Department Chair Leadership for Gender Equity

COPLAC Advance Grant Team:

Wendy Pogozelski, SUNY Geneseo�Sally Wasileski, UNC Asheville�Chavonda Mills, Georgia Gwinnett College

Cara Margherio, University of Washington�Karleen West, SUNY Geneseo�Josephine Rodriguez, UVA Wise�

robbie routenberg, DEI Officer, SUNY Geneseo

Goals

• Help you create a dynamic, collegial, sustainable and productive department
• through literature and case studies, peer collaboration
• Raise awareness of concrete, research-based strategies to improve the success of women, marginalized faculty (and all faculty).
• Have you adopt at least one policy change that will improve the retention and/or success for women in STEM.

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

Confidential, Respectful Environment

• Confidentiality promised.
• Take care of your needs, eat lunch….
• Slides available but sessions not recorded (due to sharing, etc.)
• Community-building for the future.

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May we remind you how important and valued you are?

• From our grant based on COPLAC surveys of women in STEM:

“Women …reported how much a …chair’s interest in their success had meant to them, and how messages of encouragement had been truly empowering.”

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• A good dept chair can help make a faculty member’s career, can have long-term impact on a dept.

Cipriano and Riccardi polled over 4000 Chairs as to the areas in which they wanted training

• Results:
• Evaluating faculty 88.9%
• Budgeting 81.4%
• Communicating effectively 77.9%
• Managing conflict 77.4%
• Making decisions 74.4%
• Mentoring faculty 69.2%
• Promoting collegiality 68.2%

Which of these are DEIR-related decisions?

We want to make your job easier, not harder

What to Expect in Today’s Professional Development

• Focus on three areas where Chairs have impact:

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• Workload allocation and recognition
• Faculty evaluation
• Resource allocation

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• Examine through a DEIR lens
• Develop some Action Plans

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• Post-survey at the end

Format for Each Topic

• Opening question
• Some literature
• Scenario/case study
• Breakout rooms to discuss
• Debrief together (with robbie)
• Successful Strategies
• Action Planning

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Where are we? Results from Women in STEM at 14 COPLAC Institutions (~2018)

• Low recruitment and retention of women in STEM.
• Slower advancement through academic ranks than male colleagues.
• Messages of discouragement, marginalization.
• Gendered inequities in workload.
• Evaluations based on personal characteristics rather than professional competence.

…continued

• Highly gendered expectations from students (for accommodation, advice, time, etc.)
• Pushback from students for deviation from traditional gendered norms of nurturing, accommodation.
• Self-doubt/imposter syndrome
• Fear of not putting oneself forward for promotion.
• Too few models to emulate or opportunities to receive advice from other women about work-life balance.
• Feeling that their work was promoted less than that of male colleagues.

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• These are COMMON in the literature.

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Questions for Reflection

• Have you experienced or observed any of these barriers? Which?
• Which of these do you think exist in your department?
• Which of these do you think you could most easily or effectively change?

The literature shows that all of the following are areas where women and FOC experience bias

• Hiring
• Evaluation by students and peers
• Expectations of students and peers
• Workload
• "Invisible”, mission-aligned service
• Salary and start-up

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See accompanying data sheet for literature and data on PUI representation�

Where does equity fit in Buller and Cipriano’s General Principles for Chairs for Good Decision-Making?

1. Integrity – making decisions on consistent, defendable values, avoiding partiality, protecting you from poor precedents that come back to bite you later.
2. Consistency – can’t be inflexible but can’t be unpredictable either. One reason for having administrators is to have someone able to decide when exceptions are warranted.
3. Proactivity – scanning/auditing the dept on a regular basis to see what problems are occurring, are likely to arise, what can be prevented. (An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure).

4. Inclusiveness – “hive mind” can yield wisdom, insight; this promotes buy-in when decisions are made; increases faculty morale; helps prevent gender/identity bias.

