Carl Lejuez

I noticed last week that Kansas University is creating a new administrative position for diversity and inclusion, an associate dean of diversity and inclusion. Here’s some more information about that job.

The associate dean of diversity and inclusion will report to and advise the dean of KU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, according to a KU job listing. The search is — or was, as applications are no longer being accepted — internal and open only to CLAS faculty members with a rank of associate or full professor. The selected candidate will spend either three-fourths or half of his or her time on the administrative role of “addressing issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion” and the remainder on faculty duties.

KU spokeswoman Erinn Barcomb-Peterson didn’t give me a specific dollar figure for salary. She said the job will pay the faculty member’s academic-year salary, four pay periods of summer salary plus an administrative supplement as determined by the dean. July 1 is the anticipated start date.

She did explain some about how the position came to be, noting that CLAS is the largest school at KU.

“One of the first actions Dean Carl Lejuez took was to create a working group to identify opportunities to improve diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the College,” Barcomb-Peterson said. “One of the group’s recommendations was to create an associate dean position dedicated to addressing those issues. The new position will focus both on what can be done within the College and how to partner in efforts from the offices of the chancellor and the provost to effect change across the university.”

Carl Lejuez

Flashback to September, when Lejuez interviewed for the CLAS dean job. In covering his public presentation at KU, I reported that he addressed diversity in the school and said both data evaluation and “creativity” were needed to improve it. During his first semester here, in a move some would probably describe as creative (though he clarified the offer was not limited to student activists or otherwise diverse students), Lejuez gave a pardon of sorts to CLAS students who were on the brink of failing out. Those who agreed to participate in a new faculty mentoring program aimed at helping them improve grades were allowed to stay for a second chance.

I know of two candidates for the new job, though there may be others. The Office of Multicultural Affairs recently hosted informal meet-and-greets for candidates professor Jennifer Hamer and associate professor Shannon Portillo.

• ‘Implosion Team’ gets award: A lot of things had to come together in some pretty precise ways to pull off the November 2015 spectacle that was the McCollum Hall implosion. Looks like some of the people working behind the scenes got some recognition this month. Last week KU had its annual Employees of the Year awards ceremony, and the 2015-16 Team Award went to the McCollum Hall “Implosion Team.” This KU news release names the individuals and talks more about what they did, which included everything from getting used furniture to charities to getting road barriers up to protect the public on demolition day.

photo by: Richard Gwin

KU's McCollum Hall comes crashing down during a planned demolition on Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2015.

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• I’m the Journal-World’s KU and higher ed reporter. See all the newspaper’s KU coverage at KUToday.com. Reach me by email at sshepherd@ljworld.com, by phone at 832-7187, on Twitter @saramarieshep or via Facebook at Facebook.com/SaraShepherdNews.