Campus Anti-Racism Initiative – Equity and Inclusion Speaker Series

[Sharon Youmans]
Hello and welcome to today’s session of the Equity and Inclusion Speaker Series. This ongoing series aims to explore issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion in the School of Pharmacy and brainstorm ways to address these issues. Today’s discussion will range from campus level Anti-Racism Initiative to actionable measures we can take today in our School. I am thrilled to introduce our guest speakers, Dr. LaMisha Hill, and Tiffani Chan, both from the UCSF Office of Diversity and Outreach, or ODO. Dr. LaMisha Hill serves as the ODO’s Director of Multicultural Affairs. She oversees the Multicultural Resource Center, which focuses on celebrating diversity, social justice initiatives and membership for historically underrepresented learners. She leads ODO’s diversity educational efforts, facilitating workshops and presentations across the UCSF community. Dr. Hill is also an assistant adjunct professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences. Tiffani Chan is the manager for the Anti-Racism Initiative at ODO. Prior to this role, she was the project manager at ODO supporting various DEI programs and initiatives, including the Foundations of DEI Training, Advancing Excellence in Staff Recruitment, Chancellor Awards for Diversity, and Diversity and Inclusion Staff Certificate Program. She is currently a steering committee member for the American Pacific Asian System Wide Alliance, and the Asian Pacific Asian Islander Coalition at UCSF. Dr. Hill and Tiffani will first give us an overview of the UCSF Anti Racism Initiative. They will then lead a discussion about how each of us as individuals can grow and learn and provide advice on how we can all contribute to an anti-racist climate at UCSF. Before we begin the session, if you have any questions, please drop them in the Q&A window. The chat will be disabled, and we will answer the questions at the end of the session. Now I’m going to turn it over to Dr. Hill. And thank you to both of you for your contributions today.

[LaMisha Hill]
Thank you Dr. Youmans and much appreciation to all who are attending, taking time out of your busy schedule and your noon lunch hour, I always get the lunch hour. So holding attention is something that I’m pretty good at. It’s a little bit difficult today because I can’t see you all but I am going to do my best to reach out to you across this virtual platform and connect. So I’m going to ask my colleague Tiffani if you want to go ahead and take yourself off, on video and then we can also share the slides.

[Tiffani Chan]
Hello, everyone. I will be speaking with you more later and let me start the slide deck for us.

[LaMisha Hill]
Thank you Tiffany. So in the spirit of giving honor and recognition, one of the existing best practices and something that we are making an effort to implement and demonstrate and model here at UCSF is a land recognition. And so we want to give honor recognition and acknowledge the Ramaytush Ohlone people who are the traditional custodians of this land. We pay our respects to the Ramaytush Ohlone elders, both past, present and future, who call this place, the land that UCSF sits upon, their home. We are proud to continue their tradition of coming together and welcoming them and others in a joint effort to be more inclusive and respectful. We thank the Ramaytush Ohlone community for their stewardship and support and we look forward to strengthening our ties as we continue our relationship of mutual respect and understanding.

[Tiffani Chan]
Thank you, LaMisha. Before we start the presentation, we’d like to do a little bit of survey just to get your understanding of the topic of anti-racism, and about the Anti Racism Initiative at UCSF. So I’m going to switch gears a little bit and use the poll EV to get your answers. And the poll EV link is on the slide that I will show in just a second. I’m going to stop share. Okay, so let’s get started. If you can see at the very top you can go to pollEV.com/TiffaniChan. And that’s how we answer. That’s how you can get your, put your response in. And the first question is, how well do you understand the term antiracism? And we’d like to answer in the scale of one to five, one as sort of, I only have heard about it, and I don’t know much, to five, is I am an expert [with] knowledge in that term.

[Tiffani Chan]
Still moving. I’m going to give maybe another 10 to 15 more seconds for your answers. And then we’ll move on to the next question, which is also the last question.

[Tiffani Chan]
All righty, well, it looks like the majority is three. Oh, there’s a little bit of shift. Still hasn’t changed much. But LaMisha, do you have any comments about this?

[LaMisha Hill]
No, I think we’ll, we’ll get there, Tiffani, when we go through our learning objectives.

[Tiffani Chan]
So just remember, we are about I understand that term well enough. And I’m still learning great to know good job, School of Pharmacy. Next question, which will be the last question before we move into the presentation. And you can stay on the poll. Oh, you already got there? How much do you know about the Anti-Racism Initiative?

[Tiffani Chan]
Okay, maybe another 10 more seconds before we stop this poll. All right. Well, thank you very much for your answers. We’re good. We’re happy to know where you’re at. And we hope that you’ll learn a lot from our presentation today. I’m going to give it back to LaMisha. We have one more question that we may see from the poll that we’ll ask towards the end of the presentation. LaMisha, back to you.

[LaMisha Hill]
Thank you, Tiffani. So really the purpose of coming together and asking you all this is just with the acknowledgement that as a campus community, we have been doing a lot of work particularly over the last 10 years plus, with the sort of the emerging presence of the Office of Diversity and Outreach. But we also recognize that in many ways we went from diversity, equity, inclusion, and a little bit of belonging. And then there was a shift right into a new term for many, anti-racism. And so while, we can break down the word with the context clues, I think it’s also important, and it’s been important for me and also for Tiffani to recognize, wait a minute, it’s a significant shift. And we want to make sure that people understand what that shift is about, where it comes from, and the heart and the essence of the word, and how better to embody the practice.

[LaMisha Hill]
And so what we’re going to do today is give you a little bit of a history, and a background of how we got here with regards to our DEI initiatives and work. Tiffani is going to going to be the expert for the day and go over specifically the Anti-Racism Initiative. And then I want to just have a conversation with you all about committing to change. And we’ll leave a little bit of time for Q&A. So hopefully, we can have some engaging dialogue together.

[LaMisha Hill]
All right. So prior to the Office of Diversity and Outreach, so which is sort of the last sort of element that you’ll see on this timeline, with regards to the history of diversity at UCSF, it is very, very important, particularly that all of our staff, and our community recognizes and understands the pivotal role that the Black Caucus played at UCSF and the legacy of the UCSF janitor strike. And so back in 1968, and this sort of coincided with civil rights efforts that were happening across the country. And despite UCSF, being in California not positioned in the South, policies and practices still created many differential experiences for staff of color, and particularly Black-identified staff. They informally dubbed themselves as the basement people. And this was because that while not under formal Jim Crow segregation, if a Black or African American staff member was serving food in the cafeteria, and it was time for them to eat lunch at Moffett Hall, and you all have all been there, they had to go all the way down to the basement, and eat their lunch. If they were cleaning any of the high level hospital floors, providing different support and services throughout the campus community, and they needed to use the restroom, they had to go all the way to the basement. So these individuals who were perhaps not the most resourced financially, but were resourced, deeply, deeply well, in resilience and spirit, came together and went on strike and advocated for change and change not only for their own lived experiences and working conditions, but advocated for change that we continue to benefit from today. So we always want to give honor and recognition to the janitor strike, the basement people, and the Black Caucus at UCSF, which actually became the first staff affinity group, or staff group of color, in some of those spaces, they call these employee resource groups. In all of these the system, and from there, many other diversity related activities, gave birth and gave rise.