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4. Transparency – revealing the principles and processes you used to arrive at a decision, the type of information you considered, the alternatives you explored, the reasons that led you to choose on option over another. Will assure others that their voices were heard and that your process was reasonable.

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Adding a 6^th consideration - Equity

6. Equity considerations. Consider how the departmental and college environment/processes impact women and marginalized faculty.

• Workload allocation and reward
• Evaluation
• Resource allocation

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1. Workload Allocation and Reward

Reflection Questions

• How is workload allocated in your department?
• What kind of work is recognized and rewarded?
• Do certain faculty do a disproportionate amount of work that is “invisible” – mission-aligned but not recognized or rewarded?
• Are there entrenched ideas that contribute to inequity?

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Women do more service and teaching

• Studies show that in STEM, women faculty spend more time per week on service, undergraduate teaching and mentoring, while men faculty spend more time on research
• (Bird et al., 2004; Link et al., 2008; Winslow, 2010; Misra et al., 2011).

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https://www.kdnuggets.com/2019/05/fix-unbalanced-dataset.html

Women experience different expectations from students and faculty for service

Park, 1996; Tierney and Bensimon, 1996; Mitchell and Hesli, 2013:

🡪 High expectation for women faculty to be pleasant, helpful, service-oriented, act as “academic mothers”.

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https://sfdora.org/2019/09/30/opportunities-for-review-promotion-and-tenure-reform/

Women do different types of service

Men more like likely than women to:

• engage in creating organizational power
• do problem-solving
• do strategic planning
• perform prestigious external service (serve in outside organizations)
• (See Ely and Meyerson, 2000).
• VISIBLE WORK

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Women more likely to

• do more committee work (VISIBLE)
• But also:
• provide organizational housekeeping
• provide social support, “emotional labor”
• respond to student needs
• help with issues such as reporting sexual assault
• deal with student mental health issues
• (See Park, 1996; Misra et al., 2011; Mitchel and Hesli, 2013, Green, 2015)
• INVISIBLE WORK

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Service requests for “representation” can burden Women and FOC

• Faculty of color receive significantly more requests to serve on committees. (Rodriguez et al., 2015; Gewin, 2020; Trejo, 2020; Baez, 2000; Lavariega et al., 2008).
• Known as the “minority tax” – extra burden to women faculty of color.
• Also receive multiple demands for support and mentoring
• Burdened by photo shoots!
• Can feel like “tokenism”.
• Finding the balance between representation and tokenism is not obvious.

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Photo: https://thesmokesignal.org/2020/11/17/tokenism-the-wrong-path-to-diversity/

Reward: Much of what women do is unrecognized.

• From our grant proposal: “In particular, women noted being tasked with duties that are valuable to their students and to their departments but that take time away from scholarship; yet scholarship remains a primary factor in their institutions’ reward systems.

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• “COPLAC institutions draw large numbers of first-generation college students who require or benefit from additional mentoring. Women and minority faculty…are disproportionally providing (and are expected to provide) this extra mentoring and support.”

The Status Quo can disproportionately affect women and FOC (and junior faculty)

• Senior faculty may believe they have earned the right to teach small, easy courses.
• May leave women, jr faculty in time-intensive courses and courses that tend to get low reviews.
• Especially pronounced during the pandemic with extra accommodation demands.
• Idea that teaching certain courses should go to “people who are good at them” (nurturing, willing to spend time with students – often women)
• Idea that teaching a course X number of times gives one the right to not teach it again.
• Others?

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“Just say no?”

• Not so simple.
• Backlash for women who say “No”
• Can be thought as non-team player, unlikeable, selfish (Ridgeway, 2013; Pyke, 2014).
• Women and FOC often need to learn permission to say “No” and training in how to say no (example in Rockquemore and Laszloffy, 2008, “The Black Academic’s Guide to Winning Tenure Without Losing Your Soul” – 10 Ways to Say No to Service)
• But depts/colleges can also “consider the ask”

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Photo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Say_No

The Service Conundrum

• Inequality in service is central to women faculty’s
• lower retention rates
• longer time to promotion to full professor
• greater career dissatisfaction

(Clark and Corcoron, 1986; Acker and Feuerverger, 1996; Park, 1996; Acker and Armenti, 2004; Misra et al., 2011).

