A public university in southern New Jersey is currently seeking an assistant professor who has a background in “anti-racist pedagogy.”
Stockton University’s Atlantic City campus has an open application for a tenure track assistant professor position within its social work program. Included in the job requirements is experience with “marginalized, oppressed, and/or vulnerable populations.”
”Candidates are expected to advise students regarding their educational and career goals,” a job description reads. “Experience with marginalized, oppressed, and/or vulnerable populations is required. Experience with anti-racist pedagogy and social justice framework in an academic setting is preferred.”
Hoping to have the role filled in time for Jan. 15, the school also prefers that candidates offer experience “teaching a culturally diverse student body” and will “support Stockton University’s diversity commitment.”
Included in the mission statement for Stockton’s School of Social and Behavioral Sciences are the formation of the student body’s “global perspective” and “interdisciplinary commitment to understanding and advocating for economic and social justice.” The school also seeks to achieve this through “embracing diversity for the inclusion of all.”
Stockton’s “Commitment to Diversity,” which is referenced in the assistant professor job application, notes that a “diverse university environment is also necessary for students to gain a greater understanding of themselves.”
”Engagement with diversity prepares students to become cooperative and productive contributors to our society,” the university writes. “Stockton values diversity and the differing perspectives it brings. Accordingly, we are unequivocally committed to implementing the principles of diversity in the composition of our student body, faculty and staff.”
In recent years, the topic of job applicants and university employees needing to provide “diversity statements” on has become a controversial topic.
In June, Campus Reform reported that Western Oregon University required certain applicants to answer questions like, “Explain how you see yourself contributing to WOU’s work on advancing racial equity and eliminating systemic racism.”
[RELATED: NYU willing to pay up to $275k for prof with ‘racism and inequality’ expertise]
While some schools continue to seek out applicants with diversity statements, other schools have eliminated the practice altogether.
On June 3, Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences announced it would drop such application requirements due to “feedback from numerous faculty members” who feared that such statements were “too narrow in the information they attempted to gather.”
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
