Individual Committee Members

Increase the “bias literacy” of hiring committee members. “[I]mplicit bias is like a habit that can be broken through a combination of awareness of implicit bias, concern about the effects of that bias, and the application of strategies to reduce bias” _{(Devine, Forscher, Austin, & Cox, 2012, p. 1267)}. Intention, attention, and time are needed to learn new responses well enough to “compete with the formerly automatically activated responses” _{(Devine, 1989, p. 16)}.

Encourage committee members to learn about the potential impact of unconscious bias in search process. Schedule a committee training on unconscious bias or recommend a short video and then discuss it during a search committee meeting

Provide committee members with key articles.

Encourage individual members to take responsibility for consciously striving to minimize the influence of bias on their evaluation. Studies have shown that greater awareness of discrepancies between the ideals of impartiality and actual performance, together with strong internal motivations to respond without prejudice, can effectively reduce prejudicial behavior _{(Devine et al., 2012)}.

Implicit Bias Videos

All LITS Staff are required to watch a brief video series on implicit bias, and complete a brief assessment.  If you have non-LITS staff or faculty on your hiring committee, you may encourage them to complete this as well.

Other Implicit Bias Tests

Hiring committees may also choose to take an Implicit Association Test (IAT) on Harvard University’s Project Implicit® website: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/. The site hosts 17 different IATs. It is also encouraged for committee members take similar tests (e.g., Gender-Career IAT, Weapons IAT) and discuss potential race/gender bias in the search process.