Graduate Student/Postdoc Workshop: Developing a Written Diversity Statement
In this workshop, we will discuss evidence-based practices for writing a diversity statement for the academic job market. Increasingly, universities and colleges are requesting that faculty job applicants provide a statement addressing how they plan to contribute to inclusive excellence in their professional lives. Sometimes, a job ad will request that applicants address diversity in the cover letter or the teaching statement, but a request for a stand-alone diversity statement is becoming more common. From the perspective of the university, the purpose of this document is to verify that an applicant has a commitment to diversity in his or her work within higher education, including scholarship, teaching, service, mentoring, and advising. From the applicant’s perspective, a diversity statement offers an opportunity to articulate the many ways one may contribute to inclusivity via their research, teaching, and service; and the challenges to this work that one may help academic institutions overcome.
This session will introduce several approaches to developing and writing a diversity statement and give participants an opportunity to begin generating ideas on their own and in small groups.
Date: Friday, November 1st
Time: 1:00-2:30 pm
Location: CFT Classroom
Facilitators: Rachel Gould, CFT Graduate Teaching Fellow, and Heather Fedesco, CFT Assistant Director
Open to Vanderbilt Graduate Students & Postdocs
Sponsored by the Center for Teaching