Chapter 4 - Academic Goals and Strategies to Build Distinction
Foster shared searches between schools and institutes and centers
We have realized the significant benefits of recruiting faculty into positions that are shared across schools, because such hires attract faculty to Duke who reinforce our vision for interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research and teaching. Much of Duke's interdisciplinary efforts are represented by outstanding institutes, including the Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy, the Social Science Research Institute, the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, the Kenan Institute for Ethics, and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. To advance our signature programs more successfully we must more closely coordinate and consider their aspirations and programmatic needs along side those of the schools.
The Provost recently created the Academic Leadership Council, comprised of the deans of the schools and the directors of institutes that embody university strategic priorities. This group will advise the Provost on annual plans for cross-school and school-institute searches that enhance school, institute, and university strategic initiatives. Early consultation and planning are crucial in interdisciplinary hiring. Achieving this requires, first, that all school's annual hiring plans explicitly address their contribution to Duke's commitment to interdisciplinarity; and, second, that institutes develop their own annual hiring plans for consideration in concert with school plans. Memoranda of understanding are the central mechanism for aligning expectations among the partnering units, must be an integral part of the recruitment process, and must clearly articulate the teaching and service responsibilities of such hires. The "home" of faculty hired remains within a department structure, and the salary will ordinarily be budgeted by the schools involved.
Promote faculty diversity through hiring, retention, and program development
Diversity in our faculty is essential to our success in each and every area we seek to develop. Close attention to hiring and retaining a diverse faculty requires commitment at all institutional levels, ranging from senior administrators and deans to department chairs and search committees. Through focused leadership and training, mentoring, policies, programs, and rewards, we seek to infuse our community more fully with the complete range of perspectives and potential of human difference, including racial, ethnic, linguistic, gender, sexual orientation, physical abilities, geographic backgrounds, religious affiliation, and political convictions. Moreover, because the themes of interdisciplinarity, internationalization, and diversity are often intertwined, we believe that accelerated and cluster hiring will significantly increase our diversity as well as deepen our strength in programmatic areas, broaden the perspectives among our faculty and create a more inclusive university culture and environment.
Duke has witnessed the results of the 1993-2003 Black Faculty Strategic Initiative to recruit African-American faculty, an initiative that more than doubled the number of black faculty. We advance our priority of diversity through a number of mechanisms, including the Faculty Diversity Initiative, which uses central resources to encourage and enable the hiring of women, minority, and minority women faculty in fields where they are underrepresented. The current plan reaffirms this commitment and through outreach and recruitment sets the goal to achieve a net increase of 25 faculty from underrepresented groups over the next five years. We will also continue to press forward on measures to attract, mentor, and support women in science.
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