UCSB Benjamin Banneker Fellows Coordinated Hiring Initiative, 2023
With the goal of diversifying faculty, research, and curriculum in STEM fields, the Banneker Initiative will recruit scholars, scientists, and engineers whose disciplinary and interdisciplinary work would take place within the community of interests exemplified by Benjamin Banneker’s intellectual, ethical, and social commitments as an African American scientist. The community of Banneker Fellows will receive additional resources as part of their startup package for cohort building and professional development activities, including enrollment in the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity Faculty Success Program, proposal writing training, networking opportunities with federal funding agency program directors, and seed grants.

The University of California Faculty Writing Initiative: Writing Communities to Improve Climate and Enhance Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (collaboration with UCI and UCB), 2023
This initiative will host multi-campus, multi-day faculty writing retreats and build local writing communities for senate and non-senate faculty from across the UC system. The program will also also build inclusive cross-campus faculty communities to improve the work experience of all faculty, especially those from minoritized backgrounds.

Write to Unite, 2022
Write to Unite creates new arenas in which to build faculty community at UCSB. This program provides spaces, resources, and tools to increase scholarly writing and research productivity; facilitates cross-disciplinary peer and informal mentoring relationships; and contributes to faculty retention through greater sense of belonging and success. Write to Unite is composed of writing workshops, coaching, and retreats.

Building the Pipeline for Research on Ameliorating the Negative Health Effects of Racial Trauma in Black Communities, 2021
The Gevirtz Graduate School of Education Department of Counseling, Clinical, and Child Psychology (CCSP) will implement a comprehensive approach to recruiting new faculty to join the recently established Healing Space, a clinical research hub for racial trauma in GGSE. It will also develop a mentoring network for Black scholars in CCSP and across campus, and contribute to making UCSB a destination for health disparities research and training.

A multi-tiered approach to recruiting and maintaining a diverse faculty in Psychological & Brain Science, 2021
Psychological & Brain Sciences will expand faculty recruitment strategies, leverage the UC Presidential Postdoctoral Scholars Program for potential future faculty hires, and implement new mentoring and retention programming for new faculty.

UCSB Arts+Racial Equity Commons Campus Communities of Practice Residencies, 2021
This project lays the groundwork for a renewed ecology around the arts, culture and communities of practice to improve campus DEI climate and retention through a reconceptualization of three arts research units at UCSB. The Arts and Equity Research Commons supports minoritized faculty through an interdisciplinary research commons to foster collaboration, intergenerational research mentorships, enhanced cultural programming and artists residencies across multiple arts and racial justice-focused departments and presenting venues.

Data Leadership and Intervention Strategies for More Equitable Faculty Service Workloads, 2020
Heather Stoll, Associate Professor of Political Science
Sarah Anderson, Professor of Environmental Science and Management
Elizabeth Belding, Professor of Computer Science
Aida Hurtado, Professor of Chicana/o Studies

Service is a significant climate, recruitment, and retention issue for women and underrepresented minority faculty members at UCSB. Faculty service workloads include department and campus committee and leadership service, as well as mentoring responsibilities. The project will collect and analyze comprehensive data on faculty service and mentoring workloads; the campus climate for faculty more generally; and modified workloads under family accommodation policies. This information will be disseminated and used to inform policy. It will also be used to inform a faculty workload intervention program modeled on the NSF Advance-funded O’Meara et al. (2018, 2019) program, which improved faculty perceptions of equity, transparency, climate, and facilitated faculty retention.

College of Engineering Advancing Faculty Diversity Mentorship Program, 2019
In 2019, the UCSB College of Engineering piloted a comprehensive team-mentoring program for pre-tenure women and URM faculty, combined with inclusion and equity workshops to improve the skills and awareness of faculty mentors and departmental leaders in regard to departmental climate and faculty retention.

Creating a Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Climate in the UCSB Communication Department & Campus Community, 2019
Dana Mastro, Chair, Committee on Academic Personnel and Professor of Communication
Jennifer Kam, Associate Professor of Communication

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are central to the mission of UCSB, although implementing these priorities can be challenging. UCSB’s Social Sciences Division has experienced obstacles to removing barriers that hinder the success of URM faculty and faculty of color. The Division has more URM faculty than others on campus, but they report greater inequities than faculty in other divisions, despite efforts to address these issues. The Advancing Faculty Diversity funds will be used to test a pilot intervention in the Department of Communication, and if it is successful, plan to apply the intervention to other departments in the Division.  The interventions consists of cultural competency workshops, mentoring for junior faculty of color, and an annual conference on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Moving Beyond the Institution: Analyzing Barriers to the Retention, Attrition, and Persistence of Underrepresented Minority Faculty at UCSB, 2019
Sharon Tettegah, Director, Center for Black Studies Research and Professor of Black Studies
Terrance Wooten, Assistant Professor of Black Studies

This project examines how psychosocial factors inform the decisions that underrepresented minority (URM) faculty make about their relationship to UCSB. Utilizing an ecological model that focuses on the interactions between individuals, communities, social structures, and the environment, this proposed research will operate in three phases: (1) an historical analysis of demographic shifts of UCSB since the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; (2) an intersectional analysis of the 2014 Campus Climate Survey data for the campus; and (3) an intersectional examination of retention, attrition, and persistence of URM faculty over the last twenty years through semi-structured interviews. 

Advancing Faculty Diversity in UCSB Economics, 2017
Kelly Bedard, Chair of Economics

UCSB’s Economics Department used a multi-dimensional hiring strategy to enhance the diversity of the faculty. They advertised a major hiring drive that will continue over the next several years; they offered new PhD candidates a postdoctoral fellowship to precede the start of an assistant professorship; and they leveraged multiple faculty open positions at all ranks, including two assistant/associate professor positions and two endowed chairs. In sum, these efforts created excitement about joining a growing and vibrant department and sent a clear message about momentum and commitment to broadening participation. From 2015-17 to 2017-18, the pilot unit saw a 16.7% increase in URM faculty hired, exceeding the national availability in 2017-18 by 40.5 percentage points.