Male-Female College Degrees

Thinking about applying for a faculty position at the University of California San Diego (see hundreds of openings here) or other public universities in California like the University of California-Berkeley? Here’s a checklist for your application materials:

Cover Letter? v

Curriculum Vitae (CV)? v

Letters of Recommendation? v

References? v

Teaching Evaluations? v

Statement of Teaching? v

At most universities that would cover just about everything necessary, but at the University of California-San Diego (and other UC campuses) you’ll also be required to submit one more document that could have a huge impact on your chances of getting hired — a “Contributions to Diversity Statement” for any faculty position, here are some details:

All candidates applying for faculty appointments at UC San Diego are required to submit a personal statement on their contributions to diversity. The purpose of the statement is to identify candidates who have the professional skills, experience, and/or willingness to engage in activities that will advance our campus diversity and equity goals.

Departments and search committees should consider a candidate’s statement as part of a comprehensive and transparent evaluation of their qualifications.

Here are more details from a UC San Diego document titled “Guidelines for Applicants Writing Statement“:

The Contributions to Diversity Statement should describe your past efforts, as well as future plans to advance diversity, equity and inclusion. It should also demonstrate an understanding of the barriers facing women and underrepresented minorities and of UC San Diego’s mission to meet the educational needs of our diverse student population.

Some faculty candidates may not have substantial past activities. If such cases, we recommend focusing on future plans in your statement. However, please note that a demonstrated record of past effort is given greater weight than articulating awareness of barriers or stating future plans. A more developed and substantial plan is expected for senior candidates.

Describe how you plan to contribute to diversity at UC San Diego, including activities you would pursue and how they would fit into your research area, department, campus, or national context. Be as specific as possible, but realistic about your level of effort and time commitment.

For purposes of evaluating contributions to diversity, under-represented groups (URGs) includes underrepresented ethnic or racial minorities (URM), women, LGBTQ, first-generation college, people with disabilities, and people from underprivileged backgrounds.

Some sample Contributions to Diversity Statements Ideological Conformity Statements/Pledge of Allegiance to Left-Liberal Orthodoxy Statements (suggest others in the comments) are provided here, here, and here.

HT: UCLA law professor Stephen Bainbridge’s blog post “Another item in the ‘I probably couldn’t get a job as an academic these days’ file,” who comments (slightly revised): “I expect a detailed discussion of how one has tried to promote intellectual diversity within the academy by resisting the left-liberal hegemony would not be acceptable.”

MP: As the chart above shows, men have been an under-represented group (URG) in higher education for nearly 40 years now going back to 1982, and that male under-representation is expected to increase in the future. According to projections by the Department of Education, there will be 150 women earning college degrees for every 100 men within the next decade. So at least in terms of entering and completing college with a degree there really don’t appear to be any “barriers facing women” in higher education today, they’ve earned a majority of college degrees for more than a generation. But there is always a highly selective concern about gender under-representation and men I guess don’t count and aren’t included as a URG, despite what should be a major concern in higher education – the “disappearing male college student” and the huge and growing “gender college degree gap.” Explaining that selective concern, Powerline blogger Scott Johnson wrote recently that one of the tenets of the ideology of “diversity” is that outcomes must be equal among racial and ethnic groups, except when they accrue to the advantage of a racial or ethnic “minority” (including women).

And as far as any concern about “ideological or political diversity” in the UC system — Fuggedaboutit!

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This article has been republished with permission from American Enterprise Institute.

[Image Credit: Russian Kremlin (cropped)]