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• However, service can also be means of influence, power, satisfaction, IF recognized (Baez, 2000; Bird et al., 2004; Griffin et al., 2013; O’Meara, 2015).

https://duvpfa.du.edu/advancing-equity/

The Service Conundrum (continued)

• Central to the mission of the institution.
• Can be life-changing for students, can bring about positive change…
• SOMEONE has to do it.

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• But, time spent on service and teaching takes away from research and publication, especially in STEM (Fox, 1992; Carrigan et al, 2011; O’Meara and Templeton, 2022).

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• Service is largely unrecognized in tenure and promotion, especially “invisible” mission-aligned service.

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Discussion in Breakout Rooms

• Case Study and questions
• Questions for your own dept/college

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• Can do either or both…take notes if you would
• Case study ADA-compliant version linked in chat
• Questions in your note-taking guide.

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Case Study

In Public Liberal Arts University’s Department of Physics, the large 75-student introductory courses are taught by pre-tenure faculty who have brought in a wealth of new active-learning teaching innovations. This has made a positive impact on the Department’s DWF rate for first-year courses and led to an increase in majors and enrollment in upper-level classes. Kudos!

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The Department has committed to protecting pre-tenure faculty from significant department service while they get their research up and running. This new policy overlays the Departments’ long tradition of relying on volunteers for conducting necessary department service (i.e., coordinating with admissions recruiting, department assessment, lab safety committee, organizing department seminars, community outreach). However, the most senior faculty are no longer volunteering. And the bulk of the necessary service is falling onto predominantly women mid-career (Associate) faculty.

The Department Chair is a mid-career Associate Professor hoping to go up for promotion in the next two years and who is reluctant to oppose the senior faculty and department tradition, or make changes that will impact the Department’s DWF rates and increased enrollment.

Discussion Questions (two pages)

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Case Study Questions:

• What are the inequities in this department structure?
• What changes would you recommend the Chair implement to resolve the inequities?
• How could the Chair build department-wide buy-in for these changes?

Discussion Questions – your dept/college

• What are the primary criteria for tenure and promotion in your department?
• Is service considered?
• What type of service is most valued?
• What strategies would you recommend for professors, department chair, colleges to rectify these imbalances?
• What resistance may you encounter?

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Debrief

Resolution to Case Study

• The department formed a small advisory group based on representation at every level.
• The group took a survey about levels of satisfaction regarding service.
• The group established expectations guidelines for the minimum expectations for each faculty member in teaching, research, and service. They created some flexibility in how faculty would reach these benchmarks.

(Resolution to case study) and possible actions

1. Dept dashboard to increase transparency.
2. Assigning a point system to low-medium and high committee assignments. Everyone responsible for an equal number of points.
3. Planned rotation of identified time-intensive roles and elimination of assistant professors from these roles and restricted associate professors to once in the first five years
4. Re-examination of merit pay criteria to add pay to the people with the highest level of service.

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Research-based Strategies in Allocation and Reward

• (See the work of KerryAnn O’Meara and others)

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• Credit hours or contact hours do not ensure equity in workload but are a framework within which to work.
• Do an occasional “equity audit” (class sizes, # advisees, etc.).
• Use an opt-out system rather than an opt-in when assigning work.
• Revise tenure and promotion guidelines to include service.

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Making Invisible Work Visible

• Have professors keep track of hours spent with students (and type of work). Provide a means to report this information in tenure and promotion packages, faculty activity summaries.
• Keep track of numbers of Letters of recommendation, hours spent advising, etc.
• Have a dashboard/chart with all committees and tasks and with points awarded for highly time-consuming to low in time requirements.

