On Oct. 29-Nov. 1, UHD deans and chair attended the 2015 Compact for Faculty Diversity Institute on Teaching and Mentoring in Washington, D.C.

DoVeanna Fulton, Ph.D., dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, spear-headed this initiative by securing a place to recruit for faculty diversity. She has had previous success in increasing the diversity of the faculty application pool after recruiting from this institute.

The mission statement of this institute reads, "The Institute on Teaching and Mentoring addresses the minority faculty shortage by providing racial/ethnic minority students with information, encouragement, and support to pursue doctoral degrees and become college professors. The Institute focuses on increasing the percentage of minority students who earn doctorates and helps diversify the pool of qualified candidates for faculty positions at colleges and universities."

UHD representatives in attendance for the 22nd Annual Institute on Teaching and Mentoring were DoVeanna Fulton, Ph.D.; Leigh Van Horn, Ph.D., dean of the College of Public Service; RaShonda Flint, Ph.D., assistant dean of the College of Sciences and Technology; and Lucille Pointer, Ph.D., department chair of Management, Marketing, and Business Administration in the College of Business.

Fulton and Van Horn recently presented possible initiatives for increasing faculty diversity. These initiatives include, creating an Emerging Faculty Speaker Series and post-doctoral fellowships.

The presented initiatives were:

• The Emerging Faculty Speaker Series would be a university wide endeavor.
• Scholars would include those who have research interests and are pursuing a terminal degree that would be of interest to the college and invite them to come to UHD to present their research and get to know our university.
• The post-doctoral fellowship would be awarded biannually to a candidate with the opportunity to hire him/her in a tenure-track assistant professor position at the end of the fellowship.