[LaMisha Hill]
So as I mentioned, the Office of Diversity and Outreach was founded in 2010. And so what we can see is that there’s absolutely many diversity initiatives. Whether that was before the Black Caucus, recognizing the critical and pivotal moment that the janitor strike played, but also with the legacy of the intersection between health equity, health disparities, and health back access. UCSF has always played a role. If we think about the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and other places where our physicians and our researchers and our staff community have gone above and beyond to create access to care. In terms of some of the more student-facing work, just want to acknowledge that the Multicultural Resource Center was established in 2012, 2013. Really out of direct student services, direct student activism, direct student action. And I’m going to pivot back just one because I can’t talk about the MRC without acknowledging our sibling resource center, which is the LGBT Resource Center, which also sits within the Office of Diversity and Outreach. And the LGBT Resource Center is the first and oldest LGBT resource center in any health science institution. And for a long time before more community-based resources existed in San Francisco, like the center, and all the amazing events that are there for the community. The LGBT Resource Center at UCSF served a pivotal role in providing access and support services for LGBT community and allies in San Francisco proper. Now we’re a little bit more institution facing. But that is something that we do want to honor recognize.

[LaMisha Hill]
So in terms of critical diversity events, I do want to acknowledge that in 2014, there was something really remarkable that happened. And that was the White Coats for Black Lives Die-In. And I’m going to talk about that a little bit more. So Tiff, why don’t we go ahead and move forward into some particular moments in recent history. So as I mentioned, MRC was founded in 2012. And then in 2013, we had the what I like to refer to one of the first waves of, particularly, the movement for black lives, or #BlackLivesMatter, which was founded by Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi. And their founding of this movement was really in response to the murders of Eric Garner, and Michael Brown, and many others that went unrecognized, unnoticed, and unaddressed. And so in this critical, pivotal moment, it was sort of an awakening across the country. And I remember where I was living in downtown Oakland at the time. And coming forward, what occurred really, really quickly after that, it was our students who got together. And if I’m gonna ask you to advance the slide. They were the ones who got together to say, actually talking about justice for black lives, talking about the intersections of police violence and gun violence is actually a public health issue, and not just a social justice issue, and something that we actually should be engaging with here at UCSF.

[LaMisha Hill]
And so they organized under the umbrella White Coats for Black Lives. And they hosted a die-in demonstration. And this is a photo from that event in 2014. And not only did they organize a critical movement here at UCSF, but they also organized over 80 medical schools across the country, to come together and begin to further address the role that health sciences plays in health justice and health advocacy. From the White Coats for Black Lives, Die-In, it gave the opportunity and the creation and really the growth of the Differences Matter Initiative. And so here, as the students shifted their attention, leadership also shifted their attention. And we came together to say, Okay, what, what can we be doing, we can do more. And so they launched the differences matter initiative within the School of Medicine, and also partnered with the Office of Diversity and outreach, and many other campus departments to really create a more multifaceted approach and an initiative designed to address equity and inclusion across a number of different pillars throughout the system. And these are really, really critical and pivotal events. But as we know, what happened most recently, with regards to 2020, COVID-19. And being in a place of sheltering in place, while also things were happening across the world, particularly the murder of George Floyd.

[LaMisha Hill]
A rise in anti-Asian hate and violence, and disparities that were in impacting morbidity and mortality rates, across communities of color, particularly the BIPOC, or Black, indigenous and other people of color. And so it’s a critical moment, if you think about it, I think about it oftentimes, like a spiral staircase, right. So while we were here, once in 2014, with the movement for Black lives, and it’s the first time that, really, that phrase was echoed, and the level of response, and I would say dissonance and difficulty holding and centering the need to address not only racism, but particularly anti- Black racism. And so the hope is, and I feel like in many ways, what we’ve seen is that there’s more of an acceptance to understand that we can do both-and, in the sense of spotlighting different communities. But we also have to recognize that there are critical events and themes that impact people differentially, and we can hold space for that too, right.

[LaMisha Hill]
And so from there, even though we were navigating a pandemic, as a health science institution, and I just always want to acknowledge all of our colleagues who showed up, right, and put them themselves, not only in harm’s way, but also under, just, probably one of the most significant amounts of stress that anyone could ever encounter, right, working through a pandemic. And I think people are still navigating the aftershocks and after-effects. But here we see again more solidarity and more recognition in terms of the demonstrations and the response to the second iteration of movement for black lives in 2020.

[LaMisha Hill]
And so all of that coming together, gave a secondary pivot. And one of the things that UCSF had the opportunity to do was host, a presidential chair and scholar. And so Dr. Camara Jones has been holding that role. She was a physician, a public health change agent, an all-around dynamic change maker in the world. And in her work, she has brought more attention to the constructs of race and racism, and how they’re embedded systemically. And our campus community, along with Vice Chancellor, Dr. Navarro, and other leaders across the campus community, thought really fully about the need to pivot and to reground and recommit in the spirit of anti-racism.

[LaMisha Hill]
And so before we get to anti-racism, part of it is understanding what is racism. And so this is a definition offered by Dr. Jones, that reads, "racism is a system of structuring opportunity and assigning value based on the social interpretation of how one looks, which is what we call race, that unfairly disadvantages some individuals and communities, unfairly advantages other individuals and communities, and saps the strength of the whole society through the waste of human resources." And so perhaps, if you have not heard the term before, race is indeed a social construct, a very ancient practice, a very old practice that is deeply, deeply particularly embedded in our Western, American context, right. And so the sorting and organizing of individuals based on their phenotypic characteristics, their skin tone, complexion, other sort of visible characteristics, whether it’s their eye color, the shape of their facial features, their location from perhaps where their ancestors have come from in the world, and the languages they speak, which does not honor, actually, ethnicity and heritage.

[LaMisha Hill]
It is a very, very archaic sorting, an organizing, right. But not only does it happen on an individual or system basis, it gets embedded in policies and systems and practices, embedded in our legal system, embedded in opportunities. And so because in many ways, I strongly believe we have not really come to a reckoning of addressing not only race, but racism. And so while we can move forward and try to fast forward to seeing people and trying to show up equitably, without addressing the harm and the ways that racism is embedded structurally, we will never quite be able to move fully forward, you’ll be tethered to the system’s structural racism and oppression. Thanks, Tiffani, for keeping me on track. Structural racism is a complex system by which racism is developed, maintained, and protected, ultimately perpetuating racial and other forms of inequities. Again, public policy, that looks like education, policing, criminal justice, housing, redlining. And so on the surface, you may be able to say, well, hmm, I wonder why people of different communities are, are sort of clustered together, or how things have emerged over time. And then we have rhetorics and dog whistles, right? They get to the myth of meritocracy, and the myth of the American dream, structurally, illegally. And even now we see the crisis that’s happening in Eastern Europe, and you’re in the Ukraine. And the, I would say, appropriate and beautiful response to support individuals who are, are defined as refugees, right? However, that same level of demonstration has not been given to other individuals from other war-torn places who’ve experienced the same, if not other, sort of parallels of violence in the world. And so it is to acknowledge that the policies that govern how people have access to care, life, liberty, freedom, and opportunity is deeply important.

