Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging are top priorities at our school and we are committed to creating a better gender balance and more racial diversity on our faculty. While the university does not currently collect faculty demographic data regarding availability pools for LGBTQIA+, disability, religion, or veteran status, Haas values the additive contributions of faculty from these communities as well.
- Berkeley and Haas have in place a rigorous process to ensure we attract a diverse pool of faculty candidates. We work closely with the Office of Faculty Equity and Welfare (OFEW) and deeply appreciate their guidance in improving our diversity initiatives. OFEW and campus review and approve our comprehensive faculty search plan before we can begin our search.
- The search process for faculty hiring begins in June of the prior year. Candidates start applying in the fall, and new faculty members usually start their appointments in July of the following year.
- OFEW tracks the gender and racial diversity that exists within each academic field (marketing, finance, economics) over time and reviews the resulting applicant pool for each position by comparing it to the population size that exists in that field. The applicant pool must match the racial and gender diversity in the field before our search committee receives the approval to move forward and begin reviewing applications. (See Haas School of Business Equity Benchmarks prepared by OFEW.)
- At Berkeley Haas, we appoint a Faculty Equity Advisor to each search committee to advise them on hiring strategies for creating diverse pools of faculty and to implement hiring practices that reduce bias.
- Berkeley Haas has also hired a Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer to advise on long-term solutions, including broader outreach to candidates from underrepresented minorities, building a pipeline of diverse talent for academic jobs by working to enhance the diversity of our doctoral programs, and helping to prepare undergraduates for doctoral study by matching them with research apprenticeships and pre-doctoral research fellowships.
- Berkeley Haas has gone beyond all the top 25 business schools by not only requiring a DEI statement as part of the faculty application, but also asking every short-listed candidate to give a talk as part of their interview to explain how they understand the challenge of diversity, what they have done in their career to promote DEI, and how they would support DEI as a faculty member at Haas. This has given us a much more vivid understanding of candidates’ ability to contribute meaningfully to our myriad DEI initiatives and to deepen relationships with networks and organizations that focus on developing Ph.D. students of color, such as the Ph.D. Project.
- It is important to note that we consider a faculty candidate’s contributions to diversity regarding research, mentoring, and teaching. We, of course, are an equal opportunity employer, but we are not legally permitted to consider identity characteristics in hiring anyone in the UC system based on the California State laws to which the University is subject.
Due to Proposition 209, state-funded institutions cannot grant preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, and public contracting. Therefore, it is not possible to designate scholarships to students specifically based on identity. However, we do have scholarships designated for students who have a mission alignment around increasing representation and being champions of diversity, equity, and inclusion. These are granted to students of all backgrounds.
A Berkeley Haas board position is volunteer and appointed by the management team. The Dean’s office along with Development have been working on increasing representation and cultivating targeted alumni to serve on the Haas Advisory Board. This process is lengthy, but this commitment is yielding results.
Due to proposition 209, we cannot legally have any racial or gender quotas or consider these for hiring, admissions, and financial aid decisions. Rather, our approach to increasing diversity among faculty and student populations is focused on increasing the diversity of candidate pools by doing targeted outreach to historically underrepresented communities. For students, our admissions teams set goals for representation at the outreach level, which is legally allowed, and work to ensure that evaluation decision makers take implicit bias and distance traveled into consideration to help ensure a fair and equitable outcome. Targeted outreach has also been instituted for faculty searches. All faculty candidates are now required to submit a diversity statement, provide a brief job talk addressing diversity in their teaching, mentorship, or research, and interview with the Chief DEI Officer. These components are factored into their candidacy.
Haas has a comprehensive strategic plan that is revisited every 5 years- referred to as the OGST (Objectives, Goals, Strategies, and Tactics). The school-wide DEI strategic plan is part of this Haas OGST. The tactics in the current version have timelines to be carried out over this year. Each year, these will be updated as we continue to work toward the Objective and Goals stated in the plan. The plan includes deliverable dates and the surnames of owners, and a status update will be provided to the community on a quarterly basis.
Each degree program has a number of diversity initiatives already in place, along with specific plans around representation and belonging. This plan is designed to augment existing work, and move the school forward beyond the existing initiatives. All degree programs are expected to create goals and strategies specific to their particular challenges and needs. These will be linked to this website and updates will be reported here.
Haas is rich with a community reflecting a variety of cultural identities. Each of our degree programs and departments benefits from creating an inclusive environment that cultivates belonging and full participation of everyone’s talents.
While some populations are numerically a minority, they are not necessarily ‘underrepresented’ at Haas vis a vis their population size in the U.S. nor due to historical/institutional practices. There are a number of populations that have been actively excluded from accessing higher education and participating in business opportunities historically in the United States and have had a cumulative impact of existing disparities in representation. The aim of the DEI strategic plan is to address these existing barriers, such that we are creating access for these particular populations that are currently underrepresented due to historical, systemic exclusionary policies and practices. Namely, these include women, people with disabilities, LGBTQIA+, veterans, and religious minorities, and African American, US Latinx, and Native American/Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.
It is the responsibility of all of us to ensure that we are cultivating an inclusive community for everybody, regardless of their level of over- or under-representation. While the DEI Office offers services for the Haas population at large, each department and degree program has specific population needs to address, such as parents and elder caregivers, international students, first-generation students. We also seek to ensure that we are continuing to provide avenues for representation, inclusion, equity, and belonging for those who are from historically excluded groups.