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Considerations

• REALLY difficult when a Chair is and Associate Professor asking things of a Full Professor or “star” faculty member.
• Also difficult when classes assigned by expertise. But everyone should be able to teach certain classes.
• The Administration has to back the Chair up on making changes to entrenched ideas.

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Resources

• Work Activity Dashboard - : https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2020.1745579

Your Action Plans?

Break!

• See you in ten minutes. Feel free to bring your lunch.

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• Next up: Evaluation and Resource allocation

2. Evaluation

• Research shows that both peer evaluation and student evaluation show significant bias.
• Band of acceptable behaviors is narrow for women
• and even more narrow for women of color (including Asian-Americans).
• Women in academia report their competence is challenged regularly.
• (Gutiérrez y Muhs et al., 2012)

Image: https://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/blog/why-evaluation-matters-gender-equality

The Narrow Path for Women and Non-majority Faculty to Navigate

• Rena Selzer: “Women must walk a tightrope �between competence and likability….”
• If …using speech patterns that are traditionally female,�she is seen as likable but less competent. If she leans �too far in the other directions and adopts speech patterns �more common to men, she is seen as competent but risks� being marginalized as an “ice queen” or “bitch.”

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Professors of Color Also Walk a Tightrope

• East Asians with dominant behavior more disliked than White supervisors with same behavior (Berdahl and Min, 2012).
• Hispanics criticized for Latinx values of collectivism, perceived as too passive, non-decisive, and no-directive (Canul, 2003)

Image: https://learningforward.org/journal/leading-for-equity/walking-a-tightrope-or-catapulting-from-a-cannon/

Research on Bias in Faculty Evaluations

Dominant/privileged identity groups (male, White, straight, etc.) receive more positive evaluations, regardless of the identities of the evaluator.

Academic CVs

(Eaton et al. 2020)

Letters of Rec

(Madera et al 2009; McNutt 2015)

Co-authorship

(Sarsons 2017)

Grant Funding

(Tamblyn et al 2018)

Teaching Evals

(McNell et al 2014; Wang & Gonzalez 2020)

Research on Bias in Faculty Evaluations

• Identical CVs w/ different names
• Men perceived as more competent and hire-able

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• Women’s are shorter, missing technical evaluation, and reliant on stereotypical language

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• When women co-author with men, their contributions are undervalued

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• Women PIs receive significantly lower application scores

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• Students rate women professors lower than men
• Students rate White American faculty higher than faculty of minoritized racial/ethnic groups and international faculty

Academic CVs

(Eaton et al. 2020)

Letters of Rec

(Madera et al 2009; McNutt 2015)

Co-authorship

(Sarsons 2017)

Grant Funding

(Tamblyn et al 2018)

Teaching Evals

(McNell et al 2014; Wang & Gonzalez 2020)

Negative Evaluations can Fuel Self-Doubt, Dissatisfaction

• The more power people have, or the higher their rank or position, the more support they receive from society, both historically and via current structures.
• People with less power, affluence, and influence receive less support and often experience a greater degree of self-doubt.

Image: https://www.copanusa.com/international-womens-day-women-in-stem/

Harsh, unfair criticism can be more internalized

Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic

• Steep declines in time spent on research
• Some heterogeneity (labwork vs. computer work)

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• Largest declines were from female scientists. Even larger disruptions when women had additional childcare responsibilities. (Myers et al., 2020)�

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• Many journals have reported drop-offs in women authors beginning in March 2020.

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• Some institutions revised expectations, offered stopping the tenure clock.

Peer Evaluation Issues

• Over-reliance on biased student evaluation.
• Poor guidelines/rubrics.
• NO criteria or overly rigid criteria
• Evaluating faculty on inappropriate criteria
• participation in off-campus events
• Valuing certain kinds of research over others.
• No stopping the tenure clock or accommodation for the pandemic.
• Using language such as “better than expected”.
• Not taking the time to understand context.
• Partly the responsibility of the evaluate.

