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IUPUI approves new path to promotion and tenure for enhancing equity, inclusion and diversity

For Immediate Release May 10, 2021
A Black professor holding a sculpture while sitting at a desk in front of a laptop
The new pathway to promotion and tenure allows for the recognition of effort and achievements in areas that enhance equity and inclusion.Photo by Liz Kaye, Indiana University

INDIANAPOLIS – The reward of promotion and tenure for faculty at IUPUI now further aligns with the university’s core values and strategic goals of creating a more welcoming and inclusive place for all.

The IUPUI Faculty Council approved a change to faculty promotion and tenure guidelines that creates an additional pathway for faculty advancement. This pathway allows for the recognition of effort and achievements in areas that enhance equity and inclusion, something not usually seen in traditional promotion and tenure guidelines. IUPUI stands as a leader among institutions throughout the country in establishing this unique, integrative pathway to promotion and tenure.

“This is a historic moment in the life of IUPUI as we continue to work together to align our policies and practices to our core values of diversity, equity and inclusion,” IUPUI Chancellor Nasser H. Paydar said. “This new pathway to promotion and tenure represents another step in our campus’s ongoing anti-racist initiatives, and I hope it will serve as a model for institutions of higher education across the country.”

An ad hoc working group was formed in the fall to discuss potential new guidelines that honor and elevate the work faculty are doing related to community service, mentoring and support for students of color  – work that often goes unrecognized by the systems, policies and procedures that reward and guide faculty work. The working group proposed creating a new type of case for promotion and tenure – a Balanced-Integrative Diversity, Equity and Inclusion case – where faculty must demonstrate excellence across a range of integrated scholarly activities aligned with diversity, equity and inclusion.

“Through this change, IUPUI is not only recognizing the inherent value of DEI work and its benefits to the institution, but also the capacity for faculty to engage in this work knowing that it will ‘count,’” Associate Vice Chancellor for Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Gina Sanchez Gibau said. “This is a critical innovation that may aid in our efforts to better recruit and retain talented faculty of color, as well as inspiring current students of color in the academic pipeline.”

Schools and departments across IUPUI will establish discipline-specific criteria and standards for promotion and tenure that align with these new campus guidelines. Implementation of the Balanced Integrative DEI case is anticipated to begin in the 2022-23 academic year.

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