Recruitment
Objective: Enhance recruitment efforts at all stages of the process.
- Develop Comprehensive Recruitment Plans. All search committees are required to complete a comprehensive ADVANCE recruitment plan using UTRGV's ADVANCE Online Recruitment Portal. The portal includes information on best practices for recruiting an applicant pool that is academically excellent and diverse along with practical ways of implementing those practices at every stage of the faculty search, from search committee formation to making the offer.
- Providing Training to Search Committees. In coordination with the Education and Empowerment component, extended training in best practices for hiring diverse faculty- including strategies to identify and mitigate implicit bias- is mandatory for all faculty in STEM search committees. Additional training is planned for Department Chairs and Deans to generate awareness of and sensitivity to unintentional biases in the faculty hiring process.
- Initiating New Advertisement Strategies to Generate More Diverse Applicant Pools. All UTRGV STEM searches are encouraged to include language in their advertisements that goes far beyond the standard EEOC statement to encourage women to apply. The Online Recruitment Portal allows committees to identify field-specific organizations that target potential applicants from underrepresented groups. Additional strategies include advertising in women’s organizations publications like WISE (Women in Science and Engineering); targeting/inviting specific potential applicants, encouraging networking, and sending Department Chairs and/or search committee members to recruit at women’s and Hispanic target conferences. Departments can easily request allocated recruitment enhancement funding to support these efforts. In 2013, our legacy institution UTPA also announced its ADVANCE Program in general advertisements that are not tied to any single search, including an ad in the Chronicle of Higher Education's Fall 2013 special "Diversity" issue.
- Expanding the Pool of Interviewed Candidates. We provide supplemental funding for STEM search committees to bring additional women to UTRGV for campus interviews. Funds may also be requested to enhance campus visits. UTRGV ADVANCE further facilitates campus visits by, for example, providing information to search committees about family-friendly policies and organizing meetings with the Women's Faculty Network or other groups as requested by candidates.
- Enhancing Start-up Packages for New Women Faculty in STEM. We have allocated significant resources to enhance start-up packages for women STEM hires, including funding for graduate assistant support and laboratory or research equipment. These funds serve as an added incentive and do not replace the standard start-up currently offered.
Recruitment Brochure
Resource List
Recruitment Forms