Town Hall: Affirming our commitment to progress on DEI

[Joe Guglielmo]
Just a few announcements before we begin this town hall's primary topics. First congratulations to Deanna Kroetz as the new chair of the Department of Bioengineering Therapeutic Sciences. And as I congratulate Deanna, I very sincerely thank Tejal Desai who just stepped down after seven years leading the department.

[Joe Guglielmo]
While our attention has been on COVID, as you all know, I just want to remind you, however, that flu vaccinations are underway. And please see the Occupational Health Program website for information regarding UCSF flu shot clinics or submitting records from your local provider.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Okay, back to COVID. As of just a few minutes ago, UCSF Health had a total of 12 hospitalized COVID patients. And to give you a perspective, we've been as low as two, but we were well over 100. So we're in pretty good shape. Of those 12 hospitalized patients at this moment, 10 require ICU-level care. As I always tried to do there are some changes in the city and county of San Francisco that you may or may not be aware of. Literally today, the city said that it will partially lift its mask mandate, literally a week from tomorrow. And this is assuming that the local COVID cases and hospitalizations remain stable or decline over the next week. At that time, people may stop wearing masks at indoor spaces that require proof of vaccination. Those include gyms, offices, and places that hold small gatherings. However, they say as long as no children under 12 are present, and other ventilation and safety measures are in place.

[Joe Guglielmo]
The state still mandates that masking take place in schools and health care settings, and that remains in place indefinitely. Unvaccinated people must continue to wear masks in virtually all public indoor settings in accordance with state rules.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Lastly, as per the email that was just sent out from the dean's office earlier today, effective October the first, UCSF has some changes in its COVID policy. It has lifted its temporary ban on meetings and events. The highlights of the changes are the following. meetings and events with less than 50 in attendance are approved and managed by local departments. In this case, local department would be defined as the dean's office. And as per the previous email from today, depending on what kind of meeting we're talking about, the approval will either be by Associate Dean, Alesia Woods, or Vice Dean Sharon Youmans. Meetings and events with 50 or more in attendance does require Recovery Operation Center approval. And if you're going to have a meeting indoor, bottom line is, any indoor meeting will be limited in terms of individuals to 50% of the capacity of the room. Outdoor events obviously do not have space capacity limitations.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Lastly, still, non-UCSF guests, that means individuals who are not UCSF faculty, staff, and learners, must be fully vaccinated to attend or support an in person meeting or event. The campus is not currently open to the public, and non-UCSF guests and attendees do require visitor approval before arriving on campus.

[Joe Guglielmo]
As a reminder, last July, UCSF reinstated its indoor masking policy for everyone regarding regardless of vaccination status, so this policy is unchanged. Face coverings may only be removed while actively eating and drinking while indoors.

[Joe Guglielmo]
So now moving to our topical program. Our topical program will run in the following way. In a moment here I will pass the baton to Vice Dean Youmans, who will welcome our newest Dean. That will follow by Associate Dean Mitra Assemi, who will provide an overview of the accreditation visit which will take place in a couple of weeks here. And lastly, I will introduce our plans for the school's future DEI efforts.

[Joe Guglielmo]
To reiterate what I said before, questions and comments should take place via the Q&A function. And they are encouraged to take place associated with each of the presentations. So maybe after Mitra gives hers, please be bringing in questions about accreditation right then in there. Levi Gadye will be moderating and looking at those questions. Similarly, once I finished the DEI presentation, that would be the time to bring in questions and comments about DEI.

[Joe Guglielmo]
So now I'd like to pass the baton to Vice Dean Sharon Youmans, who will introduce you to our newest Dean, Dr. Youmans.

[Sharon Youmans]
Thank you, Dean Guglielmo. Good afternoon, everyone. It is my honor and pleasure to introduce and welcome our newest member to the School of Pharmacy community and newest member of our education leadership team, Pam Schultz, who will be serving as our Associate Dean for Student Affairs. We are thrilled to have her and she's very experienced and has worked at several universities. So I will turn it over to her for a few comments and introductions of herself. So please join me in welcoming Pam Schultz.