Best Practices in Creating an Equitable Faculty Evaluation Process

• Critical information (policies, practices, criteria, etc.) is shared accurately and accessibly

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• Use metrics or examples to define terms such as “high-impact” or “outstanding”

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• Action steps if faculty evaluation policies and practices are not followed
• Appoint one member of committee as a DEI Facilitator

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• Conduct an annual audit of policies and practices
• Provide formal training sessions annually for evaluators and those who are being evaluated
• Standardize essential parts of the faculty evaluation

Transparency

(O’Meara & Templeton 2022)

Clarity

(Buller 2015)

Accountability

(O’Meara & Templeton 2022)

Consistency

(O’Meara & Templeton 2022)

Best Practices in Creating an Equitable Faculty Evaluation Process

• Explicitly recognize mission critical work
• Differentiate between levels of efforts, when appropriate
• Match evaluation criteria to faculty assignments

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• Create space for new, different or changing set of individuals or work contexts

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• Provide opportunities for faculty to appeal decisions, make corrections, clarify information, or add amendments
• Appoint evaluators who have some understanding of the contexts of the faculty member’s work

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• Bring relevant contexts into view for the evaluation of faculty work

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Credit and Reward

(Hanasono et al. 2018; O’Meara & Templeton 2022)

Flexibility

(O’Meara & Templeton 2022)

Agency and Representation

(O’Meara & Templeton 2022; AAUP 2015)

Context

(O’Meara & Templeton 2022)

Best Practices in Creating an Equitable Faculty Evaluation Process

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• Be aware of and pay attention to biases in student evaluations
• Pay attention to language based in stereotypic expectations or discomfort with difference
• Use multiple measures of teaching effectiveness.

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• Adopt a more expansive definition of scholarship
• Ensure equitable time for scholarship by ensuring equitable distribution of departmental service

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• Acknowledge task-oriented service and relational-oriented service
• Understand that multiple marginalized identities may increase taxation
• Reward special assignments

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• Frame contributions around the institution’s strategic plan

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Teaching

Scholarship

Service

(reference: CalyPoly Guidance for Anti Bias in Evaluations)

Context

Breakout Room Discussion

• Assess and improve a less-than-ideal evaluation rubric (next slide and in the chat)
• And/or discuss Dept/college-directed questions (following slide and in your notes)

How can this scholarship rubric be improved?

Discussion:

• What is your experience with cultured and gendered norms affecting teaching evaluations?
• How can this information help you in interpreting student evaluations for women and faculty of color – or for anyone?
• Are there ways to mitigate bias from students?
• What is your college doing with tenure expectations due to Covid-19 shutdowns, school closures?

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Debrief

From the Chemistry Dept at St. Mary’s College of MD

Scholarship in chemistry and biochemistry at a PUI has unique challenges that may not�be widely understood outside the field. The most common model for scholarship at�chemistry departments of all types (graduate, PUI, etc.) nationwide, and the model that�our department most closely follows, is one in which a faculty member designs projects�that have components which one or more students can explore via directed research.�Due to the nature of chemical and biochemical research, completion of these projects�may require multiple years. This model is favored at the undergraduate level because�mentored research experience is cited as one of the highest impact practices for�student success.1 Although one meritorious outcome of scholarly research is peer-�reviewed publication, there are many other possible indicators of an active scholarly�research agenda, including: external grant support and presentations at conferences.

High-Impact Educational Practices. (2014). Retrieved May 25, 2016, from�https://www.aacu.org/leap/hips

With all of these factors in mind, we describe here our department expectations for�scholarly work. First and foremost, it is a priority of the department that all faculty�mentor students in research. In addition, faculty should be continually striving towards�scholarly achievement. There are a variety of measures of professional�accomplishment described in the faculty handbook. We outline below how our�department distinguishes various levels of scholarship. This list is not meant to be�inclusive; new items can be added later (if approved by the chemistry and biochemistry�faculty). Finally, as a general rule, the department does not make distinctions between�authorship and co-authorship. Exceptions to this rule will be documented in the�department’s evaluation letter.

