The following are frequently asked questions about this initiative. These issues were debated extensively by the Ad Hoc Committee to Revise P&T, by faculty at town halls, and by members of the IU Indianapolis Faculty Council.
- Should efforts aimed at improving equity and inclusion be treated as a “fourth bin” of faculty activity in addition to research, teaching, and service, or should it be integrated into these other areas of faculty work?
Answer: The categories "service," "teaching," and "research," reflect language in IU policy about faculty promotions. Currently, IU Indianapolis discussions propose two different ways to highlight diversity efforts. First, we have developed a special designation within CVs for promotion and tenure (similar to markings for student co-authors), with opportunities to elaborate on this work in the Candidate Statement and within Digital Measures Academic Insight (DMAI) for annual reviews. Second, there is general support for framing an "integrative" case based on diversity, equity, and inclusion activities that will reflect research, teaching, and service in a holistic way, to meet IU standards for "excellent overall performance" (IU policy, "balanced" case). DEI activities are not seen as separate from normal academic work.
- How will external reviewers know how to evaluate our candidates, particularly if most reviewers tend to focus on “publication counts” and other quantitative metrics?
Answer: It is essential that we communicate clearly to external reviewers that our institution deeply values activities and achievements aligned with diversity, equity, and inclusion. Candidates should take care to present a description (in the candidate statement) and evidence (in the dossier) that shows their accomplishments. External reviewers will primarily focus on the quality of the faculty member's scholarly contributions. Internal committees should interpret external reviews as one part of the whole case and its documentation; one that is essential for assessment of scholarly impact, but which necessarily cannot adequately assess the entirety of the faculty member's overall performance. Information materials for external reviewers have been developed.
- What if I teach in a Purdue program?
Answer: Per the Constitution of the Indiana University Faculty, the faculty has legislative authority to develop policy and to determine procedures for governing the teaching, research, and service aspects of the academic mission. This includes having legislative authority for standards and procedures for promotion and tenure as well as compensation. All faculty at IU Indianapolis are IU faculty, even if they teach in a program that confers Purdue degrees. Thus, IU Indianapolis faculty collectively have the authority to alter standards and criteria related to promotion as well as tenure. Purdue criteria value "maintaining an inclusive environment," and "accomplishment and demonstrated excellence in at least one of the mission areas, with the understanding that, ideally, strength would be apparent in more than one." The integrative DEI case fits within the overall Purdue guidelines, demonstrating excellence in a holistic manner.
- Will all faculty need to be evaluated as an “integrated case”?
Answer: No. Faculty can continue to seek promotion based on excellence in a single area of activity such as research and creative activity. However, we encourage schools to thoroughly consider how to appropriately recognize activities and achievements that improve equity, increase diversity, enhance inclusion, and to consider how an integrative approach could more accurately reflect faculty members' value to the unit.
- How can we move away from categorizing faculty work when eDossier forces faculty to sort their work into “bins.”
Answer: There are guidelines now for presenting integrative evidence within the eDossier system, for the DEI case as well as "thematic" balanced cases. Campus leaders will advocate for changes to the eDossier to ensure that campus values are able to be reflected in the tools used to capture faculty work. Faculty collectively determine values and criteria; administrators work to enact these within available technology. Both eDossier and DMAI are IU-wide systems. - What does this change really solve?
Answer: When promotion and tenure criteria take into account only one specific range of activities, reviewers and mentors can implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, discourage anything outside those areas. Since efforts to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion have not been recognized nor even visible within the promotion and tenure process, such activities can end up being discouraged. Faculty who engage in this work may never have this work recognized despite the fact that they engage in it on top of their other responsibilities. Given the importance of this work to our campus strategic plan, it is time to create ways for it to be recognized in reviews of faculty work. Otherwise, there is a danger of DEI work being a "second job," providing real value but unrecognized and unrewarded. - How is an "integrative" case different from a "balanced-binned" one?
