• To achieve the university’s commitment to and goal of improving diversity among the faculty in order to meet critical research and teaching needs
  • To further implement the University’s existing affirmative action policy
  • To promote measures to prevent discrimination in faculty hiring and retention 

Under the leadership of the Chancellor and Provost and with the endorsement of the Council of Deans, all faculty hiring at the University of Colorado Boulder should endeavor to achieve diversity inclusive of age, creed, color, disability, ethnicity, gender expression, gender identity, indigenous origin, nationality, national origin, political affiliation, political philosophy, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and veteran status. Herein, and in accordance with the university’s policies on Affirmative Action and Nondiscrimination, the university shall promote efforts to attract, hire, and retain qualified individuals whose creative work or research, teaching, and service will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity in higher education including scholars who may bring a critical perspective that comes from a non-traditional educational background or an understanding of the experiences of groups historically underrepresented in higher education. Stemming most recently from the IDEA Plan, our commitment to inclusion means that faculty hiring practices shall advance meaningful measures to ensure that faculty search and hiring processes are welcoming to all candidates. We will identify and work to eliminate barriers that have prevented equitable access to faculty positions, following campus guidance on searches and hires. In accordance with applicable national, state, and Regent laws and policies, the University of Colorado Boulder is committed to nondiscrimination and to equal employment opportunity.

Faculty Diversity Action Plan (FDAP) informs and supplements the following faculty search and hiring practices:

  • Deans shall reiterate the central values and core mission in the Statement of Hiring Authority to their constituents on an annual basis. 
  • Deans, Chairs/Directors, or their designees shall convene faculty hiring committees and appoint a chair.
  • All faculty hiring committee members are required to inform themselves of applicable laws and policies relevant to faculty hiring by completing and reviewing the University of Colorado Boulder Diversity Search and Hiring Online Course, Manual and Guidebooks prior to commencing any faculty search and hiring activities. 
  • All faculty hiring committee members shall adopt inclusive practices concerning the faculty hiring process as outlined in the Diversity Search and Hiring Online Course, Manual and Guidebooks including recruitment, outreach, advertising, evaluating applicants, interviews, and hiring decisions. Hiring committees shall seek advice from the campus affirmative action officer regarding the search and hiring process.
  • Faculty hiring groups, through the support of their Deans, may seek financial support pursuant to the terms indicated below with the understanding that faculty hiring should always aim to recruit diverse faculty as outlined in this Call for Proposals. 

All faculty involved in the search and hiring process will receive inclusive search committee consultation, training and support on how to hire highly qualified and diverse faculty members. The training is intended to do two things: 1) provide faculty with the inclusive and research-based recruitment tools available to complete the search efficiently, and 2) ensure that faculty search committee members and their colleagues have awareness of the role that bias plays in our evaluation and selection of candidates and in our ability to mitigate bias.

There are two training formats: live consultation and online training.

  • Live Consultation: The live consultation provides resources and tools on affirmative action goals; strategies for attracting diverse applicants; recruitment strategies; and strategies related to mitigating bias from your recruiting process. This training allows for questions and collaborative interaction between search committee members and campus experts on inclusive search practices. Search committee members who have already received this training may still benefit from participating to dive deeper into specific aspects of inclusive searches and reflect on prior search experiences.
    • Training on Avature, the campus applicant tracking system, can also be provided upon request. Avature is the system committee members will use to provide feedback on applications and advance them through the process. The Avature portion of the training is useful for search committee members who have not used the system before or need a refresher Avature training includes highlighting new features of the system to improve the search experience for applicants and the search committee, including a simplified process for collecting references.
  • Online Training: The online training is a self-paced introduction or refresher on conducting inclusive search processes. The online training is appropriate as a supplement to attending the live training for search committee members who have attended the live training in the past two years, or for non-search committee members voting on tenured or tenure-track faculty hires. 

We are confident – based upon feedback from faculty who have experienced the consultation session – that you will find the live consultation very useful. The goal of the consultation session is to help you increase the quality and diversity of your faculty by applying inclusive, efficient, and legally compliant methodologies.

Your meeting will include:

  • Introduction to campus experts available to advise on inclusive search strategies and legal considerations throughout your faculty search process
  • Introduction to your Hiring Coordinator, who will help run the tactical aspects of your search
  • Discussion of strategies for reducing unconscious bias in every phase of the search process and creating an environment that appeals to a diverse faculty body
  • Discussion of affirmative action data regarding the current representation of women, people of color, veterans, and individuals with disabilities among faculty on campus and within your department
  • A discussion about applicant demographic data as compared to availability in the market 
  • Training on Avature as needed

Training Requirements:

  • Search committee members serving on a tenured or tenure-track search must complete the in-person/live virtual consultation if new to this campus’ search process or if it has been two years or more since you last participated in this process.
  • Completion of live or online training is required for anyone voting on tenured and tenure-track faculty hires. Again, this must be completed if new to the faculty search process and/or if the training has not been completed within the last two years.
  • Faculty members not serving on a search committee but who vote or participate in tenured or tenure-track searches may either take the live consultation with the search committee or complete the online training.
  • Anyone participating in a non-tenure-track search is required to take the online training. The in-person live training is also available for these search committees upon request.

Additionally, we encourage anyone involved in a faculty search to visit the Diversity Search & Hiring page. There you will find information on running an effective search including the Faculty Diversity Search Manual, which contains inclusive and equitable search strategies, guidebooks with templates for various stages of a search process, and a link to the online course.