[Pam Schultz]
Thank you, Dr. Youmans. Thank you, everyone for the warm welcome I've received already. I just want to say what an honor it is to be part of the School of Pharmacy. And I'm looking forward to working with all of you and getting to know you more. As Dr. Youmans said, I have been with UCSF for four years and with UC Berkeley for almost eight years. So I have some experience in the UC system and student affairs. And in the meantime, if anyone needs to get in touch with me, my email is [email protected]. If you have any questions or just want to chat with me, please feel free to reach out. Again, thank you, and I look forward to being part of the experience in the learner experience as well.

[Sharon Youmans]
Thank you, Pam.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Let me if I may, first of all I want to thank you, Sharon, and a big welcome to you, Pam, we're really happy to have you. So now shifting gears. As I said, Associate Dean Mitra Assemi will now give us an overview of this year's accreditation efforts. And to repeat, after she finishes her presentation, Levi will field questions and comments regarding accreditation from participants. To repeat again, once the accreditation Q&A is complete, we will transition to the school plans regarding DEI and then follow the same process as we did for the accreditation. So please, Dean Assemi.

[Mitra Assemi]
Thank you Dean Guglielmo. We submitted our self study report in early September for re-accreditation of our doctor of pharmacy degree program in the School. That report and all the accompanying appendices, as well as documents that are required to be produced on site for a site visit are available in UCSF Box. So if you can't find your access, or don't believe that you have access, but you'd like to take a look at the report, and any one or more of the appendices or accompanying documents, please just reach out to myself and let me know and I or our accreditation coordinator, Cheryl Kane, out of the Dean's Office, will make sure that you have Box access and you can view and peruse those documents.

[Mitra Assemi]
I'd like to remind everybody that when we do produce a report like this, it is really a fantastic document and presents an opportunity for those of us that might be less familiar with certain facets of the School itself and its operations, and those of us less familiar with the PharmD program itself. It's really a great reference document to learn more about both those things, our School and that particular degree program. So it's meant to also be a resource for all of us as faculty, staff, administrators, and learners here at UCSF.

[Mitra Assemi]
The report findings itself: there were 25 standards that are evaluated, and for all but two standards, we found ourselves to be fully compliant. For the two standards that we felt monitoring could be warranted, that included a standard related to graduate outcomes, specifically licensure rates, and graduate placement. We are still in the process of collecting that information for the first graduating class out of the new curriculum, or three year program. And the second standard that we rated ourselves as perhaps requiring some monitoring would be related to our strategic plan. As we know, that plan spanned 2015 to 2020 and was extended an additional two years for various reasons. A new strategic plan and planning process will be part of the work of a future incoming Dean for the School.

[Mitra Assemi]
So those were the two areas with regards to the PharmD program and accreditation where we might want some monitoring.

[Mitra Assemi]
Now our site visit will be virtual, fully conducted over Zoom. It takes place Tuesday, October 26, all the way through Thursday, October 28. During that time, the site team evaluators will meet with various individuals and groups. So examples of groups that are called to meet with the team include school administrators, such as the Dean's leadership group, the Self Study Steering Committee, our standing committees in the School, the Admissions Executive Committee, our Curriculum Education Policy Committee, our Assessment and Evaluation team, our Committee on Academic Standards, and our subcommittee on student progression. There are individual faculty and individual third year or APPE students that have volunteered to meet with the group and have been scheduled for that. And the group will also meet with units such as Student Affairs, and representatives from our Office of Education and Instructional Services, as well as the Office of Experiential Education and others.

[Mitra Assemi]
So it's a jam packed two and a half days. It cumulates in an exit report to our Dean, followed by an exit report to Chancellor Hawgood on the team's preliminary findings. Everyone that's participating should have received Outlook calendar invitations for your scheduled meetings, as well as orientation sessions to help you prepare, mainly to orient you to what those meetings are about and feel comfortable, going into those meetings if you've never participated in a site visit before.

