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School of Medicine & Dentistry / Academic Affairs / Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

All of us at URMC are working to continually reaffirm and implement our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), including support of the Equity and Anti-Racism Action Plan (EARAP). Here is a summary of how the SMD Office of Academic Affairs, in collaboration with the Office of Equity & Inclusion, Human Resources, and many others, is supporting our faculty in these crucial efforts. You also will find below links to relevant resources.

Pronouns

Faculty now have the option to display their pronouns on their eCV (which in turn will display the pronouns on the individual faculty web profile).

DEI Activities on the CV

In addition to pronouns, guidance regarding the general SMD CV template (as a Word document) now includes an annotated version of the CV showing how activities that foster DEI may be included on the CV. Some may prefer to list all such activities together under a single DEI heading, while others may prefer to list those activities in other corresponding sections (e.g., teaching efforts in collaboration with community leaders might be listed in the Education section of the CV); the annotations show both approaches.

DEI Activities in the Promotions Process

Faculty with academic appointments being considered for promotion to senior ranks (i.e., Associate Professor or Professor) are reviewed on the basis of selected ‘activity components’: Clinical, Teaching, Scholarship, Institutional Scholarship, and/or Research, along with Service/Leadership/National Recognition. Annotations are now provided to help show how DEI activities may satisfy the promotions criteria for each of these domains.

Self-Assessment of DEI in the Promotions Process

For faculty with academic appointments being considered for promotion to senior ranks (i.e., Associate Professor or Professor), a self-assessment of DEI now may be provided alongside the self-assessments of teaching and (as applicable) clinical or scholarship/ research. Initially the DEI self-assessment is optional, so we can learn how to help faculty structure this to be of maximum usefulness, but we expect to make it required in the near future.

Other improvements regarding DEI in the Promotions Process

Letter templates have been modified to help department chairs highlight DEI activities in their letters to the dean’s office recommending promotion, and to ask potential referee letter-writers to highlight DEI activities in their letters to the department chair.

DEI in the faculty annual review template

To encourage recognition and consideration of DEI activities in ongoing faculty career development, the annual review process (whether done via MyPath or as a Word document) calls out DEI activities in reviewing the past year’s accomplishments and in setting goals for the coming year.

Improved Processes for Annual Reviews

To better standardize the quality of mentoring and career advice provided during the annual reviews, we require all departments to use the same set of leaders to do the annual reviews for all their faculty members – the department chair, center director, and (in larger departments) designated leaders such as vice or associate chairs or division chiefs.

Holistic Review Pilot

The SMD is part of a pilot program from the Association of American Medical Colleges to apply holistic review (already in use by a number of our training programs to assess trainee applicants) to faculty recruitment. Lessons learned from the pilot will be shared and, as helpful, adopted by other departments across the School.

Faculty Hiring Process

The faculty recruitment best practices toolkit provides a number of methods to improve the size and quality of the candidate pool and to standardize the assessment of these candidates in line with the experience, attributes, skill sets, and accomplishments desired by the hiring department.  The toolkit also includes guidance regarding a DEI statement, now required of all faculty candidates.

Adoption of these methods by the departments will be facilitated by a new URMC faculty recruitment office in collaboration with the Office of Human Resources.  A search for the faculty recruitment office's first director is in progress.

 

Confidential Demographic Data Provided to Department Chairs

As part of helping the chairs chart the progress of the departments toward diversity goals, group data regarding faculty in each department were recently given to each chair and will be updated and redistributed annually. It’s important to note that these data are grouped and anonymized so as to not reveal information about any individual faculty member; as well, the data will not be shared with others. Nonetheless, having this information will help the chairs be accountable for identifying and making progress toward departmental diversity goals.

Leadership Reviews

The department chairs and center directors are incorporating DEI activities and goals even more prominently into their regular discussions and reviews with the Dean and Vice Deans, in addition to the longer-standing practice of doing so in the broader internal reviews that take place toward the end of each leadership appointment term.

  • The SMD Faculty Professionalism Council is completing its second full academic year of operation. Created to promulgate professionalism among our faculty in keeping with our ICARE values and expected behaviors, the goals include support of an inclusive workplace culture. More information about the FPC is provided on the SMD Faculty Professionalism Council website.
  • The UR-wide policy against discrimination and harassment (PADH) is being revised, advised by a committee that includes representation from SMD faculty and faculty leadership. Concerns about any member of the University community related to this policy are brought to the Office of Equity and Inclusion, which decides whether a formal investigation under the policy is warranted. If a formal investigation is not launched by the OEI, the concerns are referred back to the originating area for resolution — which, if SMD faculty member(s) are implicated, means the resolution becomes the purview of the SMD FPC.