Recommendation 3: Increase the number of exempt (“contract”) and non exempt (“classified”) BIPOC and other underrepresented staff members

Recommendation 3: Increase the number of exempt (“contract”) and non-exempt (“classified”) BIPOC and other underrepresented staff members.

Rationale:

Staff members interact with prospective students, current students, parents, faculty, alumni, donors, employers, and community partners. Efforts to create and support a diverse staff is important toward improving the campus climate (Turner, 2002). These efforts should begin with the recognition that past hiring practices -- including practices that have given preference to Trinity alumni -- may have excluded well-qualified candidates whose background or identity marked them as different from the dominant campus culture. Administrators and staff must expand their knowledge of cultural competence in order to create inclusive educational communities for both students and employees (Kayes, 2006). Mandates and special programs alone generally will not motivate employees to assess their attitudes and behaviors on diverse hiring. Thus, the key to effective professional development is a non-threatening, cognitiveaffective approach that combines support, challenge, collaboration, theory, empathy, and practical application.

Search committees will need to develop and apply criteria that are focused on the essential functions of the job while reducing the familiar “cloning” effect. At the same time, search committees will need to look for ways to recognize a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion as a valid qualification for staff positions.

Stakeholders: Staff, Students, Faculty, Alumni, Board of Trustees

Recommended Actions Performance Indicators

Institutional Research and Effectiveness should gather, analyze, and disseminate data regarding the demographic composition of the staff in each division of the University, with particular attention to leadership positions. Demographic report is completed.

Responsible Persons

President, Executive Director of Institutional Research and Effectiveness

Empower the Trinity Staff Engagement Committee (TSEC), in consultation with Human Resources (HR), to engage one or more outside speakers to provide professional staff development around the concept of implicit bias or unconscious bias in the hiring process. One or more professional development events are completed, with budgetary support from the President’s office. President, TSEC, HR

Constitute an ad hoc committee to develop guidelines for staff searches, in consultation with HR and the University’s General Counsel.

Deliver regular workshops for all staff directors focusing on best practices for reducing implicit bias in the staff recruitment process. Guideline document is completed, approved by the President, and disseminated to all directors.

Regular workshops are held annually on implicit bias in the workplace. President, TSEC, HR, General Counsel

TSEC, HR

Suggested Timeline:

● A demographic analysis of the Trinity University staff should be completed by the end of the FY21. ● At least one professional development event, with content provided by an outside speaker, should occur no later than the end of the FY22. ● Guidelines for staff searches should be completed, approved, and disseminated to directors by the conclusion of FY22. ● A series of workshops for directors should begin after August 1, 2022, and should be continually adapted and improved each year. Each director should be required to attend at least one workshop every two years.