One Step to the Side: How Subject Matter Expertise Shapes Faculty Selection

• In Event: Faculty Hiring: Gender, Race, and Connections

Abstract

Experimental studies on faculty selection and decision-making have become increasingly common and have revealed racial and gender biases. Yet these studies typically fail to replicate the actual conditions of CV review in faculty hiring, and stop short of interrogating how evaluator identity and training impacts candidate review. In this study, we isolate one important facet of evaluator identity - subfield specialty - to identify whether or not belonging to the same subfield shapes appraisals. To answer this question, we administered a self-designed and validated experimental survey of 10 fictitious postdoctoral CVs to 279 mechanical engineering faculty in different subfields at research universities across the United States.

Authors

• KerryAnn O'Meara, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Damani Khary White-Lewis, University of Maryland

• Dawn Culpepper, University of Maryland

• Lindsey Lee Templeton, University of Maryland

• Julia Anderson, University of Maryland