The University of Iowa has created a new method of hiring in order to diversify the male-dominated faculty, according to a report published in The Daily Iowan Monday.
Previously, the university made a “cluster-hire initiative” in its 2010-2016 strategic plan, which aimed to hire faculty who focused in research areas including: water sustainability, obesity in research and education, aging mind and brain, public digital arts, public humanities in a digital world, informatics and genetics.
The problem with this according to the provost’s office is that these research areas generally fall under the male-dominated field of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) with cluster-hire faculty members being 72.2 percent male and 27.8 percent female.
The campus newspaper notes that the university are facing this issue in part because it is occurring nationwide and the university can only draw from a small pool of women in STEM.
Chief diversity officer Georgina Dodge told The Daily Iowan: “When we talk about diversifying our faculty … we all know that it’s impossible to do without a pipeline of diverse faculty to draw from.”
Dodge also told the campus newspaper that the provost’s office is working to implement measures to combat the problem by creating “implicit bias training” for hiring committees and creating the Midwest Higher Education Research Consortium intended to aid dual-career hiring.
The specifics of these measures are unclear and the provost’s office did not respond to an email sent by The Daily Caller.