[LaMisha Hill]
And I’ll just say because we’re an institution, we are not exempt from this, right. So we can talk at a mile-high level and look at the world and look at society. But really, with regards to the intersection of COVID-19 and particularly anti-Black racism and other forms of racialized harm that have happened and that we have to attend to. It also is a requirement that we look at ourselves, right. We are a very large system, the second largest employer in San Francisco behind the city and county itself, and we are not exempt. We are not exempt from policies, practice, attitudes, and behaviors, that differentially advantage or subjugate individuals. And so the Anti-Racism Initiative was launched with the intention of centering the voices of Black-identified folks and other members of communities, I like to say, resilient communities, so that we can better address the things that are often less visible, speak more intentionally to the efforts that we’re trying to make, and advance our conversations in a way that people can receive, right, and reduced defensiveness. So I’m going to pass it over to Tiffani, who’s going to talk through what exactly is the Anti-Racism Initiative?

[Tiffani Chan]
Thanks, LaMisha. I know, based on the survey, a lot of you have known something about it, but not a whole lot. And I’m here to provide all the details you need to know what the Anti-Racism Initiative is about, as far as what we are doing in ODO, collaborating with many different partners and groups at UCSF to do the work to dismantle anti-Blackness, racism, discrimination. So we’re talking about, you know, the initiative starting in 2020, after the tragic murder of George Floyd, and what have we been doing to now. So I think the best way to show this is by showing you the timeline of things that happened. So starting from the very left on this slide, you’ll see on June 2020, Chancellor Hawgood, announces the Anti-Racism Initiative at UCSF. And right away, we got a town hall going for focusing on learners and some of the concerns. And if you look at all the bottom points, you can see we have had five town halls since August 2020 to address different populations at UCSF. We started with the learners in August 2020. And then we have the staff one on October 2020. In January 2021, we focus on faculty. And then we talked about the health system in March 2021. And I’ll just start from there and going back to September 2020 to May 2021, ODO, the leadership from the Chancellor’s Office and different other leaders supporting the initiative formed a planning group, and to formulate what we call the "pillars," identify the goals and the measures for each of the pillars.

[Tiffani Chan]
Fast forward a year about a year later, well, really a few months later, we are in August 2021, where we are able to present the final report of the pillars and goals identified to the Chancellor’s cabinet where we were able to secure funding to support the initiative. And then in September to October 2021, we formed a DEI Executive Leadership Council. And this council really, they meet quarterly to talk about the operation of the Anti-Racism Initiative. And then finally, we provided some updates at the latest anti-racism town hall in December 2021.

[Tiffani Chan]
So what is really, again, this Anti-Racism Initiative? Really, it’s about the seven pillars that were identified by the planning group, and the planning group, in this seven pillars, we covered different parts of the initiative. And the first pillar, pillar number one, is at the very top, which is the climate. And it’s that we want to ensure a climate that is healthy, safe, and welcoming for all. And the second pillar is addressing anti-racism knowledge gaps. And then we talk about equity in decision making process. We want to achieve demographic diversity in leadership, particularly to staff manager level three and higher, and we want to achieve patient care equity, further UCSF commitment to the Bay Area, which really holding down the anchor institution work and then finally anti-racism and equity in research. And I will go through these in detail. So you get to know in terms of what are the works happening in these areas.

[Tiffani Chan]
So how is this Anti-Racism Initiative governed? We have a governance model formed where you can see we have, starting at the chancellor executive team at the very top working with Dr. Renee Navarro, the Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Outreach, our office of diversity and outreach, the cabinet members, leaders of the Health Equity Council, the Anchor Institute Initiative, Chief of Police, Education Dean, HR. And then finally, as I mentioned, the DEI Executive Leadership Council, which are the functional and operational owners of the work in the pillars. And what they do is they really are contributing the work by providing regular status about the pillars, talk about roadblocks, gaps, reporting, and successes. They advise Vice Chancellor Navarro, the Office of Diversity and Outreach, and other leaders in terms of metrics and the prioritization of the resources. And we adjust the areas of focus for the upcoming fiscal year. On the very left, you’ll see in the circle, which is 4CI, the Council on Campus Climate, Culture and Inclusion, and they focus on supporting the initiative as well by providing input and staying informed. As far as how we engage the community, as I mentioned before, we have the anti-racism town halls. And really, the focus of these town hall is to inform the communities, what’s going on, find ways to engage our community members and help them take action for anti-racism work, and address any questions and feedback. Our Q&A session for the town halls are always really really interesting, a lot of really good suggestions, and feedback and how we can do better. So we highly recommend you to attend. And what we’re hoping to do is we have one coming up on April 28. It is not the anti-racism town hall, but the similar format, which is the Chancellor Leadership Forum on Diversity and Inclusion. You should all be receiving some sort of information through email very soon. And then in fall, we probably will do another anti-racism town hall to provide some updates on the initiative in October or November.

[Tiffani Chan]
So let’s go into the details of the Anti-Racism Initiative. So, as I mentioned, pillar one, we are trying to create a healthy, safe, welcoming climate for employees and learners at UCSF. And if you look on the left, you’ll see the objectives. We’re trying to enhance the safety programs, we are addressing racial injustices, we’re raising awareness and wellness. And we’re tracking and analyzing the climate regularly. And how are we doing that? On the right side, we have ongoing interventions, where we have the escalation programs and new safety officers in place right now. We’re hiring a care advocate for racial justice. What is a care advocate? So those of you may be familiar with a care advocate for sexual violence and sexual harassment. This person advocate for those who have experienced trauma, who needs navigation on the legal system, on the resources that we offer, we’re doing the same for those who have experienced discrimination and bias. You may know about the land acknowledgement that we live in, LaMisha just read, we have established that there’s a website that I actually put on the Q&A that you may access to use that language as part of your meetings. We have Wellness Resource Hub and Community Wellbeing Grant established working with Campus Life Services, in their wellness programs. And of course, some of you may know and have participated in November was the Climate Survey. And what we’re planning to do at the Office of Diversity and Outreach, and our partners, is to launch this kind of survey regularly, and produce analysis to share with the community in terms of how we can do better in this pillar in creating the safety, a safe and healthy climate for all.

[Tiffani Chan]
Moving on to pillar two, addressing anti-racism knowledge gaps in the objectives, what we’re trying to do is have a baseline knowledge and understanding of anti-racism, diversity, equity and inclusion topics. We are working with the education deans on revising and updating education curriculums, we are advancing DEI work in management, and address anti-Black racism in science and medicine and healthcare. And some of the interventions that’s been happening the last two years. Well, I hope all of you have taken the foundations of DEI training. And right now we have 32,000 people trained so far since January of last year, and we hope that if you haven’t taken it, you will do it very soon. The expansion of the training offerings, we have the DEI Champion Training through the Differences Matter Program, now is offered to staff and faculty from outside of School of Medicine. LaMisha and the resource centers are leading the Diversity and Inclusion Certificate Program. There’s a general and an added on managers track. And then we have the anti-racism and equity curriculum in all professional schools and Graduate Division, which I know Sharon is leading some of that. And for managers, learning and organizational development is launching a manager training that is required for about 2500 managers all over UCSF, on how to set the goals and create action plan. Finally, we are supporting the work of the Repair Project, which is really to address the last objective in anti-Black racism in science, medicine and healthcare.

