Associate Dean for Equity and Outreach

Position Summary

As a member of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) senior leadership team, the Associate Dean for Equity and Outreach (ADEO) provides strategic planning and leadership in developing, implementing, and sustaining initiatives that advance equity, inclusion, and community partnerships. In addition to collaborating with other elements of department and college leadership, the ADEO will focus on recruitment and mentoring for diverse faculty and staff, expanding the use of inclusive pedagogies, and developing strategic initiatives to engage our communities and enhance external partnership opportunities. The ADEO is a 12-month advanced permanent faculty position at the associate professor or professor rank (career or tenure-track). It includes release time for research or teaching and provides a budget for both new/ongoing initiatives and individual professional development. Depending on the successful candidate’s qualifications and interest, the position will also include tenure or a continuous appointment in WSU’s career track, the latter of which emphasizes teaching and/or engagement and administrative leadership. We welcome interest from individuals with experience in any of CAS’s constituent disciplines and in any of the various forms of U.S. post-secondary institutions, as well as those who draw upon relevant experience from outside of higher education. The successful candidate will be expected to begin the five (5) year renewable appointment as ADEO on July 1, 2023.

The Opportunity

The Associate Dean for Equity and Outreach (ADEO) serves as a leader, advisor, and advocate for centering IDEA (inclusion, diversity, equity, and access) and community dialogue in our collective work, for identifying how our historical legacies and current systems limit our futures, and for reimagining the purposes and partners of the modern land-grant university.

In particular, we recognize how our origins as a Morrill Act institution impose distinctive responsibilities on our college’s role as the core of Washington State University. College leadership has thus committed to enhancing our curricula and engagement with tribes and Native peoples to support tribal sovereignty and the equal inclusion of their voices in our recruitment, curricula, and research. We also understand that the communities of 21st-century Washington are substantially different than those of 19th, and that our renewed engagement with those communities—rural and urban—must recognize their increasing diversity and importance as true partners rather than simple recipients of academic expertise. The college has thus designated IDEA as one of our strategic research and investment areas, and between AY20-23 we completed the hiring of or secured authorization for nearly 30 tenure-track positions related to this area. These hires are being supported by a variety of ongoing initiatives. Under the college’s new Big Questions Initiative, for example, science departments have committed to identifying and pursuing specific steps to broaden their undergraduate and graduate pipelines for historically marginalized students. All CAS faculty and staff search committees receive specific IDEA training, and we have also implemented changes that explicitly acknowledge the importance of interdisciplinary and publicly engaged work to faculty careers and promotion.

As we now enter the next phase of these commitments, where we seek to build upon and expand these earlier efforts, we are excited to work with a new colleague who will bring their own distinctive ideas, energy, and interests to our shared work. We are thus committed in this search to identifying evidence of excellence/qualification in multiple ways: we will value the multiple pathways by which candidates have reached higher education, the various modalities that constitute contemporary scholarly “products,” and the range of investments and interests candidates have pursued to craft their professional identities.

The ADEO will act as a key advisor and strategic partner with the Dean and other associate deans, who together regularly talk and think collaboratively outside of unduly narrow boundaries of titles or function. In addition, the ADEO will have responsibilities in the following three categories described below.

Strategic Partnerships and Vision

• Works together with the CAS leadership on all WSU campuses to build a welcoming, diverse, and inclusive community where faculty, staff, and students can thrive.
• Develops and leads the implementation of the long-term vision and goals for IDEA and the college’s engagement with community partners statewide;
• Develops partnerships with other IDEA and engagement leaders at the University and within the broader community to align, coordinate, and support efforts aimed at fulfilling the larger institutional goals around equity, diversity, and inclusion.
• Coordinate the college’s Academic Program Review process, pursuing our shared vision within immediate and long-term strategies for sustaining academic excellence

Excellence in Equity and Access

• Intersects and collaborates with the Dean and associate deans in all areas to focus activities and improve policies (ongoing and new) toward a new vision of contemporary public higher education
• Identifies and challenges barriers—within the university and disciplines—to the recruitment, advancement, and retention of a diverse faculty and staff.
• Works in collaboration with the Dean of Students, Dean of the Graduate School, and other senior leaders to enhance the academic and professional success of first-generation students and students from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in higher education.
• Serves as a resource for faculty and staff to enrich IDEA efforts in our curriculum, classrooms, and co-curricular programs and consults with individual unit-level leadership and faculty as requested.
• Assists in developing ongoing learning opportunities for CAS students (undergraduate and graduate) that will prepare them to serve effectively in a highly diverse society grappling with persistent racial, social, and economic inequities.

Excellence in Outreach and Engagement

• Identify and improve the college’s relationships with external and community partners, with an eye toward developing connections beyond those traditionally established with industry and business.
• Lead the college’s collaborations with WSU’s Native American Programs office (https://native.wsu.edu/) and the 11 signatories of WSU’s MOU with Native Peoples. Serves as primary point of contact for CAS’ Native Arts and Outreach coordinator and monitors our commitment to WSU’s Policy on Tribal Engagement, Consultation, and Consent (https://policies.wsu.edu/prf/index/manuals/executive-policy-manual-contents/ep41-policy-on-tribal-engagement-consultation-and-consent-for-joint-wsu-tribal-research-activities-and-projects/).
• Serve as the college liaison to and build connections with other university units similarly focused on community outreach, research, and engagement, such as WSU Extension (https://extension.wsu.edu/) and the Institute for Research and Education to Advance Community Health (https://ireach.wsu.edu/).