Outstanding Scholarship�● Publication of a peer-reviewed article�● Publication of a peer-reviewed book chapter�● Publication of a textbook�● Serving as primary editor of a published book or a journal�● Patent�● Receiving an external grant�● Receiving an external research award or fellowship�● Invited oral presentation at a national/international conference�

Excellent Scholarship�● Submission of an external grant proposal�● Publication of an article in non-refereed journal or magazine�● Developing course materials that are adopted by instructors at other institutions�● Presentation at an international, national or regional conference�● Technical reports, excluding final reports for grants, that are indexed by the�National Technical Reports Library�● Invited oral presentation at another institution or a regional/local conference

Favorable Scholarship�● Providing research expertise as a consultant�● Publication of a book review�● Publication of a letter or editorial in peer-reviewed journal�● Establishing a new collaboration with another research lab�● Co-authored student presentation at a professional conference�● Acceptance of data to a recognized national repository, for example GenBank, crystal structure or mass spectra�● Release of a publicly-accessible website of substantial length and content in the discipline

Pre-tenure Contract Renewal Evaluation:�According to the Faculty Handbook, the faculty member will be evaluated in the areas of�scholarship, teaching and service. However, the primary importance will be given to the�person’s teaching. With regards to scholarship, the department anticipates that this will�include significant progress toward developing their undergraduate research program.

�Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor Evaluation:�The college criteria for scholarly work for tenure and promotion to associate professor is�“professional achievement of high quality is expected.” The department’s interpretation�for this threshold is an established undergraduate research program and completion of�two items from the outstanding scholarship category, one of which must be a peer�reviewed document. For example, to fulfill this requirement, a faculty member could�have two peer-reviewed publications or one peer-reviewed publication and one funded�grant proposal. Additional accomplishments in any of the categories strengthen the�applicant’s scholarship.

Promotion to Professor Evaluation:�The college criteria for promotion to professor is the continued professional�achievement of high quality scholarly work as recognized by professional peers beyond the campus is expected. The department’s interpretation for this threshold is a�continuation of an active undergraduate research program and the completion of two�items from the outstanding scholarship category, post tenure, one of which must be a�peer reviewed document. For example, to fulfill this requirement, a faculty member�could have two peer-reviewed publications or one peer-reviewed publication and one�funded grant proposal. Additional accomplishments in any of the categories strengthen the applicant’s scholarship.

How Chairs can help with Evaluations

• Acknowledge bias.
• Help faculty improve their evaluations.
• Kaplan et al., 2011 review of the literature: higher evaluations when students understand how they will be graded and believe the system is equitable.
• Have your TLC conduct workshops, esp using Kardia and Wright’s paper on “Instructor Identity”
• Use feedback productively even if some is unfair.
• Share your own unfair feedback.

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Idea of “Covid CV”

• Have faculty list the ways in which they responded to the pandemic, dealt with challenges.
• Stopping the tenure clock can help, but it prolongs lower wages, uncertainty.
• Covid course releases?

Evaluation Reform at Iowa State�Evaluations for a Freshman Bio Course added these statements:

• ...student evaluations of teaching are often influenced by students’ unconscious and unintentional biases about the race and gender of the instructor. ��
• Women and instructors of color are systematically rated lower in their teaching  evaluations than white men, even when there are no actual differences in the instruction or in what students have learned.��
•  As you fill out  the course evaluation, please keep this in mind and make an effort to resist stereotypes about professors. Focus on your opinions about the content of the course (the assignments, the textbook, the in-class material) and no unrelated matters (the instructor’s appearance)

Results for Women Professors with and without these preliminary statements

Milwaukee Area Technical College replaced numbers with answers to objective questions

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Example:

Did your professor offer office hours?

1. Yes and they were helpful to me.
2. Yes and they were not helpful to me.
3. Yes and I never attended.
4. No

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Action Plans?