Answer: In IU Indianapolis's current “balanced case-binned” framework, most of the focus is necessarily on ‘distributing’ a fairly precise and similar number of countable items into all three areas of faculty work. An integrative case moves away from counting. It acknowledges that for many faculty, particularly those that engage in diversity, equity, and inclusion work, the work is all of a piece rather than dividing neatly into categories. Their research, teaching, and service activities complement and enrich one another. An integrative case encourages and rewards faculty who articulate their role without parsing it into categories; it allows for varying strengths in various areas of endeavor. That is, instead of EITHER one area of excellence and only satisfactory performance in the other two OR three areas of highly satisfactory activity which have to fit within very careful parameters, it allows for a holistic view of endeavors that advance the individual's career as well as the reputation of the unit and campus. - Will faculty be penalized if they do not engage in diversity, equity, and inclusion work as a result of these changes?
Answer: Higher Education in the 21st century demands that we actively and effectively attend to creating more inclusive institutions. In particular, given the values undergirding IU Indianapolis, our mission, and the needs of our students, all faculty should reflect on how they are pursuing the missions of their departments, schools, and IU Indianapolis through work that advances diversity, equity, and inclusion. Discussion on how to reward this core value within annual merit reviews (all faculty, not just those preparing for promotion or tenure) is scheduled for 2021-2022. Much as all faculty are expected to exhibit effective teaching and diligent professional service, all faculty will be expected to contribute to greater diversity, equity, and inclusion at IU Indianapolis.
- What are some examples of work that enhances diversity, equity, and inclusion contributions?
Answer: This document, created by a subcommittee of the IU Indianapolis Faculty Council Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, offers clear definitions and examples of significant work and how it might be disseminated and assessed. Ample opportunities for professional development related to equity and inclusion are available through the Center for Teaching and Learning; the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; the Office of the Associate Vice Chancellor for Faculty Diversity and Inclusion; Project EPIC (IU Indianapolis's NSF-supported ADVANCE grant project); the Office of International Affairs, the Graduate Office; and the Division of Undergraduate Education. As an urban campus, faculty at IU Indianapolis have opportunities to engage in public scholarship and community-engaged teaching and learning through the Office of Community Engagement and the Center for Service Learning.
- Which faculty will this affect?
Answer: All existing P&T case types remain, so faculty who have been preparing for promotion or tenure on, for example, research excellence, may proceed as usual. This becomes an added option for tenure-track faculty, either for tenure or for promotion to associate or full rank, and for clinical and lecturer faculty (approved 2021). The "performance" area of a librarian's case may be adapted to reflect DEI contributions--per IU policy, excellence in performance is required for librarian candidates. Research scientists must present evidence of excellence in research, only. - When does this go into effect?
Answer: For a candidate to pursue an integrative DEI case, their home unit (department or school) must adopt language allowing it. This could mean adopting the campus guidelines as their own (at least temporarily) or developing and adopting implementing language, including whatever they feel is useful in terms of specificity. Campus guidelines are necessarily broad. Units will be supported in their work on revising standards and criteria. - For people not pursuing an integrating DEI case, are there ways to reflect the work they do to advance diversity, equity and inclusion?Answer: The IFC also voted to adopt two other provisions: a) candidates may include a DEI statement at the end of their candidate statement (included in the overall 50-page limit for the dossier but not in the 5-7 page limit on the candidate statement), and b) on the CV, the hashtag symbol (#) may be used to highlight DEI activities (* is used to mark work-in-rank, and the dagger to highlight student co-authors). In the campus guidelines, these are options, but units (schools and departments) may choose to require these of all of their candidates.
- In the requirements for excellence in the integrative DEI case, it mentions "direct" impact ("local" in the 2021 version; edited to "direct" in 2022). Does this mean "Indianapolis"?
Answer: The term "local impact" was a temporary way to express that this impact is seen in relation to a unit's overall mission and has a direct impact on known individuals, and is distinct from "scholarly" impact which is traditionally expressed via peer-reviewed dissemination to and for a national audience. For example, the creation and implementation of a program to attract and support diverse students into a less-than-diverse academic program has a "direct" impact. Certainly international efforts that increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, such as the existing collaboration with Moi University in Kenya, also advance DEI for and with IU Indianapolis, and in that sense would have important "direct" impact.
