Equity and Implicit Bias Training for Faculty and Administrative Searches Policy

This Academic Affairs policy aligns with Goal #4: Promote a diverse, equitable and inclusive University culture to ensure social sustainability and accessibility in the Western Michigan University Strategic Plan Gold Standard 2020.

Purpose of Policy

All members of Academic Affairs faculty and administrative search committees will complete Equity and Implicit Bias Training prior to starting a search process. This policy will be effective beginning fall 2017.

Full Policy Details

The Vice President for Academic Affairs is funding a faculty fellow in calendar year 2017 to work in Institutional Equity (IE) to find and develop tools, strategies and processes that will be used to institutionalize best practices with respect to equity and implicit bias training for search committee members within Academic Affairs. Such training will ideally be facilitated by IE in conjunction with other University faculty/staff trained by IE and the faculty fellow, and will be required for members of all Academic Affairs faculty and administrative search committees. The plan is for training to occur prior to posting of jobs by Human Resources, i.e. before position descriptions are drafted and as plans for dissemination of ads and recruiting strategies are being formulated. If there are insufficient resources or staff to facilitate search committee training sessions, an alternative might be to disseminate training materials and guidelines for committee review. While new training procedures and resources are being developed by IE and the fellow, academic affairs search committees will be asked to review materials on implicit bias and conducting equitable searches created for other institutions.