Unknown Speaker
Following our site visit, here's what the School can expect. The accreditation team will produce what's called an evaluation team report. In that report, they're basically validating our self study findings and highlighting any areas with which they might disagree. They might find we're doing better than we rated ourselves. They might have some areas where they feel that the program could use monitoring. But they'll generate that evaluation team report. And that gets sent back to the School's dean. The School has an opportunity to review and correct any factual inaccuracies with that report. That usually will for us happen several weeks after the visit, so sometime in late November, early December. Following that period, that report, the ETR, plus the evaluation team's action and recommendations will be forwarded to the accrediting board of directors, so ACPE's board of directors, for their January 2022 meeting. At that meeting, the board of directors will vote on the accreditation outcomes and status for the program, including any monitoring that they will request or require of the program. And the School will receive notification of those outcomes in late January, early February.

[Mitra Assemi]
Following the virtual site visit and that feedback for the school next January, February, because these site visits are virtual, the US Department of Education does require the accreditors to conduct what's called a verification visit. Essentially it's a one day, or slightly longer depending on the program and what it's warranted, it's an on-site touchdown by an ACPE staff member and an additional member of the original site evaluation team to simply verify that what they're finding in person on site aligns with what they found in the virtual site visit experience, and that the actions and recommendations are still valid based on an on-site visit. So we won't get any more information about that until the ACPE board provides that when the opportunity and time for on site visits returns. And I'd be happy to take any questions that anyone may have about the accreditation process or report, including our site visit coming up here at the end of October.

[Joe Guglielmo]
So it doesn't appear that there are any questions at this time. But if anyone has anything come up during the rest of the town hall, feel free to submit them to the Q&A, and we can address it at the end. So thanks, Mitra. Back to you, Joe.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Thank you, Levi. And thank you, Mitra.

[Joe Guglielmo]
All right, hopefully you all see this. So the next part of this really is relating to the School of Pharmacy's DEI vision and objectives. So I'm gonna take a few minutes. And, just like we said before, when I'm done, and it should be no more than 10 minutes, I welcome comments and questions that, again, Levi will manage for us and monitor.

[Joe Guglielmo]
So let me first give a little bit of background to the group. And that is, how did this all come to be, this Gallup sort of poll issue, or this Gallup survey, and DEI efforts in the campus? Well, the background is, in this past June, the Chancellor's cabinet, at the meeting, they reviewed the Gallup results for the various schools and other units. And what after, with assistance from what's called the UCSF Engagement Action Lab, the Chancellor determined that the Gallup results would focus upon the organizational priority of diversity, equity and inclusion. So what is the mandate from the Chancellor? It's that each unit, so called the School of Pharmacy a unit, must develop a clear statement around DEI vision with associated priorities.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Well, it's one thing to have a vision, which I would argue, a vision is something that is aspirational, it is something that we hope to achieve. It's pretty much I guess, our North Star, so to speak, in DEI. The real key is the next one, that is, you must, we must have deliverable, measurable objectives using the Gallup context, to show that we are doing better or worse or the same. And frankly, these data are going to be disseminated up the ladder to the chancellor, and therefore progress with these objectives must be monitored.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Now, if you're like me, I was a little bit confused how Gallup and DEI come together. I'll go to a slide that I put together that I guess tells me the way I look at this issue. Let me remind you all Gallup is really a survey that is intended to measure engagement. I think it's a good thing. It's one of many tools, I think that we can learn about engagement. One thing I don't like about it, it's not completely inclusive, in my opinion, faculty should be part of Gallup as well, and they're not, it's a staff survey. And, then DEI, of course, is a very large bucket of initiatives or potential initiatives. And so the way I look at it, these do not superimpose each other. There are a number of issues in Gallup as it relates to engagement that I think have nothing to do with DEI. And there's a whole lot of things in the DEI umbrella that have nothing to do with Gallup. But it turns out for the moment, it is that intersection between Gallup and DEI that we're really focusing on to at least get this ball rolling. I would argue DEI should move forward, and we should acknowledge what we've done or not done, independent of Gallup results.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Okay with that editorial comment, I'll continue on. So you all have seen this vision, it's been sent out for a few weeks now. What I will do is read it to you. And it says the following. We value and respect all members of the School, we celebrate differences, and welcome all voices to shape culture, policy, and outcomes. We advance our diversity, equity and inclusion goals through transparency, shared responsibility, and continuous improvement.