[Tiffani Chan]
In pillar three, we have the focus of how to embed equity as part of the decision making process. And the objectives, we have our review of the leadership-level decision making bodies and processes, evaluate faculty advancement and decision processes, and leverage restorative justice mindset and practices in management. Some of the interventions that we have are, the Chancellor’s Office had created a guidance on the composition of decision making committees in as far as the balance of having underrepresented minorities as well as women at 50% or higher. You can read more about it at this link that I provided there. And we are also tracking the race and ethnicity and gender composition on the Chancellor’s leadership teams and committees. As far as the faculty side, they have produced a standardized rubric for assessing diversity contributions for advancement decision. And the student affair offices is working with Maria Jaochico on launching a Restorative Justice Manager Training Series, which is I believe, coming right now all the way to June, they’re piloting this program.

[Tiffani Chan]
In pillar four, we’re trying to diversify our leadership, especially in the staff area, and leaders for the faculty in manager level three and higher. The objective is really to expand the advancing excellence in staff recruitment program. Some of you may know this program through different staff equity advisors that have recently launched, and last September, and a diversity recruitment toolkit, which I’ll talk more later on, on the right side. And we also tried to improve faculty diversity in hiring and leadership position as part of this pillar. We are reviewing participation in diversity in high profile leadership development opportunities, and we’re creating programs to ensure leadership development for underrepresented groups. As I mentioned in the interventions, we have now six staff equity advisors, serving search committees in the manager three level and higher positions. And we also, the Office of Diversity and Outreach, together with human resources, hired a diversity talent strategies that would lead the stewardship of leadership hiring. We launched an online staff toolkit for best practices in diversity recruitment and a hiring guide document. Both of these resources are available to everyone.

[Tiffani Chan]
For the faculty side, there’s a lead toolkit to facilitate equitable and inclusive selection of diverse departmental faculty leaders. And there’s ongoing review for leadership development programs by learning and organizational development. In pillar five we’re focusing on patient care, especially health care equity for patients and working with our affiliates as well. In the objectives, we have reviewed and revised the policies that may have racist or differential impact on specific populations. And then as far as the health equity work, we identified and intervened and measured impact of health outcomes by race and ethnicity, and support the work that addresses healthcare and patient equity. And the ongoing interventions have been, seven policies have been updated. And the work where we will continue to develop a work frame, a framework for policy review. We’re working closely with the Health Equity Council on some of these interventions and measures of health outcomes for Black, Latinx, and as well as Asian patients in our hospitals. There is the Black Health Initiative to increase engagement with Black communities. And then also the Oakland Children’s Hospital in Oakland. They have a DEI and Anti-Racism Council formulated with a strategic plan.

[Tiffani Chan]
Pillar six is further commitment to the Bay Area. And really, the focus is to support the work of the UCSF anchor institution initiative in the following categories, specifically: workforce development, procurement, and community investments. And some of the work that is underway is increasing UCSF capacity to train, hire, and promote people from under-resources population, we’re increasing the effectiveness of education pipeline for the under-resources population. This work is specifically under ODO’s unit, which is the Center for Science, Education, and Outreach led by Don Woodson. We are also working with procurement as far as giving more purchasing power to spend on small local businesses that are owned by or employed under resource population. And the aim is 50% by 2024. And finally, we want to establish a pilot investment program directing five million [dollars] to social impact investments. Many of these are underway. And we are working really hard to bring this to communities beyond UCSF, and in the San Francisco Bay Area.

[Tiffani Chan]
Finally, the last pillar, which is the pillar about research. And the goal is to make structural changes required to address equity and anti-racism research endeavors at UCSF. And what this pillar is trying to do is to establish a system of accountability on anti-racism and equity for UCSF research enterprise, where implementing and promoting a UCSF anti-racism scholarship, creating and developing a more diverse UCSF research workforce, and promote and support community engaged research. And for these objectives, there is a task force that was created to plan out these objectives, what needs to be established and be implemented. And the taskforce on research, equity and anti-racism reported their executive level outcomes with a report that I believe you should be able to find in our Anti-Racism Initiative website. There is also a hiring of an inaugural associate Vice Chancellor for Research, DEI and anti-racism focus. Right now, there are two anti-racism research grants to support capacity building projects, and research projects addressing anti-Black racism. And finally, the Academy of Medical Education internal anti-racism research grants have been funded. So we’re really excited for all the different works that’s been happening the last two years since the launch of the Anti-Racism Initiative. But of course, this is not the end. And to see more details of some of the Anti-Racism Initiative outcomes. It is available in the UCSF, in our the Office of Diversity Outreach annual report that just came out, and the link is right here. And you can read more in detail, see different numbers as well as other work that ODO is doing to support diversity, equity, inclusion, and the mission of UCSF.

[Tiffani Chan]
So what’s next for us? Well, in 2020, actually, it started back in 2021. The start of the fiscal year, we’ve been working with Dr. Camara Jones, the UCSF presidential chair for this year on the Anti-Racism Initiative, and her work on the anti-racism collaborative framework. If you know about her work, I think one of the most interesting aspect is that she breaks it down where it can be operationalized. As you can see, Dr. Jones’s Anti-Racism Collaborative Framework has three parts. One is naming racism. The second one is asking how is racism operating here, which really addresses the mechanism of racism in structures, policies, practices, norms, and values. And then finally, once we sort of understand how racism is operating here, there’s a collective action, teams that we can formulate to move forward with the work and dismantle racism. So what Dr. Jones is doing is that she’s been touring around UCSF virtually. And she’s been talking with many of our partners collaborators on the work of anti-racism DEI. And she’s actually eight months in, so she’s towards almost the end of it. And what she’s hoping to do at the end of this chairship is that she will want to produce a product to summarize sort of our observation and make recommendations and, and hope that the Anti-Racism Initiative will be generational, more inclusive and more cohesive in the next 10, to 20 years to come. So this is our sort of moving into the next phase of the Anti-Racism initiative, we’re looking into what the pillar is about, is it inclusive enough? Is everyone on the table that needs to be involved? And how do we expand our operation, furthering our infrastructure in this Anti-Racism Initiative. So I will wrap up right here and give it back to LaMisha in terms of how you can get involved more, and committing to Anti-Racism Initiative at UCSF.

