From: Gross, Louis J Date: Monday, October 25, 2021 at 3:32 PM To: University Faculty Council Subject: Topic I mentioned briefly at the UFC meeting regarding diversity Folks, I’m not sure if this item came up in our group discussion on Thursday or whether I mentioned it in a smaller group. It relates to the UT System Strategic Plan update and the foundation of Championing Inclusion, Diversity, and Engagement that underlies this. I have compiled the data on the only System-wide faculty positions that have been heavily supported by direct appropriations – the Chairs of Excellence and the Governor’s Chairs. It is my understanding that each of these was supported by approximately $500K of funding from the State, at least initially. From my perusal of the websites for these programs, as of now we have across the System 43 Chairs of Excellence and 15 Governor’s Chairs (some Chairs are not filled). Of these 58 Chairs, there are 54 male holders and 4 female holders (1 Governor’s chair is female and 3 Chairs of Excellence are female) so overall these Chairs are 93% male. There is one female holder at each of UTC and UTK, and two female holders at UTHSC. Note that these Chairs cover a broad range of fields – they are certainly not all in fields such as science/engineering which have historically had lower participation by females. All of us have been encouraged by various programs at our campuses to ensure that we work to enhance our efforts to attract a diverse faculty. Yet it appears at least with regard to gender for these very highly-supported positions, we have failed. I encourage us to have a discussion on this issue – as representatives of our campuses we should take a leadership stand regarding diversity. I wrote a short essay on what might be done to “Move more than the needle” about a year ago when I served on UTK Advisory Board – it is posted at http://lgross.utk.edu/Senate/MovingMoreThanTheNeedle.pdf One of these connects to the data that VP Patterson showed at the Board meeting which indicated that 62% of the 3687 postdocs across the System were from backgrounds that would be diversity-enhancing. Though VP Patterson indicated to me that there may be some problems with how these numbers were arrived at (and why we need better data systems) the main point is that, as I argue in my essay, we might consider establishing programs to foster recruitment of our diverse postdocs into faculty positions across the System. This seems to be one of the goals of the new SEC Emerging Scholar program, though it is focused on retaining recent graduate students from diverse backgrounds within faculty lines across the SEC. Stay well, Lou -- Louis J. Gross (he, him, his) Chancellor’s Professor and Alvin and Sally Beaman Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Mathematics Director Emeritus, National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS.org) Director, The Institute for Environmental Modeling University of Tennessee - Knoxville President, 2006-2007, 2021-2022, UTK Faculty Senate Past-President, 2003-2005, Society for Mathematical Biology http://lgross.utk.edu/