Senate Committee on Faculty Development, Diversity, and Equity SCFDDE
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The Senate Committee on Faculty Development, Diversity, and Equity ("SCFDDE") (i) identifies and promotes best practices for faculty development, mentoring and work environment to facilitate faculty success at all career levels; (ii) evaluates and advocates processes for faculty recruitment, promotion, and retention that promote diversity equity, and work/life balance for the faculty; (iii) monitors the status of faculty development, mentoring, diversity and equity; and (iv) issues periodic reports on the activities and findings of the committee that makes recommendations for implementation.
SCFDDE 2023-2024 Membership
- Hydar Ali (Dental Medicine)
- Dani Smith Bassett (SEAS/Bioengineering)
- Antonella Cianferoni (PSOM/Pediatrics)
- Nelson Flores (GSE), Chair
- Carmen Guerra (PSOM/Medicine)
- Lisa Mitchell (SAS/South Asia Studies)
- Chinedum Osuji (SEAS/CBE)
- Ex officio:
- A representative of the Senate Tri-Chairs
- Sherrill Adams, Dental Medicine, PASEF non-voting member
- Teresa Giménez, SAS/Spanish and Portuguese, Lecturer non-voting member
Specific Charges, 2023-2024
- Address systemic racism and other forms of inequity by assessing and evaluating ways to change University structures, practices, and biases at the University, school, departmental, and individual levels. Examples include eligibility for leadership roles; differential standards for faculty evaluation based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, department-level voting privileges; and biases implicit in quantitative methods for evaluating faculty.
- Review and comment on data from the 2022 Faculty Survey received from the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty.
- In collaboration with the Senate Committee on Faculty and the Academic Mission (SCOF):
- Gather information (e.g., by convening one or more gatherings with school-level decisionmakers) to identify best practices on:
- appointment, promotion, retention or termination of full-time associated faculty and academic support staff; and
- the way full-time associated faculty and academic support staff participate in faculty governance in the different schools, with a specific attention to voting privileges; and
- Examine the conditions of faculty employment (including personnel benefits) for teaching faculty by school (across all faculty tracks) and their opportunities for career advancement at Penn, and
- Articulate and make recommendations that are guided by principles of equity and inclusion.
- Gather information (e.g., by convening one or more gatherings with school-level decisionmakers) to identify best practices on:
- Continue to gather and examine data that can help determine trends in gender, race and ethnicity in division, department chair, and deanship leadership at the University over the past five or more years.
- Examine the resources available to first-generation college graduate faculty and comment on their ability to provide networking, mentorship, and leadership opportunities.
- Review and comment on the role of caste in faculty hiring, evaluation, and retention.
