This is the second piece in a several part series discussing ways to improve diversity in philosophy departments. The other pieces can be found here.
Sometimes the will to hire with diversity in mind is stronger outside a Philosophy Department than in it. Faculty Committees, Deans, Provosts, and external granting agencies have often already made the commitment to devoting resources to building faculty diversity. This commitment can be most helpful to a Chair who would like to steer their department in a progressive direction. Departments can also get additional resources by being proactive about diversity because successful departments attract support. It really is a win-win strategy to make diversity a priority.
Temple University is known locally as “Diversity University.” In 2017-18, 12.5% of undergraduates were African American, 6.7% Hispanic and 11.4% Asian and 0.1% Pacific Islander. Our students are looking for role models who embody diversity and courses that are enriched with socially relevant material. Because nationally Philosophy is among the least diverse academic disciplines, and our Department is less diverse than our student body, we need to make special efforts to hire with diversity in mind. It is not difficult to demonstrate to Deans and outside funders that Philosophy needs diversifying.
In the Spring of 2018, the Dean’s Office of the College of Liberal Arts announced a new program for Postdoctoral Diversity and Inclusion Fellowships. Departments apply for these Fellowships with proposals for searches that will enhance diversity. The Fellowships are currently for one year and have a very low teaching load (just one course in the fellowship year) so that Fellows can focus on their research and take advantage of the diverse and interdisciplinary academic community at Temple. The hope is that they will become stronger candidates for future tenure-track positions with a head start on research.
The Philosophy Department received one of these Fellowships for 2018-19, and we hired Dr. Shaeeda Mensah, who completed her PhD at Penn State University in summer 2018. Her dissertation was titled “Race, Class, Gender, and Philosophies of Punishment.” Dr. Mensah had a mutually rewarding year with us and has gone on to a position at Franklin and Marshall College.
In Fall 2018, Dean Sandra Suarez spoke with me (as Philosophy Department Chair) about a new ACLS Postdoctoral Partnership Initiative funding two-year Postdoctoral Fellows for members of historically underrepresented groups with a definite path to a tenure-track position (https://www.acls.org/programs/ppi/). Together with Associate Dean Suarez, Gina Barnes (Grants Development Facilitator in the College), and incoming Chair of Philosophy, Kristin Gjesdal, I wrote a proposal and we applied for the award, describing our experience with the College program, and explaining why we want to build on that with an ACLS-funded postdoc. ACLS Director of Fellowship Programs Matthew Goldfeder gave us helpful feedback on our proposal. We were delighted to be in the first group of awardees and advertised the position in Jobs for Philosophers during Fall 2019. We conducted a national search in the area of Philosophy of Race. We received a number of outstanding applications and conducted on-campus interviews to learn more about the finalist candidates and to give them an opportunity to learn about us, the College of Liberal Arts, and Temple University. We concluded the process successfully, hiring César Cabezas Gamarra (now completing his PhD at Columbia University) into a two-year postdoctoral position (funded by ACLS). The position has a low teaching load (1 course per year) and a generous research allowance. We plan to convert the position into a tenure-track position (funded by Temple) after an internal review process (but not another search).
I would be happy to discuss our experience with Philosophy Department chairs or leaders who are interested in using institutional resources and external funding to help diversify their departments. The ACLS Postdoctoral Partnership Initiative has an uncertain future, but several universities (including Temple) have ongoing postdoctoral diversity fellowship programs or might be interested in creating them.
Miriam Solomon
Miriam Solomon is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at Temple University. She is also an Affiliated Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies and an Affiliated Professor in the Center for Bioethics, Urban Health, and Policy (Temple University School of Medicine). She was Department Chair 2013-2019. She is the author of Social Empiricism (MIT Press, 2001), editor of several special journal issues, and author of papers in epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of medicine and biomedical ethics. Her recent book, Making Medical Knowledge, was published by Oxford University Press (UK) in April 2015.
