Academic Selection Committee

To assure that the advice given by the Dean to the Provost & Vice-President (Academic) has had the benefit of the informed academic staff opinion required by the President, each Faculty Council is required to establish a formal Academic Selection process, advisory to the Dean, for all appointments of more than twelve months duration. This includes a formal Academic Selection Committee of appropriate size, consisting of the following:

• Dean or delegate – normally the relevant Head in departmentalized Faculties, Chair (voting only to break a tie)

• Voting members drawn from the Continuing, Limited Term or and Contingent Term academic appointees of the Faculty, with a majority of these members holding a Continuing appointment. (In large or departmentalized Faculties, all but one of the members from a Faculty should be drawn from the affected disciplinary group e.g. the appropriate Department from within the Faculty)

• at least one Continuing academic appointee (voting) from outside the Faculty

• a Faculty Council shall either provide for senior student participation on a selection committee or may establish other mechanisms for informed student opinion to be taken into account.

The Academic Selection Committee may delegate certain tasks (the initial review of applications, initial short listing based on relevant criteria, and solicitation of references) to a sub-committee of its members, provided that any Committee member is free to participate in the sub-committee's activities and that a mechanism is established to ensure that the sub-committee accounts for these activities to the Academic Selection Committee as a whole.

We all like to think that we are objective scholars who judge people based entirely on their experience and achievements, but copious research shows that every one of us brings a lifetime of experience and cultural history that shapes the Selection process.

It is important to understand unconscious bias during the selection process, the following resources will provide a greater awareness of this topic:

• The Science of Unconscious Bias and What To Do About It in the Search and Recruitment Process: A Research Presentation for Search Committees 

• The Impact of Implicit Bias for University Selection Committees

• Measure Your Unconscious Levels of Bias 

For more detailed information refer to GFC Handbook Section 3.6 j