Scott Page to address ability, diversity in April 22 lecture

Scott Page
Provided/University of Michigan
University of Michigan political science professor Scott Page will give the Robert L. Harris Jr. ADVANCEments in Science Lecture April 22 at Uris Auditorium.

The successful performance of cognitive tasks by a group – problem-solving, making predictions, generating ideas – depends on individually accomplished and collectively diverse participants, social scientist Scott Page proves in his extensive research.

Do academic institutions face a tradeoff between ability and diversity – i.e., between hiring the best, and being inclusive or representative?

Page will explore that question in the annual Robert L. Harris Jr. ADVANCEments in Science Lecture, April 22 at 3:30 p.m. in Uris Auditorium. His talk, “Ability and Diversity in the Academy and the Cognitive Economy,” is free and open to the public. A reception in the Statler Hotel’s Taylor/Rowe Room will follow his presentation.

The best teams can consist of highly qualified people, but their success is attributable to more than the sum of individual qualitative abilities, Page shows in a range of contexts and experimental models. He demonstrates that the best teams, cohorts and communities better achieve their goals as a group through their diverse perspectives and experiences.

Page is the author of “The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies,” published in 2007. Investigating how people think in groups, Page shows that those having a range of viewpoints, tools and abilities consistently can outperform the efforts of a collective of like-minded or similar experts.

His research addresses some of the challenges facing Cornell and higher education in general.

“People often think of diversity as being embodied in a particular person,” said Yael Levitte, associate vice provost for faculty development and diversity and a member of the University Diversity Council. “What we’re trying to help people realize is how diversity changes the experience – in this case the knowledge-seeking experience – and actually contributes to the academic mission. That’s what we find diversity does. It drives fresh approaches to problem-solving and innovation.”

Page’s work is a systems-based approach, Levitte said. “He looks beyond the ideological view of diversity – which addresses past injustices – and highlights how diversity contributes to teams and communities, generating better outcomes, such as establishing new areas of inquiry, increased funding and publishing.”

Recruitment and hiring efforts “don’t always acknowledge the integration and overlap between diversity and excellence,” she said. “I think Scott highlights that diversity IS excellence. He says you’re better off bringing in accomplished people with diverse backgrounds than working with homogenous groups, and he has the data to show it. It’s actually quite persuasive – he shows problem-solving and research projects that had very homogenous and seemingly highly accomplished teams that didn’t reach the higher level of excellence that diversity adds. Here at Cornell, we’ve often done things a certain way. We’ve searched for talent, and for people who can innovate, for years. We have units that have been looking for decades for people with the same set of characteristics.”

“I’m hoping that this talk will open our thinking to how and where we are searching, and what we consider the attributes of an excellent scholar,” she said. “Nearly all of the finest cutting-edge research these days is done in the context of colleagues and research teams. He’s providing some food for thought around that.”

Page is a professor of complex systems, political science and economics at the University of Michigan; and is on the external faculty of the Santa Fe Institute. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011. His other books include “Complex Adaptive Social Systems” (2007, with John Miller) and “Diversity and Complexity” (2010). He also is the instructor in a series of educational videos, “Understanding Complexity.”

Sponsored by the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity, the annual ADVANCEments lecture brings nationally known researchers to Cornell for campus-wide discussions on diversity and women in science.

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Joe Schwartz