Workshop Breakout II Group 2 (Faculty 1) Hiring, Retention, Tenure, & Promotion

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