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Despite the increasing number of racially and ethnically minoritized (REM) individuals earning PhDs and the substantial investment in diversity initiatives within higher education, the relative lack of diversity among faculty in tenure-track positions reveals a persistent systemic challenge. This study used an adaptation of the Community Readiness Tool to evaluate readiness for faculty diversification efforts in five biomedical departments. Interviews with 31 key informants were transcribed and coded manually and using NVIVO 12 in order to assign scores to each department in the six domains of readiness. The results revealed no meaningful differences in overall scores across institutional types, but did show differences within specific domains of readiness. These findings indicate that readiness is multi-faceted and academic departments can benefit by identifying priority areas in need of additional faculty buy-in and resources to enhance the success of diversification efforts. 

Biomedical faculty positions require experience as a postdoctoral scholar (or “postdoc”). However, there is a current misalignment with postdoctoral training and workforce needs within higher education. The majority of postdocs are trained to be research faculty while completing fellowships at research-intensive universities, despite the fact that the majority of US higher educational institutions (where these postdocs may be employed) focus on undergraduate education. This leads to postdoctoral scholars not having the opportunity to gain exposure to different institutional types where they could be employed. Importantly, they also lack the opportunity to build a network or receive mentorship from faculty at non-R1 institutions. This may be particularly true of underrepresented scholars. In this brief report, we describe the practice of the NSF-funded PROMISE Academy Alliance to bridge this training gap and support greater preparation for faculty careers at an array of institutional types by leveraging collaboration within a state university system. A survey of PROMISE Academy Fellows about their structured experiences engaging with other campuses (e.g., campus tours, workshops, speaking opportunities) reveals that visits to other campuses within the state system are informative and impactful, both on their research and their employment interests. The positive findings can hopefully inspire easy-to-implement changes in postdoctoral support across other university systems or regional consortia. 

Though increasing numbers of racially and ethnically minoritized (REM) individuals earn PhDs and national initiatives focus on faculty diversity, challenges persist in recruiting, hiring, and retaining REM faculty. While a pervasive issue nationally, the literature predominantly focuses on faculty diversity at research‐intensive institutions. This exploratory case study pilots a readiness instrument to evaluate the commitment and willingness of a biomedical department at a primarily undergraduate institution to embrace faculty diversity before initiating a postdoctoral faculty conversion program. We introduce the Community Readiness Model (CRM) into an academic context, offering academic departments a robust framework and tool to evaluate readiness and capacity to recruit, retain, and support REM faculty. Practical Takeaways: Academic departments can be conceived of as a type of community. The adapted Department Readiness Tool can be a valuable method of evaluating a department's readiness to support the success of underrepresented minority faculty. Departments may score highly on some areas of readiness but relatively low on others, which provides insight into where time and resources should be invested to improve readiness. 

Postdoctoral scholars have traditionally received mentoring from a single mentor (creating a “dyad”), limiting the psychosocial support they receive, which is particularly challenging for minoritized scholars (Deanna et al., 2022; Ransdell, et al., 2021). The AGEP Promise Academy Alliance (APAA) (Cresiski et al., 2022) provides multiple mentors for postdoctoral fellows to expand their academic, professional, and support networks. This mixed-method case study involves postdoctoral fellows in the APAA faculty conversion program to identify the extent to which these multiple mentoring opportunities occurred and benefited the APAA fellows. Surveys administered to participants and their non research mentors elucidate the mentorship experience. The findings provide insights for implementing a multi-mentor network within a state university system. This study explores the broader ecosystem of mentorship and its influence on the advancement of minoritized postdocs in biomedical sciences, particularly those who may experience social isolation within their departments. It recognizes that mentorship extends beyond the formal research mentor-mentee relationship and encompasses a network of support that can positively impact the career trajectories and professional development of minoritized individuals. Scholars report benefits from having multiple mentoring opportunities within their institution, within the university system, and from external scholars through our mentors in residence program. “Just in time” mentoring on time-sensitive issues supplemented sustained mentoring. The inclusion of inter-institutional peers, administrators and faculty mentors enhanced this multiple mentor model. Minoritized postdoctoral scholars often have limited opportunities to receive mentorship (Yadav et al., 2020). Mentoring in dyads remains pervasive, though multiple mentors have been proposed (Deanna et al., 2022). We demonstrate that state university systems can be leveraged to provide a unique ecosystem of both short and sustained mentoring interactions that benefit minoritized postdocs without overburdening already over-worked faculty mentors. 

Although research has revealed many factors that predict faculty turnover, the literature is often limited by using intent to leave as a proxy for actual turnover, and further by consolidating faculty who leave institutions with faculty who leave the occupation. We resolve these limitations and advance the faculty mobility literature by studying faculty who actually left their higher education institution for both academic and non-academic jobs. Drawing on a survey of 773 departing faculty respondents, we employed structural topic modeling and logistic regression to understand whether or not academic and non-academic leavers had statistically different reasons for leaving. Structural topic modeling revealed 12 dominant reasons why faculty leave, but none of these reasons were unique to those who left academia. Regression results show that gender, tenure status, and salary increase were significant drivers of leaving the academic profession. We provide implications for future studies of faculty departure and for faculty retention. 

Amid increasing demands from students and the public, universities have recently reinvigorated their efforts to increase the number of faculty from underrepresented populations. Although a myriad of piecemeal programs targeting individual recruitment and development have been piloted at several institutions, overall growth in faculty diversity remains almost negligible and highly localized. To bring about genuine change, we hypothesize a consortia approach that links individuals to hiring opportunities within a state university system might be more effective. Here we present a case study describing the progress of the NSF-funded Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) PROMISE Academy Alliance, a consortium within the University System of Maryland (USM) collaborating to develop, implement, self-study, evaluate, and disseminate a unique postdoc-to-faculty conversion model in the biomedical sciences. The initiative centers on diversifying faculty across five institutions in the USM, including teaching-focused institutions, comprehensive universities, research institutions, and professional schools. Components of this approach include (1) enhanced recruiting and hiring practices to attract outstanding postdoctoral scholars from underrepresented backgrounds, (2) multi-institutional networking and professional development, and (3) facilitated processes to transition (or “convert”) postdocs into tenure-track positions at their postdoctoral institution or another institution in the state system. This model is distinct from more deficit-based approaches because it goes beyond focusing on building the individual’s skills to enter the professoriate. This program restructures the traditionally short-term nature of postdoctoral employment and incorporates a pathway to a tenure-track professorship at the same institution or within the same statewide system where the postdoc is trained. This multi-institutional model leverages collaboration and distinct institutional strengths to create cross-institutional support, advocacy, and policy. Importantly, it uses a decentralized financial structure that makes this approach distinctly replicable. Recognizing the immediate need for more collaborative approaches to diversify faculty and a lack of literature about such approaches, this case study describes the development of, and potential benefits of, a state university system, as well as the qualitative lessons learned from self-study, internal evaluation, external evaluation, and NSF site visits. The AGEP PROMISE Academy can serve as a model for replication at other university systems hoping to diversify their faculty. 

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.