Search Committees: A Comprehensive Guide to Successful Faculty, Staff, and Administrative Searches

Finding the right candidate for administrative, professional and faculty positions is one of the most important tasks that any institution or enterprise undertakes. However, few higher education professionals receive training on the search committee process, but are expected to serve on or lead committees.

This book provides advice, training, and a step-by-step guide for conducting a rigorous, thorough search. Following the expert model presented in this book will virtually guarantee successful searches. This guide furthermore provides advanced diversity selection techniques that are not commonly found in many resources inside or outside of higher education, and that have become institutional priorities in the context of demographic changes and globalization that require that higher education serve more diverse populations and compete internationally.

This guide covers the complete cycle of hiring, starting with defining the position and forming and briefing the committee, through cultivating a rich and diverse pool of candidates and screening and evaluating candidates, to making the selection, successfully completing the search successfully, and welcoming colleagues to campus.

This volume includes over 30 templates that are designed to be copied and used as training handouts or as handy reference and resource materials that provide guidance at various stages of the search process. The over two dozen vignettes included can be used as training case studies or as expert advice that illuminates key concepts that are helpful with improving the quality of the search process.

The guide includes:
1. An expert step-by-step search model.
2. Dozens of templates, samples, tools, plus a bank of interview questions.
3. Diversity recruitment and selection protocols and techniques.
4. Resource guide with advice, case studies, examples, and training materials.

Coverage includes:
* How to Build a Successful Search
* Recruiting Guide
* How to Design a Diverse Selection Process
* Minority Recruiting Resources
* Interview Guide
* A Bank of Interview Questions
* Screening Methods
* Sample Forms, Templates, Checklists
* Legal, Ethical, and Regulatory Issues

This guide serves the needs of administrators who shape hiring policy and goals, committee chairs and members. It is also a resource that human resources professionals can use to train, equip and support search committees.

A complementary website at www.SearchCommittees.com offers additional resources.

[Previous edition published by CUPA-HR: Search Committees: A Tool Kit
By Christopher D. Lee, Ph.D., 2000]

Christopher D. Lee is a leading authority on the search process. His first Search Committees book earned the 2001 Kathryn Hansen publication award from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR). Since that time, he has provided search committee training to more than 1,000 human resource professionals and he has consulted with dozens of colleges and universities on the search process. He is the founder of www.SearchCommittees.com, a website that is an online repository of hundreds of resources and training materials on the search committee process designed to train and empower search committees. Additionally, Chris is a former question writer for the PHR (Professional in Human Resources) and SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Resources) examinations administered by the Human Resources Certification Institute (HRCI) and the author of numerous human resources-related articles, chapters, and three books, including Performance Conversations: An Alternative to Appraisals.

Edna Chun and Alvin Evans areaward-winning authors and human resource and diversity thought leaders withextensive experience in complex, multi-campus systems of higher education. Twoof their books, Are the Walls ReallyDown? Behavioral and Organizational Barriers to Faculty and Staff Diversity (Jossey-Bass,2007) and Bridging the DiversityDivide:Globalization and Reciprocal Empowerment in Higher Education (Jossey-Bass,2009) were recipients of the prestigious Kathryn G. Hansen Publication Award bythe national College and University Professional Association for HumanResources. In addition, their co-authored book, The New Talent Acquisition Frontier:Integrating HR and Diversity Strategy in the Private and Public Sectors andHigher Education(Stylus: 2014) received a silver medal in the 2014 Axiom Business Book Awardsand is the first book to provide a concrete roadmap to the integration of HRand diversity strategy.

Recentpublications include Leading a DiversityCulture Shift in Higher Education (Routledge, 2018) that draws on extensiveinterviews with chief diversity officers and university leaders to provide asystematic approach to diversity organizational learning and The Department Chair as TransformativeLeader (Stylus, 2015), the first research-based resource on theacademic department chair’s role in diversity transformation. Other books include DiverseAdministrators in Peril: The New Indentured Class in Higher Education (Paradigm, 2012), the first in-depth interviewstudy of the work experiences of minority, female, and LGBT administrators inhigher education 2012)  and Rethinking Cultural Competencein Higher Education: An Ecological Framework for Student Development ( Jossey-Bass,2016), a study that draws on a survey of recent college graduates now workingas professionals to offer leading-edge, integrative models for the attainmentof diversity competence.

Both authors are sought-afterplenary speakers and facilitators at national conferences and symposia. Theirnumerous journal articles in leading HR and diversity journals focus on talent managementand diversity strategies. Edna Chun is Chief Learning Officer and Alvin Evansis Higher Education Practice Leader for HigherEd Talent, a national diversityand human resources consulting firm.