Last summer, the university confirmed the hiring of
eight faculty members in five divisions that
had come as a result of the Mosaic Initiative, a newly
created program aimed at fostering a diverse
workplace at Johns Hopkins.
Announced in April 2007, the program would provide at
least $5 million over the next five years
in matching funds to assist deans, department chairs and
search committees to continue to recruit
diverse faculty; in June, the School of Medicine and The
Johns Hopkins Hospital pledged an additional
$1.25 million to the initiative.
The program is initially funded at a minimum of $1
million per year. A department may apply for
funds to its division's dean or director, who will
prioritize requests and forward them to the provost.
Departments may make proposals for up to $240,000, to be
spent over three years, on such items as
salary, research support and laboratory equipment.
"The Mosaic Initiative is about helping to recruit the
best and the brightest faculty to Johns
Hopkins," said Provost Kristina Johnson.
Mosaic also has a long-term component of addressing
pipeline issues. Funds are available to
invite eligible faculty and graduate students to Johns
Hopkins to present lectures on their research
or for professional development workshops, to better
prepare them for a career in academia.
As this initiative moves forward, one key to its
success will be exposing more women and
minority graduate students and faculty from other
institutions to the intellectual environment at
Johns Hopkins, Johnson said.
Ray Gillian, vice provost for institutional equity and
administrator of the Mosaic Initiative, said
that the visiting lectures will benefit both the guest and
the JHU community.
"Our students and faculty will get a chance to hear
about this individual's research, and we get
to introduce them to Johns Hopkins," Gillian said. "The
person can see our campus, interact with our
faculty and students. He or she might not have known about
the culture of Johns Hopkins before, and
this hopefully would make them more open to an appointment
here or to pursue their postdoctoral
work with us."
Gillian said that he hopes departments will take
advantage of the funds to invite individuals or
groups of talented graduate students to Johns Hopkins and
show off the research they are working
on. He said that the School of Engineering, through its
Dean's Office, already has in place such a
program, which would be supplemented with these new
funds.
Gillian said that the expectation is to attract 25 to
30 new faculty members within the next
five years, although the actual number of diversity hires
during that time can be much greater.
For the coming fiscal year, the university has already
received a half dozen applications. Gillian,
who is part of a review panel that recommends the most
deserving individuals from the pool of eligible
candidates, said that the announcements of new hires could
come as soon as the middle part of the
spring semester.
With the pipeline, the university is trying to create
a path to Johns Hopkins and identify more
future hires from outside the institution. But Gillian said
that another component of the pipeline is to
increase diversity appointments at other institutions. For
example, current eligible Johns Hopkins
students can receive Mosaic funding to support their
research and better prepare themselves for
future academic work and careers should they decide to
pursue them at other colleges.
To apply for Mosaic pipeline funding, contact the
Office of Institutional Equity at 410-516-8075 or rgillian@jhu.edu.
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