Adding Color

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Affirmative Action

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Affirmative Action: Recruiting Faculty and Staff

Search committee members, says Potter-Hall, naturally come to the table with their own sets of values, not only in terms of race or gender but also in the way they assess credentials. A degree from certain universities may be more desirable than a degree from others, for instance. Although such assessment prejudices may not be rooted in racism, they may ultimately negatively impact certain groups of people. What needs to be determined, Potter-Hall maintains, is the candidate’s overall value. "I am trying to help search committees isolate what they want in a candidate --- to look at qualities first before looking at qualifications," says Potter-Hall. "You may have a white male with a few more publications than a Hispanic female. But does that make him a better choice? Rather than looking only at strict criteria, we need to expand our concepts of what is valuable to the College and to our students."

Faculty of color can --- and often do --- bring a fresh outlook to the curriculum and may be more likely to challenge the institution’s status quo on issues of race. A case in point is the recent appointment of Cynthia Baldessare, the only African American faculty member in theater arts. Last semester Baldessare directed a production of The Colored Museum, the first play written by an African American playwright ever to be performed on a main stage in Dillingham Center. "One of the reasons that I am directing this play," said Baldessare in February, "is that I am hoping it will spark some very necessary discussions. I think there may be a sense on campus that things are OK and that the issue of race relations has been dealt with. But that is just not true, and discussions need to be ongoing."

"Exposing students to a multiplicity of voices and perspectives," says new provost Bardaglio, "is not just the right thing to do. It is our obligation in order to prepare them to be effective in the workplace and in the world."

This past school year President Williams set aside two monthly meetings of Administrative Assembly --- which is composed of administrators at the director level and above --- for Potter-Hall to run sessions on faculty, staff, and student diversity. In these workshops and in discussions being conducted with deans and department heads across campus, Potter-Hall hopes to exchange ideas and resources for enlarging the recruitment pool and to clarify how affirmative action operates.

The recently approved Ithaca Initiative program may do double duty in helping to beef up diversity in the applicant pool and provide incentives for those responsible for hiring faculty to do so. The program includes funding for trips to conferences and symposiums where there is high potential for recruitment of ALANA applicants, and it may eventually extend to the funding of signing bonuses or leave time to attract more ALANA candidates. For example, Potter-Hall assembled a team of individuals from various IC schools to attend a symposium in Minneapolis in April on recruiting and retaining ALANA faculty.

Director of employment and employee relations Vicki Estabrook, who has worked in the Office of Human Resources for 12 years, also believes the College needs new ways to expand recruitment efforts. "Committees have poked at the issue of diversifying the workforce for years. [The problem] cannot simply be our location; it has to be more than that. Now we are trying to set up systems of analysis to better target our recruitment efforts."

President Williams stresses her administration’s commitment to the process of increasing multiculturalism among employees: "We specifically adopted new procedures for searching and selecting candidates because we want to actively pursue as many avenues as possible for diversifying all administration and faculty positions." As in the recruitment of ALANA students, making connections and building relationships seem to be the best strategies for diversifying the staff. Outreach efforts have been stepped up over the past few years: members of the human resources staff regularly attend job fairs and participate in community programs and professional events where they might meet people who either are themselves from underrepresented groups or are connected to organizations where people who represent diversity might gather. "One contact leads you to another," says Estabrook. "You build a network as you go."

The HR office is also calling for, and receiving, more campuswide assistance in locating recruitment resources, such as professional organizations, symposiums, or even personal contacts, that might help the College connect to applicants of color. "I don’t think that most of us on campus are coming from a bad place, where we are actively racist or sexist," says Estabrook. "But the College is now requiring more from us than that. We can’t just walk out there and say, ‘OK, send us everybody who represents diversity for this job!’ We all have to put in the extra effort, and we all have to take responsibility."