April 3, 2009

Top UCSF Leadership to Report on April 13 on Diversity Efforts

UCSF’s top leaders will gather on Monday, April 13, for a forum on “Diversity: Accomplishments, Challenges and Plans for the Future.” The campus community is invited to hear and participate in the discussion from noon to 1:30 p.m. in Cole Hall on the Parnassus campus. The event will be simulcast to Byers Auditorium in Genentech Hall on the Mission Bay campus and to the Laurel Heights Auditorium. Nurturing diversity is cited as one of seven strategic directions in the UCSF Strategic Plan http://strategy.ucsf.edu, released in June 2007. The plan’s diversity goals include creating a more diverse campus community, ensuring that UCSF continues to attract the best and most diverse candidates for all educational programs, and improving diversity among senior leadership. Among the diversity-related efforts made over the past two years at UCSF are:

Developing and implementing an academic database to track faculty searches, applicant demographics, national availability data and current trends about existing faculty;
Introducing a leadership development program for staff in management positions to build the pipeline for future leaders at UCSF;
Conducting an inventory of existing campus outreach programs designed to increase the pool of students, postdoctoral scholars and faculty from diverse backgrounds, and making recommendations for improving the success and impact of UCSF’s outreach endeavors; and
Launching a diversity website that offers news and information and features video profiles to help foster understanding of and appreciation for individual differences.

A key component of the forum on April 13 is to offer faculty, staff and students an opportunity to give feedback to UCSF leaders and to ask questions. Questions for leaders in advance of the April 13 forum can be directed to [email protected]. This forum marks one of the few times each year that leaders representing both the University and the medical center are gathered in one place to discuss ways to enhance diversity across the University. “Working collectively with enhanced coordination, we can accomplish a great deal more to advance diversity,” said A. Eugene Washington, MD, executive vice chancellor and provost. “Diversity is integral to achieving UCSF’s goals of excellence in research, education, patient care and public service, and ultimately our mission of advancing health worldwide™.” Washington will join UCSF Chancellor Mike Bishop, MD, along with other leaders, in the panel discussion of progress made and ongoing challenges in creating a diverse campus community. The University of California refers to diversity as the variety of personal experiences, values and worldviews that arises from differences in culture and individual circumstance. Such differences include race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, language, abilities/disabilities, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and geographic origin, among others. Other panelists scheduled to take part in the diversity forum include, in alphabetical order:

Steve Barclay, senior vice chancellor
Patricia Calarco, PhD, dean, Graduate Division
Kathleen Dracup, RN, DNSc, dean, UCSF School of Nursing
John D.B. Featherstone, PhD, dean, UCSF School of Dentistry
Samuel Hawgood, MB, BS, chair of pediatrics and interim dean, UCSF School of Medicine
Ken Jones, interim chief operating officer, UCSF Medical Center
Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, PharmD, dean, UCSF School of Pharmacy
Randy Lopez, interim vice chancellor, Finance and Administration
Renee Navarro, MD, PharmD, director, Academic Diversity

The event is sponsored by the Office of Academic Diversity, Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Academic Diversity, Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Diversity, Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Disability Issues, Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Issues, Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Women, and the Office of Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity and Diversity.