Affirmative Action & Equal Employment Opportunity

Note: Beginning in January 2026, Human Resources will be responsible for PSU’s Affirmative Action plan as well as the review and approval of search waivers. Please submit any request for search waivers to your HR Partner.

The university is committed to providing a culture of inclusive excellence for all members of the campus community. This includes our students, faculty, staff and applicants of employment. All forms of prohibited discrimination and discriminatory harassment, which would harm the educational or employment experience of our students, faculty, and staff, is not tolerated. PSU is committed to promoting the rights of all individuals to equal opportunity in employment and access by fostering a diverse and equitable educational workplace. Our work is guided by compliance with our non-discrimination policies, and all federal and state regulations related to equal opportunity and affirmative action.

Affirmative Action

The Affirmative Action program strives to work on the development of inclusive recruitment strategies, reviews search waivers for departments, and, in collaboration with campus partners, creates, revises, and implements inclusive hiring policies and practices, including the provision of the More Inclusive Hiring Practice Workshop, a required training program for all faculty searches.

AA/EO works to honor equity principles in the workplace through planning and implementation of guidelines and practices designed to end exclusion of women, people of color, people with disabilities, and veterans. We recognize that additional groups are underrepresented and underserved as well. We strive to develop practices and provide education that increase inclusivity and equity for all.

View our publicly available Affirmative Action Reports:

• Affirmative Action Program for Individuals with Disabilities
• Affirmative Action Program for Protected Veterans

Search Waiver Request Guidelines

The  hiring search process requires a good faith effort in doing outreach to all populations. A position should remain open for the amount of time it takes to make a “good faith” effort to recruit a diverse applicant pool (with a minimum of 7 days) and ultimately obtain a qualified candidate pool. Below are circumstances that warrant a waiver of the typical search procedures.

A waiver request should be a memo that includes a detailed description of the context of the circumstances and all criteria that apply. Please also provide a copy of the position description and the person’s CV/resume. If the waiver is for a promotion or other internal movement, please also provide before and after org charts. The waiver request memo and accompanying materials, as well as questions about search waivers should be emailed to your HR Partner as required in the search waiver guidelines.