Strategies for the Recruitment and Retention of Underrepresented Minority Faculty: A Former Chair’s Perspective

This report has been compiled for use by the Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost. During the spring semester, I devoted time to working on the recruitment and retention of underrepresented minority faculty. What follows are my own impressions, observations, and suggestions; they do not necessarily reflect those of a particular office or department... For the purposes of this report, I have focused on tenure-track instructional faculty at Virginia Tech. I am acutely aware of the narrowness of the scope of this report, and the fact that I focus mainly on underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities—though it should be emphasized that the successful recruitment and retention of a wide range of underrepresented minorities among faculty, staff, and students (veterans, those with disabilities, members of the LGBT community, etc.) is of equal importance.