If you wish to reach out in advance to schedule training for your academic unit, please email recruiting@colorado.edu. The training is generally scheduled for 60 minutes to cover the inclusive search process or 90 minutes if Avature training is also requested.

Thank you for taking the time to serve in support of building upon our world-class faculty and please do not hesitate to contact us with questions.

Russell L. Moore, Ph.D.
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
303.492.5537

Merna Jacobsen, Ph.D. SPHR
Interim Chief Human Resources Officer
303.735.1249

PLEASE NOTE:
The division of Academic Affairs and all schools and colleges are in the process of revisiting the FDAP.

Unit Information Dashboard

Units should seek guidance from the campus affirmative action officer on how to use these data properly.**

The unit and school/college/institute are not responsible for compiling the dashboard; this will be generated and, for any information not already available to the unit on the ODA website, ARPAC reports, etc., communicated to the unit and the approval committee by relevant offices once ODECE and ODA receive hire requests.

The dashboard and the form it supplements are meant to provide a holistic overview of the request and the unit(s) submitting the request. Because units and disciplines vary, no one factor or data point will supersede others.

For newer units (<10 years), data for available years will be supplied.

**Note: Departments, programs, schools, and colleges should reach out to the campus Affirmative Action Officer to obtain guidance on affirmative action and the proper use of the unit dashboard.

Unit Information Dashboard

The dashboard will include the following information: 

For all units
  • TTT faculty demographics in the unit by race/ethnicity, gender, and rank over last five years
  • TTT faculty demographics in the unit by race/ethnicity, gender, and rank of hires made over the last five years
  • Most recent ARPAC report
  • Academic Analytics research data (if applicable)
  • Research, publications, creative works per TTT (FRPA) over last 10 years
  • If grant discipline, research awards over last five years
For all units except Institutes and University Libraries
  • 10-year sponsor SCH visualization
  • 10-year increase/decrease in sponsor SCH as a percentage of campus SCH
  • 10-year increase/decrease in sponsor SCH compared to ARPAC cohort (rank in ARPAC cohort), if applicable
  • 10-year TTT/SCH visualization
  • 10-year # of majors visualization
  • 10-year increase/decrease in majors as a percentage of campus majors
  • 10-year # of minors visualization (if applicable)
  • 10-year visualization of SCH taught by various instructional ranks in unit
  • 10-year visualization of instructional faculty headcount (by rank)
  • Interdisciplinarity: number of crosslisted/cross-enrolled courses; SCH taught to non-majors 

  1. Proposed hires should meet critical research/creative work and teaching needs in the unit.
  2. The requested position should help contribute to diversity consistent with the University of Colorado’s commitment to nondiscrimination, equal opportunity, and affirmative action by, for example, bringing a critical perspective that comes from a non-traditional educational background or an understanding of the experiences of groups historically underrepresented in higher education;[1] and meet the qualification expectations of the unit.
  3. The unit shall demonstrate serious commitment and actions to foster diversity and inclusion in accordance with the university’s policies on Affirmative Action and Nondiscrimination, through efforts to attract, hire, and retain qualified individuals whose creative work or research, teaching, and service will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity in higher education including, for example, scholars who may bring a critical perspective that comes from a non-traditional educational background or an understanding of the experiences of groups historically underrepresented in higher education.
  4. Proposals to convert a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship to a tenure-track appointment shall be prioritized if possible.
  5. The unit shall have planned hiring practices that advance meaningful measures to ensure that faculty search and hiring processes are welcoming to all candidates. (See Diversity Search and Hiring Online Course, Manual and Guidebooks.)
  6. The proposal should note a clear plan for recruiting, mentoring, retaining, and supporting the professional success of the proposed hire.
  7. If applicable, the unit should demonstrate the need for TTT faculty to satisfy discipline-based accreditation requirements.

[1] See Regent Law 8A (“The University of Colorado does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, pregnancy, age, disability, creed, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, political affiliation, or political philosophy in admission and access to, and treatment and employment in, its educational programs and activities.”); Regent Policy 10A: Nondiscrimination/Affirmative Action – General Policy Statement and Long-Range Goals (“To achieve within each academic and non-academic unit and within the University as a whole, a diverse, multi-racial faculty and staff capable of providing for excellence in the education of its students and for the enrichment of the communities which it serves.”); University of Colorado Boulder, Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Policy (Effective date: Oct. 29, 2010); University of Colorado Boulder, Human Resources, Policy and Guidance on Affirmative Action.

The following units have been awarded financial support from the Faculty Vacancy Reallocation Program for hiring faculty in pursuant of the FDAP:

2020 (Faculty search to take place during AY 2020-2021, with hire start dates for fall 2021.)

  • Applied Mathematics
  • Cinema Studies and Moving Image Arts
  • College of Engineering and Applied Science
  • College of Media, Communication and Information: Information Science
  • English
  • Ethnic Studies
  • Geography
  • History
  • Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR)
  • Linguistics
  • Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI)
  • School of Education

2021 (Faculty search to take place during AY 2021-2022, with hire start dates for fall 2022.)

  • Art and Art History
  • Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
  • Biochemistry
  • College of Engineering and Applied Science 
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures
  • Molecular, Cellular and Development Biology
  • Women and Gender Studies