3. Resource Allocation

• NRC study (2010): women earned 82% of what male colleagues received.
• Curtis, 2011: women at PUIs earned ~89% of what their male colleagues earned.
• Karuktis, 2010: Inequalites at every rank

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Why this inequality?

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Reflection Questions

• How are resources allocated in your department/institution?

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• Chairs vary in budget power but have influence in…
• helping new faculty negotiate salary/start-up
• spending leftover funds, dividing travel $...

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• Reflect: what strategies/criteria do you use in resource allocation?

“Women Don’t Ask”

• Linda Babcock, economist at Carnegie Mellon looked �at starting salaries of master’s graduates:
• Men’s salaries $4000 higher on average
• 76% of the man had negotiated, and only 7% of the�women.
• The negotiators increased their salaries�by ~ the difference between men’s and women’s salaries
• Babcock and Laschever, 2007

Why don’t (many) women “ask”?

• In socialization, women are REWARDED for being selfless, community-minded, and are punished for being assertive.
• Men are REWARDED for being assertive.
• Babcock et al., 2006; Bowles et al., 2007)

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• Men tend to over-value their work; women tend to under-value it
• (Major et al., 1984).

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• Cultural barriers exacerbate the situation
• Reluctance to put someone in a situation of saying “no”, respect for authority, cultural respect for harmony, modesty (Delgado-Romero et al., 2003; Hyun, 2005).

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(Continued…)

• Negotiation styles that work for men do not work well for women (come at a cost, result in more push-back, lack of respect)
• Bowles et al. study, 2007: men were 50% less likely to hire a woman who negotiated aggressively.
• BUT, when women are shown what others are being paid, they will negotiate (Major et al., 1984).
• Women will also negotiate for someone else (Babcock and Laschever, 2007).

Case Study

Two of your faculty members, Dr. Y and Dr. H, both want to attend an important national conference. Your university has just undergone massive budget cuts; travel funding has been almost entirely eliminated. By pooling funds from other sources, you calculate that you can send one faculty member but not both. Both are tenured associate professors with the same number of years in the department. Since the conference is so significant, you feel it is a priority for one of them to attend, but the situation requires you to decide between two deserving candidates.

Adapted from Buller and Cipriano, A Tookit for Department Chairs

What if we add a gender or FOC angle?

• Did you assume Dr. H and Dr. Y were both white males?
• Let’s assume Dr. H is a white male; Dr. Y is a Black female.

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Discussion for Breakout Rooms

• How do you go about making a fair, unbiased, well-informed decision?

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• Perhaps another criterion could be added based on understanding the challenges faced by people whose identities leave them isolated in the department or institution.

Would it be fair to add this criterion?

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Related: What is the Chair’s role in assisting new faculty in negotiating start-up/salary?

Debrief

Potential criteria for assigning priority

1. Someone who is presenting a keynote address.
2. Someone who is delivering an oral invited presentation.
3. Someone who is an officer in the organization.
4. Someone who is serving on a panel.
5. Someone who is serving as a judge for a poster competition.
6. Someone who is presenting research in a poster session.
7. The person who has not attended this conference for the longest time.
8. The person who has not attended any conference for the longest time.
9. The person who will most benefit from the conference.

Ideally, you would have a policy in place so that your judgment would not be affected, even subconsciously, by your feelings about Dr. Y and Dr. H.

Best Practices

• Develop policies and criteria.
• Have deadlines, clear procedures for applying for funds.
• Keep norms so that faculty can use these norms in negotiation.
• (May need to consult with past chairs, previous chairs)
• (May need to take a more active role)
• Be aware that faculty joining PUIs are often advised by people NOT at PUIs…..

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Action Plans?

• What is one strategy that you can implement in your department?

Please take the post-training survey

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdHfOKIt1Wh00i2tqn3w9hQvsx9_m_Y7xhTvO27TrhLB_qpMg/viewform