In 1968, the University of Pennsylvania pioneered a formal structure to recruit and
support students of color in the Perelman School of Medicine, creating the Office for Minority Affairs, believed to be the country’s first diversity office at a medical school.
The innovation spread, so that nowadays medical schools tend to have an office promoting diversity — a broader, more current term that encompasses other groups besides racial-ethnic minorities. In 2007, Penn’s medical school renamed its own initiative the Office for Diversity and Community Outreach.
At the end of the last academic year, though, the medical school dismantled the pioneering office, ousted its two long-serving administrators and reorganized diversity activities into the Program for Diversity and Inclusion, led by faculty members. A national search is underway for a vice dean for diversity and multicultural affairs.
Penn’s medical school says it is once again taking a leap into the future, just as it did in 1968, this time by putting faculty members in charge of diversity efforts and aligning those efforts more closely with student recruitment and support.
“Prior to our reorganization, our programs were successful but lacked the breadth of inclusion required by today’s pool of students, and also did not consistently offer direct connection with faculty who could best advise applicants and existing students on how best to navigate medical school and subsequent training opportunities,” says Dr. Gail Morrison, the school’s vice dean for education.
But Perelman for Diversity, a group of Penn medical students, argues the changes amount to “a huge leap backwards.” They collected more than 1,000 signatures on an online petition in an unsuccessful attempt to reverse the reorganization and bring back the old office’s administrators. The director had worked there for 30 years.