[LaMisha Hill]
Thanks Tiff. And if you can do me a very good just drop the slides, I am going to go a little off script. Because the there are some important comments in the chat that I want to address before going into what I believe to be both individual and collective opportunities and responsibilities to contributing to change. So I’ll start with some of those questions, because I don’t want the chat to get a little overwhelming. But we can have a discussion. And again, I apologize because we’re not really in a position to put ourselves all on screen and to have a collective dialogue. But I hope it’s the start of more to come. So the question, there’s two sort of first questions just about the connection to indigenous communities. And the first question is about renaturation of land. And I’ll say it that way. There are dialogues about not only renaturation in California broadly, but also specifically here at UCSF as it pertains to Mount Sutro. There are individuals that are collectively building relationships with the elders of the Ramaytush Ohlone people, both formally and informally at UCSF. And there is a really wonderful and beautiful model with the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust that is, I believe, in part led by Miss Corrina Gould, who is part of the... Ohlone community. And so in terms of services that the MRC and Multicultural Resource Center offers for indigenous individuals and indigenous students, I’ll say the MRC is student-centric and student facing. And one of the things that we do for all students is particularly in our collaborations with our student diversity RCOs, and so annually during all sort of diversity, heritage, and awareness months, we connect with student leaders of different organizations to bring together and pool energy and resources, so that, that can be interprofessional collaboration, and also more of a university-wide sort of visibility as well, particularly for indigenous communities.

[LaMisha Hill]
We have hosted a number of different events. The RCOs that are rooted in indigenous communities include the Native American Health Alliance, which historically was a staff organization, and that leadership has ebbed and flowed. But we continue to maintain its presence and its history and its acknowledgement, especially for past contributors and past elders who have retired from our UCSF community, specifically Sandy Canchola. And most recently, within the student community, they formed an organization called ANAMS, or the Native American Medical Student Health Alliance. And so there’s an opportunity to connect in with students there. But with regards to events and activities, we have done the sunrise ceremony, and other indigenous events, inviting elders, singers, performers, and others to come forward. And so if there’s ever an idea, or a need across any community, we encourage you to reach out to the MRC, and specifically our assistant director, Melissa Bautista, you don’t have to be rooted in a student RCO but that is one of the ways that we always effectively collaborate and connect together.

[LaMisha Hill]
There was a question about working in collaboration with ODO across the different audiences. And then also whether or not students are involved in the committees and recommendations. Tiff, you might be able to speak a little bit more to that, if you would like to, otherwise I can keep going, because I think the questions bring out important kind of discussion points. So I’m going to hold on that sort of involvement and participation Tiff, because I believe that you can speak more clearly to that. And then also know that in terms of initiatives and sort of some of that ramp up in terms of who has a seat at the table, who’s included in the table, it is always a both/and process, which is the process of collaboration and voice collecting is very, very intentional, but also requires a particular process of going into different communities, gathering of voices, gathering insights, and collecting that information and distilling that information into a way that can drive organizational change. And so there’s many questions in here that I want to dress in the spirit of like targeting universalism. And so that’s a point that I really, really, really believe, is important in our diversity work. Because when we open up the inclusive diversity umbrella, it is important that we recognize, and that when we hear a term that is has been positioned in our vocabulary to do its best to recognize many individuals who come from lived experiences that are historically resilient in nature, that it is an inclusive effort.

[LaMisha Hill]
However, there is an important sort of other side of that coin, which is that we also need to be able to create targeted strategies to address systemic differences that occur for different communities. Because the lived experiences and the operation of different forms of harm, oppression, etc, are not exactly the same. So universal strategies can be appropriate at times, and targeted strategies that actually create differences for our most marginalized community members may be most effective at addressing and bringing individuals into a place of equality, right. But there’s more of an opportunity to think through who are our policies centered around, who do they work for, and who do they not work for? And so there’s a moment of being critically intentional about that. And then redesigning and sort of reimagining. So I hope that speaks to sort of the systemic and not long overdue, and also about the pieces of policy changes. As a large institution, we have policies that go everywhere, across our core areas of service and audiences, whether they are patient centered, or community centered, versus student centered, versus staff centered versus faculty centered. And so think about even the term policy, part of it is also examining, where does it show up within across the different communities? Our trainings are an important process of awareness raising, and getting people on up to speed. And so in some ways Tiffany, and I think and in many ways, the collective community believes, you know, for a while, we had the PRIDE values. And so it was an adaptation of understanding, as a very large institution as a very large community. How do we have a collective understanding of what our values are? And so long term, even in research, there is a little bit of back and forth about the efficacy of mandatory versus voluntary. And what we know is that we have to do, again, a psychologist to give to both-and right, because there are critical places where everyone needs to have a standard of information. And we strongly believe, and it’s come for a while, that diversity efforts have been a part of that, right. They’re not just voluntary. So moving the conversation and moving diversity foundations into a mandatory element was an effort to set a shared common language, a shared dialogue and a shared understanding for everyone in our community, regardless of points of entry, that we are all contributing to a climate. And it’s all our collective responsibility to ensure and to support that climate of inclusion.

[LaMisha Hill]
So I hope that some of that addresses those concerns. I did just want to just kind of put that out there. Just because I saw the chat was kind of coming up and I didn’t want to just leave y’all hanging, and I’m getting a doom and gloom message on my computer. So in the event that I have one of those hard restarts from Apple, let me just pivot really quickly to what I believe are opportunities for both individual and collective transformation and growth.

[LaMisha Hill]
Some may call it in the spirit of allyship, right? That outside of our lived experiences as a community, we are responsible to one another, not necessarily responsible for but we are responsible to one another. So not only how do we show up for ourselves, and honor the places and the lived experiences that we have, and where we come from, but how do we show it for one another. And so in the context of equity and inclusion, and specifically anti-racism, at the individual level, there is a ask, and an opportunity for critical self-reflection, learning, and growth. And so it is to say, to do some individual assessment to say, What do I know? What do I need to know more about? What do I know? But what can I learn more about? Right? And also, what am I passionate about? I think that that’s an that’s an important place too, and where is my opportunity for contribution? And this gets back to, Is it mandatory, not mandatory? Is it voluntary or not. And so who participates in these initiatives is really, really important. And so I do believe that if we can distill down into different teams and groups and just like being invited to be with you all, in the School of Pharmacy, today, it’s an opportunity to say, Who is in your community, who is actively participating in this work, and who has opted out. And if you have individually opted out, because you feel like man, I don’t know how to get in the I don’t know how to contribute, I don’t know where I could lend a hand. It is an opportunity to push yourself into challenge yourself, right? If you have an additional either voluntold, or actually an assumed title of manager or leader, there is no opting out. And I’m here to tell you that. And so in terms of the accountability and the action steps, that does happen and at a stakeholder level, and sometimes folks across the organization may not be able to see all of those things. But our leadership is held accountable in terms of the requirement to have more transparency, about initiatives and about actions.

[LaMisha Hill]
And then there’s an intersecting point, right, so you’re an individual, but you’re all embedded in different communities, teams, small groups. And so it’s also how do we practice? How do we engage in the embodiment of whether it’s anti-racism, or equity, inclusion, and belonging. And so it’s a, an ask for us to be a little bit more transparent and honest about how we show up with one another, how we engage in and demonstrate aspects of power and privilege, and how we can shift our everyday practices, whether it’s from meeting and greeting one another, to how we conduct our meetings, to how we center different voices in a room. All of that makes a big difference. And it really does add up, stepwise, into a collective institutional experience of change. So I’m going to stop there and pause there and just kind of turn it back to Dr. Youmans and others, if there are sort of highlights or things that you want to dialogue and talk about, we will be here with you all. But I’m just being very transparent. I’m getting a doom and gloom message on my computer. So I might have to relog back on.

