Higher ed press highlights Hakkola and Dyer research on diversity and equity in faculty searches
Inside Higher Education and The Chronicle of Higher Education featured a study by Leah Hakkola, associate professor of higher education, and doctoral student in higher education Sarah Dyer exploring how faculty search chairs’ status and social identities impact interpersonal committee dynamics and decisions about hiring diverse candidates. The researchers found that the U.S. professoriate remains largely homogeneous, at 53% white men, 27% white women, 10% men of color combined and 5% women of color. This over-representation of white men becomes even more obvious when examining the faculty by rank, with white men being especially concentrated in senior faculty positions.