Form I: Search Plan Review Form
1. This form must be completed and submitted for every regular search. It must be signed by the chair of the search committee and department or division chair. It also must be signed by the dean, vice president, or other officer responsible for its submission to the Associate Provost for Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action.
While you may fill multiple positions through a single search, you must submit separate forms for each position so that it can be identified by a unique Position Search Number, even if the forms contain the same information. The separation of search files is necessary for compliance and record-keeping purposes.
2. The vice president, dean, or other officer authorizing the search will assign it a Position Search Number, a ten-character field that conforms to the following pattern:
For example, the first search in the English Department in the academic year 1998-99 would be represented by AS32799001: AS = Arts and Sciences; 327 = English FAS department number; 99 = academic year in which the search commenced; 001 = first search of the year.
3. Include the actual title the eventual nominee will hold. If the position can be filled at more than one rank, specify the range and indicate that the decision will depend on the nominee=s qualifications. Include any modifications of title, such as visiting, clinical, or professional practice. If the person will also have administrative responsibilities, such as director of an institute or center, include that title as well.
4. Specify the beginning date of the appointment, and the end date, if applicable. Also include the date screening of applicants will commence.
5. At the start of the affirmative action reporting year, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action will provide the Composition of the Potential Applicant Pool as Defined by National Availability Data (Section 1) to the vice presidents, deans and other responsible officers for the units that report to them. For units that recruit more than one type of academic officer (e.g., faculty and researchers), the Office will provide separate availability data for each.
6. The Departmental/School Profile (Section 2) shows the number and percentage of full-time officers of instruction, research and the libraries by sex and ethnicity or race in the unit, as of the start of the current academic year. The officers responsible for authorizing searches are responsible for providing these data to the units reporting to them. Those officers should also send the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action a copy of the data they supply to their units.
7. To Indicate Which Are the Targeted Groups for the Department/School (Section 3), compares the percentages by sex and ethnicity or race of the current full-time officers (Section 2) with the percentages in the national availability data (Section 1). Whenever the percentages in Section 1 are less than those in Section 2, the group is considered Atargeted.@ Also, when there are no women or members of a minority group among the current full-time officers, they are designated as Atargeted,@ even if none are expected, based upon their representation in the national availability pool.
8. Under Recruitment Sources (Section 4), identify the breadth of the recruitment. A search should always be national or international unless the Associate Provost has authorized an exception prior to its start. You may, however, add sources that are regional or local as well. Identify each source you intend to use. Include the names of journals, professional associations, educational institutions, electronic bulletin boards, listserves, etc. that will receive the announcement. The sources used should be consistent with those identified in your Statement of Standard Search and Evaluation Procedures. Ads, electronic postings and announcements must appear at least one month before you start to screen applicants.
9. The University has both a legal obligation and a philosophical commitment to increasing the number of women and minorities in all areas where they are underrepresented. Section 5 describes the special efforts the search committee plans to undertake to identify qualified women and encourage them to apply. Section 6 provides similar information with regard to underrepresented minorities.
10. Identify the members of the proposed search committee and provide information on their gender, ethnicity or race, title and department in Section 7. For their ethnicity or race, use the code listed at the bottom of the form and defined in Appendix C. In Section 8, include the office phone number, fax number and e-mail address for the proposed chair in the designated space. Also identify the administrator who will be the contact person for the search and provide that individual=s phone number, fax number and e-mail address in the space indicated.
11. The Search Plan Review Form must be signed by the search committee chair and the chair of the department or division. The vice president, dean, or other officer authorizing the search must also sign and date the form to indicate approval for the search plan.
Form II: Affirmative Action Summary Report
1. The Affirmative Action Summary Report is used to report on the outcome of the search and to provide data needed to meet the University=s reporting responsibilities to the government. If you select multiple candidates from a single search, you must submit a separate Affirmative Action Summary Report for each selectee.
2. Enter the following items of information:
3. If the nominee does not have the Ph.D., or equivalent terminal professional degree, indicate when it is expected.
4. Section 1, Composition of Applicant Pool, calls for both aggregate and individual group data. In the first set of boxes, enter the total number of applicants and the number who were women and minorities. In the second, provide a breakdown of the applicants by gender and ethnicity or race, using the information reported by the Associate Provost from the EEO cards for applicants who self-identified and your best estimates for applicants who did not self-identify.
