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Efforts to mitigate bias in faculty hiring processes are well-documented in the literature. Yet, significant barriers to the hiring of racially minoritized and White women in many STEM fields remain. An underreported barrier to inclusive hiring is assessment of risk. Guided by theory from behavioral economics, social psychology, and decision-making, we examine the inner workings of five faculty search committees to understand how committee members identified and assessed risk with particular attention to assessments of risk that became intermingled with social biases. Committees identified and assessed five risks, including candidate interest, candidate disciplinary expertise, candidate competence, candidate collegiality, and the timing and oversight of the search process itself. We discuss implications of risk identification and assessment for effective and inclusive searches. 

Many colleges and universities now require faculty search committees to use rubrics when evaluating faculty job candidates, as proponents believe these “decision-support tools” can reduce the impact of bias in candidate evaluation. That is, rubrics are intended to ensure that candidates are evaluated more fairly, which is then thought to contribute to the enhanced hiring of candidates from minoritized groups. However, there is scant — and even contradictory — evidence to support this claim. This study used a multiple case study methodology to explore how five faculty search committees used rubrics in candidate evaluation, and the extent to which using a rubric seemed to perpetuate or mitigate bias in committee decision-making. Results showed that the use of rubrics can improve searches by clarifying criteria, encouraging criteria use in evaluation, calibrating the application of criteria to evidence, and in some cases, bringing diversity, equity, and inclusion work (DEI) into consideration. However, search committees also created and implemented rubrics in ways that seem to perpetuate bias, undermine effectiveness, and potentially contribute to the hiring of fewer minoritized candidates. We conclude by providing stakeholders with practical recommendations on using rubrics and actualizing DEI in faculty hiring. 

Calls to diversify the professoriate have been ongoing for decades. However, despite increasing numbers of scholars from underrepresented racial minority groups earning doctorates, actual progress in transitioning to faculty has been slow, particularly across STEM disciplines. In recent years, new efforts have emerged to recruit faculty members from underrepresented racial minority groups (i.e., African American/Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and/or Native American/Native Hawaiian/Indigenous) through highly competitive postdoctoral programs that allow fellows the opportunity to transition (or “convert”) into tenure-track roles. These programs hybridize some conventional aspects of the faculty search process (e.g., structured interview processes that facilitate unit buy-in) along with novel evidence-based practices and structural supports (e.g., proactive recruitment, cohort communities, search waivers, professional development, enhanced mentorship, financial incentives). In this policy and practice review, we describe and synthesize key attributes of existing conversion programs at institutional, consortium, and system levels. We discuss commonalities and unique features across models ( N = 38) and draw specific insights from postdoctoral conversion models developed within and across institutions in the University System of Maryland (USM). In particular, experience garnered from a 10-year-old postdoc conversion program at UMBC will be highlighted, as well as the development of an additional institutional model aimed at the life sciences, and a state-system model of faculty diversification with support from a NSF Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) grant. 

This narrative and integrative literature review synthesizes the literature on when, where, and how the faculty hiring process used in most American higher education settings operates with implicit and cognitive bias. The literature review analyzes the “four phases” of the faculty hiring process, drawing on theories from behavioral economics and social psychology. The results show that although much research establishes the presence of bias in hiring, relatively few studies examine interventions or “nudges” that might be used to mitigate bias and encourage the recruitment and hiring of faculty identified as women and/or faculty identified as being from an underrepresented minority group. This article subsequently makes recommendations for historical, quasi-experimental, and randomized studies to test hiring interventions with larger databases and more controlled conditions than have previously been used, with the goal of establishing evidence-based practices that contribute to a more inclusive hiring process and a more diverse faculty.