[Sharon Youmans]
Thank you, Dr. Hill. And thank you, Tiffani, for sharing your expertise for what the campus is doing. It’s a lot to take in. But the work is huge. And I think we’re all still learning. But I do feel that there’s a culture on campus that even 10 years ago, we didn’t have because we weren’t even talking about these issues. So we have questions. And I think Levi is going to moderate that. And then people can continue to put questions in the chat. And we’ll try to address them as best we can. So Levi? because we still have some time.

[Levi Gadye]
All right. So LaMisha, I think you may have answered this in part. But Chase Webb asked how can ODO more effectively work together with what I think he was saying with the grad division and with regards to learner success?

[LaMisha Hill]
Absolutely. So I think that we are getting better at figuring out how to be multidisciplinary and interprofessional and also hold capacity for having larger seats at these tables. And I think being virtual has expanded our ability and I know Chase you probably know better than anyone the ways in which our institution is sort of constructed. I like to say, I joke the we’re an adult Montessori School, right so we are very much matrixed, we’re very siloed, there can be a benefit to that for core units and different departments, teams, campus programs, having the ability to have agency over how they operate, right? So there’s a benefit to that. And the cost it’s, and the challenge that, that creates is then how do we build a bridge that brings us all together seamlessly. And that I think, is a place where we’ve really struggled. And so with regards to not just the Anti-Racism Initiative, but other places of getting students more engaged, and building those bridges of connections, whether it’s between the resource centers of the LGBT Center, the Multicultural Resource Center, the embedding in student diversity organizations, and us making an effort to try to tie those connections across the different school and academic programs. And then it is for also our leadership in the different schools and programs who are embedded in the different tables and have seats at those tables, to think thoughtfully of where folks can have an opportunity to participate and contribute. And we want to be mindful about that contribution. And about that task. And about that ask. Because I believe that in the past, UCSF was a little bit more inclined to ask and invite students to participate. And now there’s a little bit more realization in recognition of the tax, and some of the effort and the energy and the cost of that. And so then what does that honor in compensation look like, if that is going to be put on students. And so I think sometimes just even in building the, making the table larger, sometimes it does start, it might feel a little bit insular. And it’s not meant to be exclusive or exclusionary. But it also is an effort to try to ramp something up and get to a place of launch so that it can grow. And so that we’re not taxing people, over taxing and overworking and stressing people with the minutiae in sort of the planning and the design and the building phases. But I’ll definitely raise that question. And I think Dr. Youmans and others are positioned in some of these spaces, and we can think more thoughtfully about that.

[Levi Gadye]
Great, so we got a question on whether the slide deck will be available to attendees. So the School normally does post a recording of this entire presentation with a transcript. So the slides will be available in a video and that way. LaMisha Will the slides be available as a PowerPoint? Possibly, or?

[LaMisha Hill]
Yeah I think that all the things that we’ve shared are embedded in other spaces that are visibles. We’re happy to PDF that down. So you can post the link as well.

[Levi Gadye]
Wonderful. So Chase also asked whether students are involved in curriculum changes. I don’t know. LaMisha if you want to address that, generally.

[LaMisha Hill]
I want to pass that over to Dr. Youmans.

[Sharon Youmans]
Not a problem. No thing. I’m happy to answer that question. Thank you, Chase. I’ll just remind everyone that back in December, we received a report from a taskforce that was convened by the then Dean Joe Guglielmo, to come up with some recommendations for an Anti-Racist Curriculum. And it was composed of faculty, staff and students. And so we have received those recommendations and those recommendations that relate to the curriculum specifically, were passed on to our curriculum committee that is composed of faculty and students. In addition to that, even prior to the taskforce, Dr. Stephanie Hsia and Dr. Rupa Tuan have developed and are still developing a health equity curriculum that runs parallel with the curriculum, the core curriculum, and they have implemented topics across the themes in the second year and are in the process of developing something for the first year, and they have used student interns to help with that. So it’s a small thing, they do talk about issues of racism. It’s not necessarily an anti-racist curriculum in the truest sense. And we’re still struggling with what that really means and what that looks like. But we are making increments and whatever we do in the curriculum, students are always involved. Thank you.

[LaMisha Hill]
Thank you, Dr. Youmans. Yeah, and I, and I definitely know that there is, and this is also a place where we can leverage one another. Because, you know, within all of our different programs, right and siloed and matrixed however you want to say it, we can say it nicely, and we can see the benefit to it. But not only is the challenge coming up around building connectedness. There is a real challenge around equity. And in terms of the access to resources, or just the person power to drive change, and there’s many places in our organization where we can go much farther if we go together, right.

[Tiffani Chan]
And I like to add that, you know, ODO and the DEI Executive Leadership Council, we are looking for input from students, and we’d like to know how you’d like to be involved. And, you know, you could always think of ways or raise that questions to ODO to start from there. We’d love to hear from you. We are trying to figure that out, too, that questions have been coming up how to best engage students, we understand that, you know, in addition to dismantling racism, you have a whole lot of work to do, schoolwork to do. So how is best way for you to participate? So by all means, let us know what is best for you and your colleagues.

[Levi Gadye]
Alright, so I’m going to combine two related questions here. One, are there consequences for faculty not doing some of these trainings? Chase thought that they were required. And a similar question is, how do we get faculty more involved in these efforts? If there aren’t consequences? Or if it isn’t an expectation from leadership? How can we ensure that faculty are involved?

[Levi Gadye]
I don’t know, Sharon, maybe you can speak to that?

[Sharon Youmans]
So the first part about the consequences for faculty not doing that, I’m not aware of any. So I don’t know. But it is strongly encouraged. And it doesn’t take that long. But that may be coming down the pike. And we might have to, you know, ask Renee ... what that is. But I’m not aware of any specific consequences in terms of getting faculty more involved, in fact, the whole campus because it was supposed to be required for everyone, students and staff to take the training, is always an ongoing process. Because it’s not just flipping through a bunch of slides and answering some questions. But it’s a real sort of commitment that I want to learn better, I want to learn more, so I can do better and help change the culture. So you know, one of the things that the School did, under the leadership of Joe Guglielmo was for, it’s not about anti-racist training. But it was to get people’s commitment to do work around DEI. And so for faculty who are going up for promotion, they have to submit a statement of their DEI contributions. And it can be anything and we help faculty get give examples, because sometimes it’s hard to think of it’s not a direct connection. So it’s little things like that. And, you know, hopefully, when we get the new dean, there’ll be a strategy to try to help each other do this work, because it is hard work. But if we’re committed to having an inclusive, and equitable culture, we all have to do our part. And we all have to help each other because there are people who are further along the continuum than others. We don’t want us to want to sit in judgment. But how can we help and sometimes the smallest thing that you do, can go a long way until it becomes just part a real part of just our natural way of doing business at the university.

