Launched in August 2013, the Office of Inclusion and Diversity is a relatively new addition to Penn Medicine that supports, evaluates, and generates programs that promote diversity within our research community. Prior to the generation of this office, initiatives and programs to broaden access in the medical school and biomedical graduate studies, from graduate students to faculty, were handled by separate entities. There was a need for an executive-level office to direct a more cohesive and coordinated effort. The Office of Inclusion and Diversity (OID) is a product Penn Medicine’s five-year Strategic Plan, “Shaping the Future of Medicine,” which incorporates goals set by President Gutmann’s Action Plan for Faculty Diversity and Excellence. Overall, the OID represents an administrative commitment to fostering innovation at Penn through inclusion and diversity.
Eve Higginbotham, M.S., M.D. is the Vice Dean for Inclusion and Diversity and, alongside
four other staff members, comprises the OID. Interestingly, Dr. Higginbotham made the conscious decision to put ‘Inclusion’ first when naming the OID, thinking “rather than call this ‘Diversity and Inclusion,’ let’s call it ‘Inclusion and Diversity’ to emphasize the environment so that any of our efforts to bring in different perspectives will be sustained; so everyone wants to stay at Penn [and] it’s not about specific groups or a specific gender…, but it’s everyone including [different] cultures.” To Dr. Higginbotham, inclusion at Penn must span a “broad landscape” that embraces people of all ethnicities, genders, religions, disabilities, sexual orientation, historical traditions (like first-time college graduates), and socioeconomic, veteran, and immigrant statuses. This is a refreshing view from a compassionate leader: “Being an African-American woman in academia, I [have] experience! I can’t say that…I’m a trained diversity professional, but I’ve lived the life. I know what it’s like to not only go through the process of building a scientific career (as well as a career in medicine) at many different levels, but I also… know what challenges are ahead.”
One of Dr. Higginbotham’s first initiatives was to evaluate Penn Medicine’s attitude toward promoting diversity, which she describes as “ready and receptive, but not proactive.” She believes the OID can provide the direction necessary and notes that “leadership really does make a difference in…galvanizing an organization to embrace change.” Now, after creating the OID, Larry Jameson (Dean of the School of Medicine) has incorporated “Inclusion and Diversity” as one of the Core Values of Penn Medicine, which reaffirmed to Dr. Higginbotham “that what we [in the OID] were trying to build was important to the institution.”
Evaluating the status of diversity in Penn Medicine
First, the OID began collecting and analyzing data to raise awareness of current unintentional
discrimination and to, hopefully, measure progress against it in the future. The OID has analyzed potential gender differences in salary and space allocation in basic science departments and found that while there is no gender bias in salary (Fig.1), there may be a male basis in allocating research space (Fig.2). This has started a dialogue about ensuring gender equity with the goal of measuring progress since this analysis will be updated and disseminated every two years.
The OID has also compiled and tracked the demographics of standing faculty since 2009 and reports the improved representation of women, all minorities, and historically underrepresented minorities in medicine (URM, defined as African American, Latino, and Native American) (Fig.3). While representation of URM has improved, URM populations remain grossly underrepresented when compared to the demographics of the national population; although Latinos comprise over 16% of the national population and African Americans 12%, at most only 7% of Penn faculty belong to either demographic.
Setting the foundation for a diverse faculty
The three goals of the OID are to Recruit, Retain, and Reaffirm and these goals are primarily aimed at generating a more diverse body of faculty. The emphasis on diversity at the faculty-level stems from the importance of having role models. As described by Iris Bohnet (the director of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School) to the Harvard Business Review3, “Being surrounded by role models who look like you can affect what you think is possible for people like you.” To this end, the OID is working to improve the recruitment process to attract diverse and talented candidates. First, the OID has streamlined the hiring process not only to make it more efficient, but also to enable Penn to be “nimble” during the recruitment process, which makes it more competitive when recruiting exceptional candidates. Second, the OID is exploring ways to make the recruitment process more objective to “mitigate any influence of bias.” Though these explorations are still underway, the OID is less focused on implementing diversity training (which has little evidence of success2) and instead favors an approach based on fostering a bias-free environment. However, how the characteristics of an inclusive environment are translated into objective metrics for recruitment remains under consideration.
Retaining talent: the OID’s vision for graduate students
The crux of the OID mission is to foster an inclusive environment that makes people (students, faculty, staff) want to stay at Penn. This desire is reflected in the second goal of the OID, Retain. This, of course, applies to retaining talented faculty, but it is also particularly focuses on the student experience. The ultimate goal is to bring talented individuals to Penn as Ph.D. or M.D. students and to provide such a supportive community that these individuals have no desire to leave – they would stay throughout their career trajectory to eventually become faculty. This concept, dubbed the Faculty Pipeline is graphically represented in Fig. 5 and remains one of Dr. Higginbotham’s proudest achievements at the OID. As previously discussed, separate entities that promote diversity already existed at Penn before the creation of the OID. However, Dr. Higginbotham envisions the OID as a partner that will “leverage what’s here and maybe try to fill in the gaps” in a coordinated effort to build a supportive community with longevity.
Engaging with the efforts of the OID
First and foremost, the OID website (http://www.med.upenn.edu/inclusion-and-diversity/) is a valuable resource. The OID cosponsors events, workshops, and seminars, has opportunities for funding, and publishes an annual report. In addition to the data displayed in Fig.1-3, the annual reports also include data on BGS matriculation demographics. Second, the OID launched the Diversity Engagement Survey in 2015, which was emailed to all of Penn Medicine, including BGS. The OID relies on this survey to gauge the climate and culture at Penn and urges all graduate students to participate! Finally, Dr. Higginbotham stresses that OID is open to all concerns, feedback, and suggestions and encourages students interested in engaging further to contact the OID through its website.
Works Cited:
1. http://www.med.upenn.edu/inclusion-and-diversity/assets/user-content/documents/OID_ANNUAL_REPORT_FINAL_2016.pdf
2. Graph courtesy of Seleeke Flingai, which was generated using US Census data on population demographics and self-reported BGS data from 2012: http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/volumes/v60/n16/pdf/minorityequity2013.pdf
3. https://hbr.org/2016/07/designing-a-bias-free-organization