In an effort to boost the percentage of minorities and women faculty at Ohio State, the Academic Plan recommends that OSU hire at least five to 10 women and five to 10 minorities as senior faculty members each year for the next five years.The administration is estimating the endeavor will cost $1.25 million to $2.5 million.This portion of the Academic Plan will involve two parts. The first is to help out departments with low representation of women and minorities. The other is to help departments that have already been successful at hiring women and minority faculty at the senior level.Funding from the Faculty Hiring Assistance Program (FHAP) will center around these two problems.Alayne Parson, vice provost of Academic Affairs and professor of mathematics, explained that the FHAP is a plan through which OSU provides up to $25,000 for the salaries and benefits of newly hired minority and women.”It’s an additional incentive to support the hiring of minorities and women,” Parson said.The money provided by the FHAP is most useful when departments spot the opportunity to hire someone extra on staff, someone who is well-qualified and who also adds to the diversity of the section, she said.”It’s great when there’s a special opportunity to hire someone unique,” Parson said. She also noted the importance of expanding recruitment efforts and continuing incentives such as the FHAP to hire more senior minority faculty.”They provide visibility and leadership for students and junior faculty,” Parson said.Also a key component of this initiative is the implementation of a competitive and merit-based compensation structure, according to Provost Ed Ray. The goal is to match the average faculty salaries at OSU’s benchmark institutions, which are public universities of the same size and composition as OSU. The Academic Plan mandates a salary increase of 2.5 percent over two to three years, for a total cost of $13.5 million over the next five years. The Diversity Action Plan indicated that the FHAP needed to be targeted in specific ways, according to Ray.”Over the last 10 years, we’ve hired many women and minority faculty, but at the junior level,” Ray said. He added that these faculty members end up not getting tenure and eventually leave for other universities.”We’re not retaining to the extent that we would like,” Ray said. Hiring at the senior level may be the solution to this, he said.Mac Stewart, interim vice provost of Minority Affairs, explained that OSU advertises for prospective staff members in widely-circulated publications, such as the Chronicle of Higher Education, but also in special publications targeted specifically at minority groups, as well those designed for women.He also mentioned that OSU keeps in touch with other universities across the nation through the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, which is an organization which comprises all the Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago.Through the committee, OSU keeps in touch with its counterparts, receiving word of their high-achieving minority students who are graduating and seeking jobs in academia.”We’re networking with (other universities) to find quality candidates,” Stewart said. Martha Garland, vice provost of Academic Affairs and dean of undergraduate studies, noted that for minority students who are away from home for the first time, it’s helpful for them to see faculty members from a rainbow of backgrounds; faculty members who “look like America.””People ask whether they will be happy here, be welcome here, succeed here,” Garland said. “They wonder and worry about that. This is a very big place, a city.” She added that if students don’t see many staff members of the same background as they are, it’s even scarier.Stewart seconded Garland’s assessment, noting that recruitment of minority students and faculty go hand in hand.”Faculty members serve as role models to their students, and good students attract good faculty,” Stewart said. Garland emphasized that diversity is a relative concept. For example, the placement of an Asian American professor in the Department of Asian American Studies probably won’t contribute much to the diversity of the unit, while a Caucasian faculty member hired to fill the same position probably would.”There’s different strategies for different areas,” Garland said.But if the entire department is committed, a diverse staff can be created, she said, pointing to the example of the Department of Food Science and Technology in the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.”They have a truly remarkable commitment to diversity,” Garland said. “There’s a wide range of ethnic groups and women in all aspects of the program. It’s a wonderful and varied family.”The department was awarded the Teaching Excellence Award last year by the Office of Academic Affairs because of its “diverse and supportive environment.” Stewart emphasized the competition involved in recruiting top-notch minority faculty, adding that colleges and universities everywhere have come to realize “that all persons benefit from diversity.”He said that data show that in 40 years, minority populations will have expanded and the majority population will have dwindled, and this shift in population proves the importance of active recruitment of faculty as well as students.