[Tom Kearney]
I just wanted to add on to what Sharon said, that us and School and Nursing, we’re the only ones to require that each and every faculty member had a statement of diversity inclusion in their CV. And, and not just as sort of requirement, right. But also for them to sort of be thinking about it and hopefully, increase the awareness. And furthermore, we actually acknowledge anybody that goes above and beyond that was a champion of DEI and actually use that as a basis for an acceleration or a promotion. So I think there was some tangible benefits, rather than looking at as a stick. We’re trying to provide it more as a carrot. And I have a quick question, though, for LaMisha and Tiffany, if you don’t mind Levi, and it’s something I was thinking about as the Interim Dean is that I’ve heard well, maybe we should develop an actual Strategic Plan School-wide to address DEI and anti-racism and I was just curious, from your standpoint, LaMisha and Tiffani, have you guys seen any schools actually compile something like that? Does your does ODO help assist in that? You know, just thinking about the feasibility? What are reasonable targets and plans and so trying to make a very tangible follow up to a lot of these awareness discussions?

[LaMisha Hill]
Yeah, absolutely. It is common. I’m gonna joke to the person who’s joking with me about best practice, it is a best practice. And part of that is an opportunity for each school, program, department to identify what are their growth areas? What are the unique initiatives that they’re working on across again, their areas of service, their core areas of work, and think about what’s the what’s the tangible next step. So it’s, it’s, it’s really deeply a desire to get people from having diversity be the thing that you add on at the end, right, oftentimes, is the thing that we add on, we tack it on at the end. So we’ve done everything, everything out, you know, whether it’s the budget, whether it’s the hiring, whether it is, you know, our recruitment efforts, whether it is our curriculum design and our slide decks, rather than put it at the end, embed it in everything that we do. And so you’re absolutely right, that this will require every major sort of campus entity department to think broadly about that big picture, what does it look like, and then be able to distill it into the different core areas of units and services, so that it shows up as a root and as a foundation, that can bring life to something larger and bigger collectively. And it’s something that we want to live in terms of the North Star, and sort of the A3 models. And then within the School of Medicine, there is an annual requirement for all departments to submit their diversity report action report every year.

[Tiffani Chan]
But as far as the strategic plan, you know, what you’re looking for the School of Medicine, of course, they have abundance of resources, but they really make it a comprehensive plan. And I think it could be a good model to address different areas, and focus groups on building out to me, in my opinion, infrastructure to do the work. You know, a lot of times we talk about work we got to do, and we’re recognizing that in the anti racism initiatives as well, is that, yes, we’re doing a lot of work. There’s a lot of different areas that needs to be addressed. But do we really have ongoing resources, and support to build out the infrastructure to continue and sustain the work, and that strategic plan is much needed, not only within the school, but within the whole university as well. And I think, you know, certainly School of Medicine has a lot of resources put in to build an infrastructure, but I think it’s a good model to see is that these are the areas in addressing students in staff learning, in faculty development, and I think that it’s a good plan moving forward for the School to focus on as well as connecting that to the Anti-Racism Initiative infrastructure. And you know, the Chancellor’s mission in terms of putting equity and inclusion as a priority and this pillars.

[Levi Gadye]
So we have a handful of questions that seem to revolve around hiring practices. So any of the panelists feel free to jump in. One of them is asking about how we can make UCSF a more diverse workforce. Another one is asking about the nature of these DEI requirements in the applications for faculty, as well as for their advancement to tenure. And then perhaps as a last one, how do we balance this with overall trying to hire the best people who might not be BIPOC or underrepresented? So it’s a bunch of different ones, but just in the realm of hiring? How can we reconcile these things?

[LaMisha Hill]
Yeah, I’m happy to kick that off. And y’all can also add more specifics on the faculty piece. So first part, I strongly believe we need to be more transparent. Our data is public. We do share the data every year, whether it’s from HR or even from our academic appointments to our student enrollment. It’s public information. But I think that we could do better about keeping an eye and being transparent in it, even these in these conversations. So that’s what I’m telling you, I’m not here to sugarcoat it. We can be doing much, much better across the board in terms of our faculty, our students, our trainees, etc. In terms of efforts. There are a lot of efforts. I’m just going to highlight a couple of what I think are not only the potential for but also some of the most impactful initiatives. I’ll start with the anchor institution, which is an effort to recognize that UCSF has the not only ability to but also the responsibility to serve as an anchor for the Bay Area, whether it is in employment, but also with services and access to health and safety. So the anchor institution has a critical pillar around employment and in recruitment and hiring. And there are a number of different initiatives that are embedded to create more accessibility for staff employment at UCSF, whether that is a training and certification programs like the Catalyst Program, to I just saw, most recently, an opportunity to launch a program for clinical research coordinators, which I think is probably one of the most critical points of entry and opportunity because of the number of positions that exist. But the opportunity to serve a really broad spectrum of folks, including learners, particularly learners from different backgrounds to be able to access the health science institution, learn more about their next steps for their career development, trajectory, and access, mentorship and support to be able to launch into that career band. It also is a point of opportunity and growth for folks not of, whether you’re non-traditionally aged, or who want a different reset in their career. So our clinical research coordinators and their other points in the institution, they’re actually really, really pivotal entry points. And between Corey Jackson and Michael Jones, Nancy Duranteau, I’ll just name a few folks within our HR system in partnership with Jeff Chiu, who are really looking critically at the certain junctures, particularly for our staff members.

[Tiffani Chan]
And I want to add on to that work there. You know, that group that LaMisha mentioned is there is a workgroup on workforce disparities that’s been going on for years led by Jeff Chiu, and Dr. Renee Navarro. And one of their work is focused on as I mentioned, in the Anti-Racism Initiative, is the advancing excellence in staff recruitment, and itself. I wouldn’t say policies, but new processes developed or enhanced to guide the hiring of diversity, from the moment that applications are developed, how job description is developed, in the language that you put in, all the way down to the selection process, and how to mitigate unconscious bias. And this is why we have the staff equity advisors, we have a diversity talent strategist to support the sort of problem processes that we have identified as best practices in the diversity hiring. And in that sense, you know, like the toolkit, and the hiring guide, that is available for anybody can look at and understand the transparency and the standardized process that’s been in place so that you yourself can be educated in how to, whether you’re a hiring manager, or part of the search committee can understand that, you know, sometimes you looking at data, and then specific groups that you need to... target on to diversify, not just within your department, but within the role in the entire university. So there’s so many different things, and I just answered Chase in the Q&A, is that we do have rubrics to evaluate the faculty diversity statements, as well as that diversity statement that they submit, all of these processes and all these procedures in place in the hiring process, are to support diversification and fairness and transparency in the whole process.

[Levi Gadye]
Great, and I was wondering, maybe Sharon, do you have anything to say with regard to the tenure process in particular, whether that is beginning to account for participation in DEI initiatives?

[Sharon Youmans]
You mean, in terms of the faculty DEI statements submissions of that?

[Levi Gadye]
So I think the question is more aimed at the advancement of faculty after they’ve been hired.

