Shared Decision-Making

While many academic departments profess an interest in having more racial diversity among their faculty, they often struggle to achieve this goal. In this workshop, Professor Adia Harvey Wingfield, Associate Dean for Faculty Development, Professor of Sociology, Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Arts & Sciences Washington University in St. Louis addresses common missteps departments take in trying to create more racial diversity, and offers some research-based solutions that can produce different outcomes. Professor Wingfield also discusses the importance of establishing an organizational culture that is color-conscious rather than color-blind.

Many faculty members report feeling that workload in their department is unfairly distributed; women and faculty of color may be asked to carry out more than their share of work. This session provides clear, evidence-based practices to create better, fairer workloads for faculty through changing the “choice architecture” for the division of labor in departments. We discuss a variety of approaches to workload equity such as rotating time-intensive roles, reducing and restructuring committees, creating policies for service and teaching assignments, using benchmarks by rank, or developing crediting systems that can help departments create fairer workload for all faculty.

Inclusive and equitable departments don't just happen automatically but are the result of practices by the faculty in those departments. Chairs and faculty members can set the stage for greater inclusivity in their department in many ways. These efforts may require investing time into developing more inclusive practices – but they pay rich dividends, as faculty are more likely to succeed, develop collaborations, and contribute when their departments are inclusive.