Hiring, Retention, Tenure, & Promotion
Workshop Breakout II
Breakout Group 2 (Faculty 1)
- 1. What considerations are critical to hiring and retaining Indigenous faculty and staff?
- Connections to local communities/territories
- Urban (relocated) Aboriginal people
- Mentoring, team teaching
- Courses/programs
- Collective agreements
- 2. What are the workload expectations of faculty and staff?
- Indigenous events and departmental expectations
- Collective agreements
Recruitment (faculty)
Retention (faculty)
Successful faculty retention/recruitment facilitates same in aboriginal students
- Success in retention and recruitment of faculty will facilitate retention & recruitment of aboriginal students; it should start with communities
Communities/Accountability to communities/Role of faculty
- Success in retention and recruitment of faculty will facilitate retention & recruitment of aboriginal students; it should start with communities
- To make our institutions welcoming we need to address issues of accountability to communities. Whose role is it to be accountable to communities? not only indigenous Faculty
- Workload is always heavy but the non-academic work is not recognized (working with communities) – often extends beyond what is usually defined and recognized as “service”; this kind of work with communities should receive different weighing because it is more demanding than typical service – it is invisible workload (what it takes to make students come to the program is not recognized) – how do we quantify and reward this kind of work?
- The universities today are about “diversity” metrics (getting more grants to increase diversity, etc.), but support mechanisms are missing for the indigenous Faculty and students we bring into our institutions. Not enough to recruit; we must support indigenous faculty, graduate and undergraduate students. Indigenous faculty become the mentors but they get overloaded.
Accountability
- To make our institutions welcoming we need to address issues of accountability to communities. Whose role is it to be accountable to communities? not only indigenous Faculty
Welcoming Place
- To make our institutions welcoming we need to address issues of accountability to communities. Whose role is it to be accountable to communities? not only indigenous Faculty
Proactivity
- Our efforts to retain indigenous faculty and students are actually quite low, we need to be more proactive
- Recruitment: take an active role rather than just post an opening; go to the communities and actively encourage people to apply; they may not have the courage to apply; build up community awareness of the position
Team teaching
- Need to bring indigenous & non-indigenous faculty in team-teaching
Long term approach
- This will be a long process—we need to take a long-term approach
Coordinated strategy
- We need a coordinated strategy to be effective
Orientation:
Formal and informal rules explained to new indigenous faculty
- Orientation: We need to explain the formal and informal rules of the institution to new indigenous faculty
- An “orientation” to support new faculty should be put in place.
Indigenous faculty/expectations
- The token aboriginal faculty member gets loaded with all the expectations; concerns about burnout;
- Comment from The Office for Student Success – we need to do more to support students as well
- The universities today are about “diversity” metrics (getting more grants to increase diversity, etc.), but support mechanisms are missing for the indigenous Faculty and students we bring into our institutions. Not enough to recruit; we must support indigenous faculty, graduate and undergraduate students. Indigenous faculty become the mentors but they get overloaded.
Indigenous faculty and fear
- Indigenous faculty live in a visceral and constant fear in academic institutions; evaluations by students often say there’s too much indigenous content; what impact does this have on evaluation of tenure dossier?
Indigenous faculty and evaluation
- Evaluations by students often say there’s too much indigenous content; what impact does this have on evaluation of tenure dossier?
Indigenous faculty and mentoring
- Need for indigenous faculty to work interdisciplinary & mentor each other
Indigenous faculty and interdisciplinarity
- Need for indigenous faculty to work interdisciplinary & mentor each other
Indigenous staff
- Reach out to indigenous staff in the various disciplines,
Indigenous content
- Evaluations by students often say there’s too much indigenous content; what impact does this have on evaluation of tenure dossier?
Tenure
- Evaluations by students often say there’s too much indigenous content; what impact does this have on evaluation of tenure dossier?
- We need to get rid of tenure; it’s used to get rid of people; we need more proactive ways of assessing indigenous faculty
Department head committed to indigenous concerns/issues?
- Be careful in identifying dep’t head, that s/he is committed to indigenous concerns and issues
- Be aware of administrators who thrive on divisiveness
Beware of administrators who thrive on divisiveness
Hiring
“Fit” with the department
Discrimination
- Questions of “fit” (“fit with the department”) can border on discrimination
Colonialism and fit: Critical examination of department’s practice
- Use themes like “colonialism” to facilitate “fit” and challenge departments to examine critically their practice
Self- reflection in hiring
Recognition of alternative forms of education/qualification
- Recognize and value alternative forms of education/qualification: not only PhD but culturally relevant training
Culturally relevant training
- Recognize and value alternative forms of education/qualification: not only PhD but culturally relevant training
Tokenism
- The token aboriginal faculty member gets loaded with all the expectations;
- concerns about burnout;
- Departments need to be willing to be self-reflective about who they hire, and how they treat the “token” aboriginal scholar in their dep’t
- One aboriginal person does not represent everyone (different nations, etc.)
Active Role in Recruitment
- Recruitment: take an active role rather than just post an opening;
- go to the communities and actively encourage people to apply; they may not have the courage to apply
- build up community awareness of the position
Community awareness of positions
- go to the communities and actively encourage people to apply; they may not have the courage to apply; build up community awareness of the position
Workload Academic
Workload non-academic/how to quantify/more than typical service
- Workload is always heavy but the non-academic work is not recognized (working with communities) – often extends beyond what is usually defined and recognized as “service”;
- this kind of work with communities should receive different weighing because it is more demanding than typical service – it is invisible workload
- (what it takes to make students come to the program is not recognized) – how do we quantify and reward this kind of work?
- The universities today are about “diversity” metrics (getting more grants to increase diversity, etc.), but support mechanisms are missing for the indigenous Faculty and students we bring into our institutions.
- Not enough to recruit; we must support indigenous faculty, graduate and undergraduate students.
- Indigenous faculty become the mentors but they get overloaded.
“Service” to community
- this kind of work with communities should receive different weighing because it is more demanding than typical service – it is invisible workload (what it takes to make students come to the program is not recognized) – how do we quantify and reward this kind of work?
- The universities today are about “diversity” metrics (getting more grants to increase diversity, etc.), but support mechanisms are missing for the indigenous Faculty and students we bring into our institutions. Not enough to recruit; we must support indigenous faculty, graduate and undergraduate students. Indigenous faculty become the mentors but they get overloaded.
Collective agreements and special qualification/community experience/seniority
- Collective agreements (CA): help people negotiate, not only for their job, but for tenure, etc…; offer training similar to courses graduate students receive on how to interview for a job
- CA don’t take into account community experience, in definition of seniority, for instance
Communities
Retention
Burnout
Diversity metrics
- The universities today are about “diversity” metrics (getting more grants to increase diversity, etc.), but support mechanisms are missing for the indigenous Faculty and students we bring into our institutions.
- Not enough to recruit; we must support indigenous faculty, graduate and undergraduate students.
- Indigenous faculty become the mentors but they get overloaded.
Student Success
Support mechanisms for indigenous faculty and students
- The universities today are about “diversity” metrics (getting more grants to increase diversity, etc.), but support mechanisms are missing for the indigenous Faculty and students we bring into our institutions. Not enough to recruit; we must support indigenous faculty, graduate and undergraduate students. Indigenous faculty become the mentors but they get overloaded.
First Nations women, representation, support
- First Nation single women, need to support them, by way of bursaries, day care fees;
- women play such a large role in FN communities, yet FN men are often over-represented
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