[Joe Guglielmo]
If I were to take the statement, I think what we were all trying to say is, if we said it even shorter, we completely embrace PRIDE values. But that last comment is the one that's key and that's what makes it aspirational. And that is there should be continuous improvement as relates DEI, I would argue that we have not done enough in the way of continuous improvement at the present. And that, therefore makes it aspirational, makes it I think, a good vision statement, something for us to aspire.

[Joe Guglielmo]
So in order to aspire to something, we kind of need to know where we're going. But first, I thought I would give you a little bit of input. I received some written input from a few folks. I'm going to talk them through with you. Here were some of the suggested modifications. One, individuals asked that we incorporate the word education. Well, I mean, that's a very reasonable thing to consider. And it's something we haven't decided one way or another. The only thing I will say, if we were going to incorporate the word education, why not the word research, why not the word patient care, and so on. So you know, we will struggle with that and figure out whether that fits or does not.

[Joe Guglielmo]
A second modification said, I recall, at the end of the quote, the vision quote, it said that we will have shared responsibility and commit to continuous improvement. Well, the recommendation here was "which we will evaluate using quantitative metrics." I will say on that one, that is also a very reasonable thing. But I will tell you, it's an absolute that we're going to use quantitative metrics, because I do not believe that we can actually demonstrate continuous improvement in terms of where we were versus where we will go to if we didn't use some sort of quantitative metrics. But again, point taken and we will consider that.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Another suggested that we add in the idea that there should be lifelong learning with DEI. Again, can't disagree with that, either. But whether it becomes part of a vision statement, hard to know, it seems like a lot of what's already in there, especially if we believe in continuous improvement in this area, we would hope, would embrace people that have lifelong learning as an aspiration.

[Joe Guglielmo]
And the last one was, at the very beginning of that statement, it said we value and respect all members of the school. And the suggestion was, how about and the patients we care for? Well, again, all these are good recommendations. One would argue here that if we respect all members of the School and the entire mission of the School, that should include the patients we care for. But again, we will try to finalize. But those were the primary suggested modifications that were received by the dean's office.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Okay, now, in order to go somewhere to improve on what you're doing, you got to know where you are. And I thought, and here I give credit to Liana Crosby, who has compiled a massive document of DEI efforts in the school. And I'm just going to share a few of them with you. But you'll get an idea of where we are and therefore where we should be going. So here, if you took the PharmD program as an example, and this is not intended to be patting the School on the back in any way, it's just that we do need to know what have we or have we not done to allow us to know how we're objectively going to improve. So here are a few. In the PharmD program, we had last year's Anti-Racist Curriculum Taskforce. In addition, for a couple years now we've had the Health Equity Curriculum Internship. We have the very robust post-baccalaureate program that Sharon Youmans deserves the lion's share of credit for that has been an important source of diversity for our PharmD students at UCSF. In the graduate division, in terms of programs that somewhat around the umbrella School of Pharmacy, off the top of my head, there's B stem and Chase Webb, a PhD student in PSPG, deserves the majority of credit on this, this is really directed toward black students in the graduate division. And not only has he been leading but Chase, we're proud of him, he is the recipient of the Chancellor's Award for Diversity, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership, and he will receive that award in a couple of weeks.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Another example, is the bioengineering graduate program. Everything from their bylaws to service awards to recruitment fairs, is centered on DEI. And then I thought I would mention Ryan Hernandez's lead propel program, which is very similar to the post-bac program I described, but this is one, to in fact, do similar sorts of things, create opportunities for those maybe that didn't put their best foot forward before to get into graduate programs. And good for Ryan for his leadership on that.

