Recruiting Faculty

The Department supports the goals of equal opportunity and affirmative action in recruiting and in making appointments to the faculty.  Search Committees are appointed by the Chair after consultation with the FAC, and when an appointment is to be made in a specific area or sub-discipline the search committee will, when possible, be composed of Faculty from that specific area or sub-discipline. Search Committees may include a student member selected by the faculty members serving on the Search Committee. 

Prior to the search, the Search Committee recommends to the FAC the text of an advertisement and a detailed plan of action to proactively identify qualified individuals and encourage them to apply for the position. After obtaining FAC approval, the Search Committee may begin the search.

The Search Committee, with the approval of the Chair and the Dean, invites at least 2 candidates from its pool of applicants for a formal campus interview. Following the campus interviews, the Search Committee presents its ranking and recommendation to a meeting of the Kent campus Faculty.  After full and open discussion of the merits of the candidates presented by the Search Committee, the Kent campus Professors and tenured members of FAC and the Search Committee vote on their ranking and recommendation. These are advisory to the Search Committee.

The Search Committee then formulates its final ranking and recommendation, which are advisory to the Chair. If the Search Committee’s ranking and recommendation are different from that of the Faculty, the Search Committee shall inform the Chair of all rankings and recommendations and the reasons for the disagreement.  The Chair then makes a recommendation to the Dean. If the Chair's recommendation differs from that of the Search Committee, the Chair shall inform the Dean of all rankings and recommendations and the reasons for the disagreement.  If the Dean concurs with the Chair, a recommendation is forwarded to the Office of the Provost. 

The Department supports the goals of the promotion of diversity, equal opportunity, and affirmative action in recruiting and in making appointments to the faculty.  The Search Committee consists of a subset of faculty approved by the FAC, although all recommendations of the Search Committee are made after consultation with all faculty. Following the review of applicants, the search committee recommends to the Chair that a subset of the candidates undergo a preliminary interview via telephone or videoconference.  Following these interviews, the Search Committee recommends that two or three candidates be invited to campus for an interview. The search committee may recommend its choice of candidates to the Chair. Committee recommendations are advisory to the Chair, who then makes a recommendation to the Dean.  If the Dean concurs with the Chair, a recommendation is forwarded to the Office of the Provost. If the Chair's recommendation is different than that of the search committee, the Chair shall inform the Dean of all recommendations and the reasons for the disagreement.