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Faculty Recruitment Initiatives

Governor Cuomo Launches PRODiG Initiative to Increase Faculty Diversity on All SUNY Campuses

March 18, 2019

Guidelines issued to campuses for first of its kind program to attract and retain faculty from underrepresented groups Read more...

COM Faculty Affairs Office is supported by the senior associate dean for faculty affairs and faculty development, faculty appointment specialist and administrative assistant. Faculty Affairs centrally oversees the recruitment and retention efforts for faculty with assistance from Upstate OD&I, SUNY ODE&I, and department chairs.

 

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Departmental Diversity Advocates

Targeted diversity categories: Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Female

Description: Another recent effort led by the Office of Faculty Affairs and Faculty Development is the establishment of a formal meeting structure for the departmental diversity advocates in 2020. Each department has an appointed diversity advocate, who is responsible for overseeing the department’s efforts to recruit and retain diverse faculty. These advocates are members of the Dean’s Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, and now meet quarterly as a separate group. At these quarterly meetings, advocates provide updates on their department’s programs and collaborate on new programming efforts.

Department Chair Diversity Plans and Reports

Targeted diversity categories: Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Female

Description: Department Chairs are responsible for monitoring efforts to increase diversity and inclusion among their faculty and must submit an Annual Department Diversity Faculty & Inclusion Report to the Dean’s office. In 2019-20, all chairs were asked to identify a diversity advocate within their department. These representatives are responsible for overseeing the departmental diversity and inclusion efforts, practices, and metrics in order to increase the recruitment and retention of the College of Medicine identified diversity categories.

Diversity Dashboard

Targeted diversity categories: Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Female

Description: The College of Medicine started using a Diversity Dashboard in 2018-19 to visually display results of the department chair’s Annual Department Diversity Faculty & Inclusion Reports. Collection of data for this dashboard will be more efficient and more accurate starting with 2020-21 due to the new requirement that all faculty candidates must apply through a new centralized HR program called PageUp. Results are reviewed by the Dean’s Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, and the Dean’s Executive Committee. They also provide internal benchmarking information for when the dean meets with individual department chairs and their faculty.

Graduate Medical Education Recruitment

Targeted diversity categories: Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Female

Description: The Office of Graduate Medical Education surveyed all residency and fellowship programs to identify what recruitment efforts are occurring within the programs to support recruitment of a diverse group of residents and fellows, and in turn recruit a more diverse faculty, and has encouraged departments to advance efforts in this area. Some programs including Obstetrics & Gynecology, Psychiatry, Child Abuse Pediatrics, Gastroenterology, and Anesthesiology have specific curricula to address diversity and inclusion. Some departmental diversity advocates play an active role in curricular development for graduate medical education programs. Other programs address this area by example, with program members who are diverse and inclusive. One example of a departmental effort comes from the Department of Psychiatry. In the 2019-20 academic year, a major focus of the department was recruiting of Underrepresented Minority (URM) medical residents, especially African Americans/Black and Hispanics, for the training program. This focus included the following

  • Developing a diversity statement for the department and training program
  • Reaching out to medical schools from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) with large numbers of URM, including Howard University, Meharry Medical College, Morehouse School of Medicine, Charles Drew Medical University, and CUNY School of Medicine
  • Working to build a mutually beneficial relationship with these schools

For the 2020 match, two applicants who identified as Black/African American matched with the Upstate Psychiatry residency. By increasing the number of residents from our identified diversity categories, we hope that many will choose to stay at Upstate and join our faculty.

Office of Diversity and Inclusion (OD&I)

Targeted diversity categories: Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Female

Description: OD&I and Human Resources work collaboratively to provide diversity recruitment options for hiring managers in order to increase the diversity of applicant pools. A representative of Upstate’s OD&I is available to meet with all hiring departments at the beginning of the search process to assist with outreach efforts. Recommendations for employment are monitored through the documentation of search process. This process ensures that all qualified applicants and employees receive equal opportunity for recruitment, selection, advancement, and any other term and privilege associated with employment.

SUNY Faculty Diversity Program (PRODiG)

Targeted diversity categories: Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Female

Description: The SUNY PRODiG (Promoting Recruitment, Opportunity, Diversity, Inclusion and Growth) Program is designed to assist campuses with the recruitment, retention, and promotion of outstanding scholars from different backgrounds, including individuals from groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education. Under this highly competitive program, state-operated campuses compete for salary support and start-up packages to recruit outstanding scholars who have attained a record of distinction. PRODiG provides state-operated campuses with a percentage of the faculty member’s salary for three years. Upstate was approved for funding in 2019-20 but was not informed in time to recruit faculty during that academic year. Upstate plans to apply for the 2020-21 award cycle. Salary support is allocated to the campuses as follows, for a maximum of up to $145,000 per faculty member.

  • 2019-2020 - 80% of negotiated salary up to $80,000
  • 2020-2021 - 75% of negotiated salary up to $50,000
  • 2021-2022 - 25% of negotiated salary up to $15,000

Campuses are also eligible to receive up to $15,000 to develop competitive start-up packages for faculty appointed under this initiative.

Upstate Unconscious Bias Training for all Search Committees

Targeted diversity categories: Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Female

Description: From 2014 to 2019, the College of Medicine Corps of Diversity Allies, a grassroots group formed to facilitate discussions of unconscious bias at existing faculty meetings, presented short workshops at 17 departmental faculty meetings, to approximately 200 COM faculty, residents and department chairs. The goal was to improve the recruitment process and ensure that it is equitable and inclusive. All faculty search committees now meet with a representative from the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) at their first meeting to review unconscious bias and to review resources for recruiting a diverse pool of candidates. Search committees are also provided with information on and encouraged to participate in the AAMC’s Online Seminar: The Science of Unconscious Bias and What To Do About it in the Search and Recruitment Process.

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