Many institutions within higher education are committed to hiring a diverse and representative body of faculty and staff, yet few institutions have realized this commitment. Instead, administrative staff demographics have not significantly changed over recent decades. To examine the intersection of institutional commitments and outcomes, this…

The homogeneous nature of senior leadership in U.S. colleges and universities and the absence of diverse perspectives in decision making is cause for concern. The nation's college student population has become increasingly diverse, with Black, Latinx, Asian and Pacific Islander (API), and Indigenous groups making up 45% of 4-year college…

As the face of higher education has changed, the need for a more diverse workforce has increased. It is aspirational and essential for students of color to see themselves reflected in the faces of their faculty and staff. Campus diversity enriches the educational experience for all faculty, staff, and students. Unfortunately, the rate of hiring…

Academic librarian hiring processes are designed to allow hiring institutions to learn about candidates through a multiple-round process, but often these processes are not designed with the candidates in mind. This paper uses a qualitative approach to interpret and understand how the attitudes of search committee members shape on-campus interview…

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the principle of fairness as equity, defined by Adams, is applied during the selection of school principals. Our focus was on a secondary education directorate drawing data in two ways. Firstly, a questionnaire was given to candidates who participated in the selection process, in order to…

Efforts to mitigate bias in faculty hiring processes are well-documented in the literature. Yet, significant barriers to the hiring of racially minoritized and White women in many STEM fields remain. An underreported barrier to inclusive hiring is assessment of risk. Guided by theory from behavioral economics, social psychology, and…

Employee selection and group decision-making skills are critical for ensuring hiring is valid, meets organizational goals, and considers ethical and legal limitations. This exercise has participants role-play members of a search committee reviewing job finalists using shared and unique information. A novel twist to traditional hidden-profile…

Colleges and universities across the United States face novel perils that include a decline in enrollment trends, questions about the value of a college degree, and increased scrutiny of institutional practices and policies. Due to the spotlight shined on all aspects of the higher education industry, presidents of colleges and universities have…

Bias among faculty search committees has been considered a significant barrier to diversifying the professoriate. Given the traditional faculty hierarchy in academia, junior faculty search chairs may not have the positional power to challenge authority when confronted with bias or prejudice. Yet, search chairs are expected to ensure equitable…

Many institutions of higher education have implemented workshops for hiring committee members to familiarize them with the pernicious effects of implicit bias and how to counteract them. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm for implicit bias trainings is not matched by the evidence for their effectiveness. Recognizing the difficulty of removing…

Campus life is disrupted. Boards and campus leadership are under immense pressure from all directions. Candidates face the uncertainty of the higher education landscape. Search firms must manage competing, conflicting, and uneducated opinions of how to run a presidential search. The purpose of this action research study was to investigate and…

Various concerns regarding the vitality and racial/ethnic composition of the academic profession have prompted new study of faculty search committees and hiring paradigms, most notably examining the term "fit" in candidate appraisals. Yet no study utilizes a candidate evaluation framework to investigate whether or not faculty members…

While there is a great deal of research that examines the value of effective principals, there are few studies that explore the selection and placement of principals. As demonstrated in the research, the selection and placement of principals is important because effective principals impact school outcomes, including increased student academic…

This qualitative case study uses Wartman's (2014) Guiding Principles for High Level Searches to investigate the executive selection process. The study explores how members of the search committee, governing board, and search consultant perceive the method a community college used to select its permanent president. To examine the process, one…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the preparation, recruitment, and retention of California school superintendents of schools. The efforts of this study focused on obtaining information and insight from current superintendents, school board members, and executive search firm consultants in order to obtain precise insight into…