[Joe Guglielmo]
We have STEM pipeline programs here. I will call out Emma Gunderson for the BAYS program. This is middle school children who get to learn about science in the real world setting. And a lot of our faculty have opened their laboratories to these students to see what it's like to be a scientist. A lot of staff programs are out there. PharmChem has a DEI Staff Committee with monthly conversations. There is a DEI build community grant program. Clinical Pharmacy has monthly faculty and staff training in this area. The Dean's Office has had something we call Continuing the Conversation, which has been a monthly get-together among interested parties to talk about racism, injustice, DEI initiatives, and so on.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Now, lastly, faculty. Many, many individual faculty have been involved in faculty-specific DEI initiatives and they're everywhere from the wet lab to outreach. And I just named a few. Nadav, Esteban, Jin, Kathy Giacomini, Su, Matt, Ryan, Stephanie Hsia, Deanna, Nevin, Shuvo, Rada, Jason Sello, Sharon, and Crystal, just to name a few. And then I need to call out Tejal Desai, who, like Chase Webb, she is a awardee for the Chancellor's Award for Diversity. Specifically, she is the faculty awardee for the Chancellor Award for Diversity for the Advancement of Women.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Now, the intent of these three slides was not to pat the School of Pharmacy on the back. It's to let you know that we do have things going on, we don't communicate them very well as some have said to me, and I agree with that. But the main thing is I showed these because while all these are good initiatives, they all can get better. And there's a number of things we haven't done, we haven't even scratched the surface. So the intent was to give you a sense of that.

[Joe Guglielmo]
So I'm going to close my comments to go, Okay, what are the next steps? What you all can expect is the Dean's Office will contact each unit, we will reaffirm the vision statement. And then the important part will be, it's one thing to reaffirm the vision statement. But now what are you going to do about it. And there must be actionable DEI objectives. What is appropriate DEI objectives for one unit may not be for another. The key is that you develop them, at least. They must be clear, they must be objective, they must be measurable, they must be monitored, and there must be a timeline attached to it. What will happen is the Dean's Office will collate these data, it will be sent straight to the Chancellor's cabinet and the Chancellor's executive team. And again, accountability will take place in terms of our efforts. So that is where we are at the present time. Now, I will stop sharing screen and I welcome comments and questions and Levi, I'll have you moderate those questions as you see fit.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Right, and actually Joe if you could share your screen again and put the statement back up.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Give me a second.

[Joe Guglielmo]
So if anyone has any additional comments or questions as the Q&A proceeds, feel free to put them into the Q&A box. So the first one is a comment from Katherine Krebs. Just saying that she thinks the word education could mean "educate our community about DEI issues." So maybe that's something to consider with the statement. Joe, do you have any comments on that?

[Joe Guglielmo]
No, I think that's a real good point. I guess what I'd say is that I think, Katherine, thank you, Katherine, for your comment on. Perhaps education is not really what you're saying. You're saying that we need to be more active with the community as a partner, in all ways, and that may be education, but it may be many other types of partnerships, something that again, the School of Pharmacy could do a lot more. So thank you for that comment, Katherine.

[Joe Guglielmo]
The next is a comment from an anonymous attendee, and it says, I'm using the word "all" reads like "all lives matter" to me, I understand the sentiment, but perhaps that is something to think about.

[Joe Guglielmo]
I think that's an excellent comment too. In fact, it resonates with me, we will absolutely think about that. You do understand, we're trying to show inclusivity here for everybody. That's part of the School, but I completely understand what that anonymous individual suggested, thank you for that. Thank you for your sensitivity.