5. List all candidates who were considered most qualified for the position in Section 2, Information on Finalist Pool, including those who withdrew their applications. These should consist of the individuals on the search committee=s short list, or if such a list was not constructed, of those applicants who would have been offered the position if no one better qualified were available. Indicate the gender and ethnicity or race of each finalist and report the dates on which any were interviewed.
6. Using the information entered in Section 3 of the Search Plan Review Form, indicate whether women and the different categories of minorities are Atargeted groups@ by checking off the appropriate boxes.
7. Section 4 is used to explain why unsuccessful women and minority applicants who belong to a Atargeted group@ were deemed to be less qualified than the nominee with the following exceptions. If the nominee belongs to a targeted group, you do not need to discuss the reasons for not selecting other members of that group in this section of the Report. You must, however, report on members of other targeted groups who applied but were not selected. Applicants belonging to a targeted group on which you must report should be included even if they withdrew or were found to be unavailable. In those cases, you should indicate the reasons why the candidate withdrew or declined to be considered.
8. Indicate in Section 5 if you followed the procedures described in the Search Plan Review Form. If you departed from them, attach a letter that describes the changes and the reasons for them.
9. Indicate in Section 6 if you are requesting a waiver from your standard search and evaluation procedures. If so, attach a letter explaining the reasons for the variance and how you identified the nominee.
10. The Affirmative Action Summary Report must be completed and submitted to the office of the vice president, dean or officer who authorized the search, with the Applicant Report, a copy of the nominee=s curriculum vitae, and a draft letter of offer. The form must be signed by the chair of the department or division, and the appropriate dean, vice president, or other authorizing officer. Upon approving the request to make the appointment, the authorizing officer will submit these materials to the Associate Provost.
No offer letter may be sent until the Associate Provost has given final approval on behalf of the Provost and Dean of Faculties by signing this form and returning it to the dean, vice president or other officer who authorized the search. It is the responsibility of that officer to inform the unit that clearance has been granted.
Form III: Applicant Report
Before the date specified in the Search Plan Review Form for the commencement of screening applications, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action will send the search committee a report on the gender and ethnicity or race of the applicants who returned the EEO Postcard.
For applicants who did not identify their gender and ethnicity or race, the search committee should add that information. Estimates of gender and ethnicity or race may, for example, be discerned from the applicant=s name, from professional associations, from place of birth or other information volunteered in the curriculum vitae or noted during an interview. Visual observation may be used when there is personal contact with the applicant. Every applicant must be assigned to a gender and ethnic or racial category. When applicants do not volunteer that information and it cannot be inferred from other sources, you should count them as male and non-minority.
To complete the Applicant Report, enter the name of the school, department, institute or center conducting the search; add the Position Search Number assigned by the vice president, dean or other officer who authorized the search; and list all applicants, with their unique applicant code and information on their gender and race or ethnicity. The list may be generated from a computerized database and appended to the form rather than being retyped on it.
Form IV: EEO Postcard
To conduct federally mandated analyses, the University must have a mechanism for identifying the gender and race or ethnicity of applicants. Federal law states that self-identification is the preferred method of collecting that information. The Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, therefore, provides search committees with stamped EEO Postcards with a return address to the Office. These are enclosed with the letter of acknowledgement to applicants, with the following language to explain their purpose:
AColumbia University is interested in gathering information from applicants for affirmative action purposes. Although voluntary, your assistance in completing and mailing the enclosed applicant data request postcard will help us achieve these objectives. Your cooperation will be sincerely appreciated.@
As applications are received, the search committee compiles a list of candidates and assigns an Applicant Number to each. These numbers ordinarily commence with 001 for the first applicant and continue consecutively through the last applicant for each search. The appropriate number is entered on the EEO Postcard sent to the applicant next to the Position Search Number (as described above in the instructions for the Search Plan Review Form) which is assigned by the vice president, dean, or other officer who has authorized the search. It is important to put both the Position Search Number and the Applicant Number on the EEO Postcard, so that the cards can be identified with a particular search when they are received in the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action. It is the only way the Office can properly associate applicants with the openings for which each has applied.