[Sharon Youmans]
Of the advancement of faculty after they’ve been hired? Well, a lot of work has been done. And Tom, actually, you probably could speak to this better because you were our associate dean of faculty, academic affairs and working with CAP. That’s a bit of a comment. But I would say that the campus committee that makes the decisions on tenure have really kind of turned the corner and value what they see with DEI. But Tom, you can probably speak more to that.

[Tom Kearney]
Yeah. Thanks. Sure. So as I mentioned before, we’re only one of two schools that actually require a statement and address this issue in their curriculum vitae, when they’re being you know, up for either a merit or promotion or any sort of academic action. By the way, tenure is only one that. We have, two of our basic research departments have basically ladder rank faculty that are tenured. However, our other department, one of our biggest departments, Clinical Pharmacy, only has one ladder rank faculty. So all the other series don’t have tenure. So just to clarify that. And as I mentioned before, we look at, you know, this issue is not so much a stick, but a carrot, that if it’s there, and it’s adequate, they can move forward based on the other criteria review. However, if they’ve done something exceptional, like we’ve had, some of our faculty members be awarded, like the Chancellor’s Award for Diversity, and that was again, you know, can be used as justification for being accelerated.

[Tom Kearney]
And so I think, you know, we keep an eye on that. I have reviewed these statements over the past eight years. And when I was Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, and before, they weren’t very substantive, and I think we’re moving more in the direction where people are being more thoughtful about it, and about, you know, something that seems to be it’s a much more tangible way in which they’re contributing to it. And I think the first phase of it was just to make people aware, a lot of people didn’t understand what really constituted, you know, something that they were doing that really, you know, was contributing in this particular area that was sensitive. And we added on to advance, there’s a little roll over scroll that gives you examples of DEI, and there was a guideline that was put forth by the campus that we distributed to all of our faculty. So I and all in all, I gotta tell you, I’ve been very happy and satisfied with the direction that faculty have taken in terms of constantly doing this, be more aware of it, and actually putting a big effort into it. And furthermore, the chairs letter that goes on top of it also addresses DEI issues on each and every faculty member in terms of when they’re up for an academic action. And so this is further acknowledged and recognized or expanded upon by the department chair. So hopefully that answers your question, but I think it’s become an integral part of, you know, Academic Advancement and the way that we review each and every faculty member.

[Sharon Youmans]
Yeah. And I think it’s become much more transparent. And under Rene’s leadership, they got the faculty manual change, so that those things could be taken into consideration, because the flip side is that faculty who do a lot of this work previously would be sacrificed or come up short, because those activities, even if you disseminated in the literature, were not necessarily valued as much as our traditional ways in which we do research and patient care, etc. So now that’s being put on the same level as all other faculty activities. So that’s a good thing so that you’re not unintentionally punished for doing this work.

[Tom Kearney]
Just another thing is that I also had to lead what we call the faculty salary equity review. So we look at if there’s any bias and discrimination in terms of faculty salaries based on gender, but also underrepresented minorities, to make sure that they’re being treated equally in terms of faculty salaries, and in the way that they’re, you know, provided in terms of their negotiable salary and their standard salary. By the way, between the previous review, which was like two or three years before, and the current redo that we did, we have doubled our underrepresented minority faculty. We’re not where I think we should be optimally. But we’re certainly moving in the right direction. So I’m very pleased about that.

[Tom Kearney]
But keep in mind, as you know, faculty get senior faculty here. And it sometimes takes many decades, before you see turnover, we have small amounts of turnover. The other thing that we grapple with as a school, as a small school, is that trying to populate committees with you know, diverse representation. We have a very small number of underrepresented minorities. And it’s actually to some extent unfair to them, that they’ve got to populate every committee. And so that’s something that we struggle with, frankly, as opposed to something like the School of Medicine, which has a huge number of underrepresented minorities, then, which they can provide that diversity in terms of populating all their committees. So, you know, there’s certain things that we have challenges that we have to deal with. And the other thing that has always concerned me, is our student population. And Sharon has shared a report on the workforce, in terms of various professions, health care professions, the pipeline, as well as what we’re graduating. And I gotta tell you, one of the areas also for me, that pharmacy in particular does a very poor job in terms of Hispanics, bringing Hispanics into the profession. And so I think one of the high priorities that we need to do is what can we do to enhance our outreach and hopefully bring in, you know, a diverse student population that looks similar to the population that they serve. And that’s a tremendous challenge, I know. But again, that’s something that we really are going to need to strive for in the coming years.

[Levi Gadye]
Thanks. So the last question that I think would be kind of nice to land on is a little bit more abstract, and about how we do business in general. And it is, if race is a social construct, why are we using it to evaluate our health enterprise? Make it make sense, it’s a hard question, but can interviewer address it?

[LaMisha Hill]
Yeah, I think this is a perfect closing question. And, again, in the spirit of both-and, race is a social construct, and it continues to have real, real impacts on people’s lives. And as we are growing in our awareness of how it operates, both socially, economically, structurally, legally, and getting more honest about the history and the past of that. We can’t necessarily sort of, I’ll just say divorce ourselves from it entirely. Right. And I think that there have been efforts to just move forward, right, without acknowledging the places in which it has caused great impact and specifically, great harm, but also great places of unrecognized and unaddressed advantages as well. So we have to be more intentional and more open to those conversations and have a critical lens on the function of the construct of race. While we elevate our I would say, our heart centered awareness. So the places where we can celebrate our lived experiences from our various cultural backgrounds and identities, but also celebrate the places where we have commonalities and where we can operate and grow together. So with that, I think that that’s really the spirit of anti-racism, right? It is not to just sort of ignore that race is present. But it is actively saying that there’s an opportunity to address how do we acknowledge the ways that racism shows up in our policies? And what are we actively doing to address it, and that is the process of being anti-racist. So with that, I think I’m going to turn it over to Tiffani for our final question. And then we will say our goodbyes to you all.

[Levi Gadye]
And actually, I just wanted to, Eric can you put this slide up real fast before Tiffani ends. I just wanted to announce that the School of Pharmacy now does have a landing page describing DEI efforts, as well as upcoming events and successes, and also places to submit feedback. So please visit this page. It will evolve over time. But we’re very happy that we can now share this with the community. Also in about a month, there will be the Chancellor’s annual leadership forum on diversity and inclusion. So keep your eyes on your inboxes in the coming weeks for the invite for that event. And with that, Tiffani, if you want to put up the final poll question.

[Tiffani Chan]
Yes, thanks for indulging me this will we want to know what you will do next? After this presentation. So without further ado, I put the link to the chat so you can go on and give your answer. And thanks so much for coming today. As an individual, what are your next steps in DEI and anti-racism?

[Levi Gadye]
Alright, so I think we’re out of time. So I just want to thank again, our presenters, Tiffani, LaMisha, and thanks to Sharon and Tom for participating. And thank you all for attending. Have a great afternoon.

[Sharon Youmans]
Thank you. Thank you, Levi, and Eric. Thank you and Emma and Liana and Lisa Duca. Thank you very much.

[Tom Kearney]
Thank you all as well.