Diverse Faculty Recruitment, Selection and Hiring Gaps and Barriers to Diverse Full time Faculty at Community Colleges

This qualitative research study addresses the issues connected to the lack of diverse faculty recruitment, selection, and hiring at community colleges. As t he number of diverse students who attend community colleges increase across the United States, the diverse faculty numbers do not align with the growing student diverse populations. Minorities are disproportionately underrepresented nationally at predominately White institutions in the faculty arena. A number of issues facing underrepresented minority faculty are attributed to minimal recruitment, selection, and hiring efforts. Although many colleges in the nation have identified the need to increase diversity on college campuses, the culture of the college remains stagnant to the changing needs of the demographics. In this research study, Lead Academic Affairs Officers or Directors of Human Resources and diverse faculty members were interviewed. The participants provided their individual perspectives about their institution’s recruitment, selection, and hiring processes as it relates to diverse faculty in the classrooms. Participants responded to a number of questions posted by this researcher in an effort to identify the gaps in and the barriers to increasing diverse faculty in the classroom. T his dissertation provides an overview assessment of the needed efforts by community colleges to address the lack of diverse faculty in classrooms and suggested avenues to improve recruitment, selection, and hiring practices. The results in this study provide a guide to addressing the needed responsibility of leaders at community college’s attention to this subject matter. This study also solicits recommendations to address improved processes. These recommendations include (1) training of search committees; (2) creating a comprehensive diverse faculty plan; and (3) creating job ppostings that focus on attracting diverse candidates.