and underrepresented minorities. But the makeup of our faculty does not yet reflect the diversity of our student body. Prior hiring efforts have brought us exceptional new talents and have resulted in exciting curricula, cross-cutting research, and, among many other innovative programs on our four campuses, our major new Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice. But without committed efforts to develop the most diverse candidate pools possible, we cannot build on the successful hiring of the past decade or advance Rutgers toward a culture of genuinely inclusive excellence. Our STEM and health sciences fields lack the diverse scholars they need to make advancements and meet contemporary challenges. Our efforts in the humanities and social sciences require continued investment to ensure that the work begun is strengthened with new colleagues. We need more pathways into Rutgers, more sustained and coordinated mentoring, and more opportunities for discovery through collaboration across our departments, schools, and campuses.

Intentional mentoring and support of our faculty is an institutional responsibility, and all units, at all levels, who seek funding through the programs will be asked to demonstrate their commitment to mentoring, advancing, and retaining new colleagues. Guidance on best practices for inclusive hiring and resources for successful mentoring plans are available through faculty development offices in the offices of the chancellors and provosts on each campus, and especially through the Faculty Diversity Collaborative in the office of University Equity and Inclusion and provides central coordination of Rutgers’ mentoring, advancement, and hiring efforts.

Provosts and chancellors are local champions for faculty diversity and ultimately have responsibility for oversight and hiring of faculty to meet the president’s objectives. They can draw on their strategic resources to extend the impact of the diversity hiring programs by hiring additional faculty, enhancing start-up packages, or using whatever means they deem appropriate to achieve institutional goals. They will work with their deans by engaging in dialogue about implementation and improvements to the four diversity hiring mechanisms, encouraging long-range budget planning in relation to timed supports (three years on average for permanent appointments), and by connecting campus resources to central supports to enhance faculty diversity.

Funds for faculty hiring will be set aside for each CLU at the beginning of each hiring cycle (June-July), with an indication of how these funds correlate across the four programs. Provosts and chancellors may use diversity funding strategically in whatever ways are most effective: for salary or for benefits support, for discretionary funds to faculty as a top-off to start-up packages, or as funds to provide protected time for scholarly activities. At the conclusion of successful recruitment of a faculty candidate, the provost will forward a post-hiring action report to the EVPAA, which will include materials about each candidate and a brief description of the search process demonstrating that it has been consistent with program goals. This report will trigger the release of funds.

Requests for cluster hires should be submitted by deans to their provosts, who will review them for strategic clarity and forward them in a ranked list to the EVPAA's office, which will make a final recommendation for funding. Thereafter, individual hires associated with cluster hire proposals will follow an internal approval process on the campuses, i.e. provosts’ approval will suffice to extend an offer to a candidate. At the conclusion of a successful recruitment of a faculty candidate, the provost will forward a post-hiring action report to the EVPAA, which will include materials about each candidate and a brief description of the search process demonstrating that it has been consistent with program goals. This report will trigger the release of funds.

In order to receive funding from the diversity hiring programs, deans should consult with their provosts about how the programs will fit strategically with their hiring plans. All requests for funds should be submitted to the provost's office with necessary accompanying materials. Provosts will review requests and either approve them at the campus level on a rolling basis (for accelerated individual hiring) or make ranked recommendations to the EVPAA (for cluster hiring).

Diversity refers to the variety of personal experiences, values, and worldviews that arise from differences of culture and circumstance. Such differences include race, ethnicity, gender and gender identity, age, religion, language, disability status, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, geographic region, and more.

The programs will support active hiring for an initial three-year period, with total support extending over five years. At the end of the fiscal year, any concrete commitments made for future years will be rolled over; remaining unused funds will be returned to the EVPAA to be deployed in subsequent years. In their end-of-year summaries, provosts will have an opportunity to project needs and hiring plans for the following cycle. The EVPAA recognizes that successful diversity hiring can be difficult and that efforts must be supported continuously over multiple years.

For Presidential Postdoctoral Fellows, the provost's office will review requests to host a fellow or to nominate a fellow into the program and will send a ranked list to the EVPAA's office, where a pool of national finalists will be matched to campuses and schools in close consultation with provosts and deans.

For Presidential Visiting Faculty Fellows, provosts will review nominations from deans and forward a ranked list to the EVPAA's office. The EVPAA will approve the final appointment of Presidential Visiting Faculty Fellows.

We are currently working on the implementation of an expedited exception process in the Rutgers Recruitment, Onboarding, and Classification System (ROCS) for Target-of-Opportunity appointments (for both faculty and for postdoctoral fellows). This system will ensure that all hiring will be in compliance with federal requirements. We will provide further information on this system later in the summer.

Resources on best practices for hiring can be found at the following websites: 

The Rutgers University general guidelines for hiring. We are currently developing an updated set of central guidelines for all hiring at Rutgers.

Vital materials on inclusive hiring practices and information are available at the New Brunswick Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement. These include worksheets for requesting a DEI statement from candidates, evaluating candidate DEI statements, evaluating candidates themselves, and diagrams for search planning and process.

Excellent guides to best practices in hiring may also be found at the University of Michigan’s ADVANCE program website.

A wide range of materials on diversifying the academy, including hiring practices, are available from the New Brunswick Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement.

Dedicated mentoring funds will not be provided through the diversity hiring programs. The new Faculty Diversity Collaborative in the Office of the Senior Vice President for Equity will provide additional resources and central coordination of Rutgers’ mentoring, advancement, and support programs for diverse faculty.