The College of Arts and Sciences is engaged in a multi-year cluster hire program in areas including race, social justice and inequality across disciplines in the social sciences, natural sciences, arts and humanities. After several very successful cluster hire processes over the past few years, the SCU College of Arts & Sciences has welcomed over two dozen new faculty members across a range of departments including Biology, Communication, Anthropology, Religious Studies, Public Health, Women’s and Gender Studies, History, Child Studies, Psychology, Political Science, Child Studies, English and Classics.
Background
Support
In addition to the resources provided to all first-year faculty by the Office of Faculty Development (1:1 mentorship, small group cohort programming, workshops and more), cluster hire faculty will meet twice per quarter to support their scholarly/creative work, discuss strategies for faculty success, build their on-campus network, and connect to key university resources. These gatherings will engage issues of race and social justice and will also include campus and community leaders.
Goals
The goals for the cluster hire are 1) to further diversify the curriculum in support of the College’s commitment to Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, 2) to provide a cohort of peer support for early career faculty whose work engages racial inequality and/or social justice, and 3) to provide an interdisciplinary intellectual community to support the scholarly and creative work of the the group.
The Special Advisor to the Dean for Faculty DEI Initiatives serves as the faculty facilitator of the group. Our goal is for the new faculty of the cluster hire group to make an impact on the university community while also feeling deeply included within it.