Best Practices for Search Committees
Best Practices for Conducting Faculty Searches
(Full Version | Condensed Version PDF)
We have drawn on and recommend Searching for Excellence and Diversity: A Guide for Search Committees, by Eve Fine and Jo Handelsman, as well as materials from Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, NSF ADVANCE Program, MIT, Stanford, Columbia, UC Berkeley, University of Michigan, and the University of Washington.
Additional Harvard Resources
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Disability-related Resources and Best Practices for Faculty Recruitment (PDF)
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Disability Resources for Current and Prospective Faculty (PDF)
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Guide to Acceptable Interview Questions (PDF)
- Sample Candidate Evaluation Sheet (PDF)
Background Reading and Resources
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Unconscious Bias and its Influence on Decision Making (PDF)
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Outsmarting Human Minds (OHM) is a series of short videos and podcasts on decision-making with insights from the mind sciences.
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OHM was founded by Mahzarin Banaji who is Harvard’s Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics, Harvard College Professor, Chair of the Department of Psychology, and Senior Advisor to the Provost, Harvard University.
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OHM was founded by Mahzarin Banaji who is Harvard’s Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics, Harvard College Professor, Chair of the Department of Psychology, and Senior Advisor to the Provost, Harvard University.
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Take an Implicit Association Test (IAT) at Project Implicit to explore your attitudes toward or beliefs about various biases that we all have.
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For a general introduction to implicit social cognition: Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People.
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For a deeper dive into papers published by Mahzarin Banaji on the topic of implicit bias, please visit: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~banaji/research/publications/Publicat...
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HERC’s Search Committee Training Toolkit and HERC’s Virtual Recruitment Toolkit: The Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (HERC) offers to its members a search committee toolkit of four short films and accompanying worksheets that introduce hiring committees to inclusive, equitable recruitment practices to supplement current diversity and inclusion hiring activities, and also provides a virtual recruitment toolkit. Harvard affiliates can access these member-only resources as part of Harvard’s membership in HERC.
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Implicit Bias Video Series, a seven-part series for search committee members from UCLA's Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Office
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ADVANCE Program (National Science Foundation)
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Diversity, Equity and Inclusive Excellence Initiative (AACU)
- FD&D Annual Reports
FD&D Recruitment-Related Events
Helpful Guidance for an Effective Search Process - 2016
How to approach the search, collaborate with colleagues, and facilitate deliberation through the recruitment process (Transcript)
The Art and Science of Selecting Outstanding Faculty
How decision-making factors can influence the selection process for faculty at institutions like Harvard (Transcript)
Helpful Guidance for an Effective Search Process - 2015
Common obstacles, concerns, and strategies for open and effective decision-making in the faculty search process (Transcript)