[Joe Guglielmo]
And the next one also kind of riffs off the same thing, stating, if we are inclusive and consider all ideas, do those include ones that may be oppressive or discriminatory to other people and or their identities? And I guess, how might we handle that?

[Joe Guglielmo]
Well, I thank you for that. That, if such things, such comments, as was just stated, is part of our fabric, that is not part of what this vision statement suggests. In fact that would be a very low bar that we would need to improve on frankly. So I would say we need to call out that type of action and word. It's inconsistent with PRIDE values, and completely inconsistent with the intent of the vision statement. However, I respect the comment that was made. I certainly know that this School, like all Schools has a long way to go. And there's little doubt that we have some ugliness that we must address as well, in order for us to take these steps forward and really aspire, as I said, to continuous improvement for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

[Joe Guglielmo]
And the last one is a little more about the fiscal situation. So funding is measurable. What type of long term fiscal support will be offered to units?

[Joe Guglielmo]
Well, that again, every single comment or question has been an excellent one. My reaction to that is, first of all, I would argue, the ultimate evidence that an institution is committed to DEI is, do they put their money where their mouth is, so I'm in agreement with that. I can't tell you what that will be. I will say as an example of that, and I don't know if Dr. Youmans is still around, but the post-baccalaureate program that we invest in, you may or may not as one example of many that we should do, but this is one that's tangible to what the question was, you may or may not know. But that post-bac program, bringing these students into the School of Pharmacy, it costs those students like $35,000 for that year or something like that. And the School of Pharmacy is the only school on campus that provides offsets. And that offset ranges between $7500 to $15,000 per student. Now, that was not intended to be a pat on the back comment. But I have always felt that, that is the ultimate evidence that in fact, a unit really is committed to that. So yes, I do believe there would need to be financial commitment. I can't say there'll be financial commitment to all units in all ways. But I do believe that, that is again, that's putting your money where your mouth is. Thank you.

[Joe Guglielmo]
And this appears to be the last comment on this topic. It states yes, some accountability for this ugliness may be important to mention in the statement.

[Joe Guglielmo]
So if I understand that question, you're saying, highlight, acknowledge that we maybe have not done what we should, you know, in so many words, and then lead into the aspirational part. I'm assuming that's what that means so thank you. That's a good consideration. I will be working with my leadership team and add that as well among the possibilities, so thank you.

[Joe Guglielmo]
And just one last comment from Joel which is asking that we pat ourselves on the back for the financial support of the postbac program.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Thank you, Joel. I appreciate that. And thank you, Joel, for everything you do in this area.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Alright, so that appears to be it for the DEI Q&A. Do you want to provide concluding remarks?

[Joe Guglielmo]
Yes. So yeah, now, we welcome any questions from anybody on anything that Levi will field as they come in.

[Joe Guglielmo]
We'll give you just 30 more seconds and see if anything comes in. And if nothing Does, does, we're going to give you 12 minutes back to your life.

[Levi Gadye]
All right, nothing's come in.

[Joe Guglielmo]
Okay, well, I think I think all of you, I think, I welcome again, Associate Dean Schultz to the School. I welcome, once again, Deanna Kroetz, into her chair ship. I thank Mitra, for her presentation on accreditation. And I thank all of you for your comments regarding these efforts, not only on this town hall meeting, but frankly, all the comments and feedback we've received over these weeks. And we'll do our best to accommodate as many as possible and make that statement as good as it could be. I think the real proof will be though, to really reinforce it, every one of our respective units creates those objectives that are absolutely clear, measurable, time related, and in fact, monitored very closely. And I ask for all your help and support moving that forward. With that, I wish you good health, go get vaccinated for the flu and enjoy a little bit more liberal, I guess, lifestyle with San Francisco and the campus opening things up a little bit. But remember what the state is still suggesting, not suggesting, mandating, and I think stick with that and certainly stick with what UCSF is telling you. But it looks good at UCSF Health as I said. So anyway, enough of that. Have a good rest of your day. I thank you all for your participation. Have a good evening.