New Open Access Book from eScholarship Publishing: The Art of Diversity by Susan Carlson

eScholarship Publishing, University of California, announces a new open access book release: The Art of Diversity: A Chronicle of Advancing the University of California Faculty through Efforts in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, 2010–2022 by Susan Carlson. 

In this institutional history, Carlson details the University of California’s systemwide efforts to increase the diversity of its faculty during her tenure as Vice Provost, UC Office of the President. It tells the story of a remarkable alignment of California stakeholders—from the UC Regents and University leaders to the Academic Senate and the California legislature, from small faculty teams to multicampus coalitions—and how they worked to create a 21st-century faculty that reflects the diversity of California. 

The chronicle’s central focus is on a community of practice dedicated to excellence and equity. Efforts began with a program focused on finding new ways to collect data on faculty recruitment and create multicampus discussions on key topics like mentoring, intersectional racial and gender identities, workplace climate, and statements on diversity, equity, and inclusion. This work continued with a novel interactive theater program for department chairs and deans. The capstone effort, Advancing Faculty Diversity, provides opportunities to pilot new ways to recruit and sustain inclusive and equitable academic communities.

Carlson addresses this central academic issue: how to build a faculty that is different from the past not only in its gender and racial makeup, but also in its research methodologies, transdisciplinary partnerships, and multimodal pedagogies.

The first book project fully produced and published by eScholarship, The Art of Diversity was created using Pressbooks, a multi-format publishing platform built on WordPress. Pressbooks’ commitments to open source software, accessibility, and partnership in higher education closely align with eScholarship’s mission and continued experimentation with new open access publishing models.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.6074/D4159V 
OA ISBN: 978-8-9897617-0-8
Print edition forthcoming, Spring 2024

Susan Carlson is Vice Provost Emerita of the University of California Office of the President. From 2010 to 2022, she held responsibility for building coalitions and communities as detailed in The Art of Diversity. In a variety of leadership roles, she led major initiatives focused on faculty excellence and equity. Her research and teaching have centered on dramatic comedy as a site for transformation, scholarship that fully informed her administrative effort.