Promoting a Sense of Belonging Among Underrepresented Medical Students Through Cross-Cultural Programming

Background and Hypothesis: Despite improvements in recruiting trainees from underrepresented backgrounds, there is a paucity in programming designed to enhance underrepresented in medicine (URM) students’ sense of belonging and well-being. In addition to academic stressors, URM students may experience discrimination and stereotype threat, all of which contribute to burnout. Although Indiana University School of Medicine is one of the largest and more diverse medical schools in the country, URM students continue to experience disconnectedness from peers, mentors, and faculty from URM backgrounds due to the regional campus model. To address the complex challenges URM students face, the Cross-Cultural Student Success Retreat (CCSSR) was created. We hypothesize that URM students will feel an increased sense of belonging through participation in the retreat. Project Methods: The CCSSR was developed in partnership between Medical Student Education and the Office of Diversity Affairs as a response to concerns of isolation and burnout among URM students. The program is designed to be cohort style where day-long events take place twice an academic year to engage students with minority faculty and activities designed to promote sense of belonging, retention, and success. The retreat is broken into four sessions; self-discovery, self-efficacy, bias/perception, and well-being. Each of the sessions includes a presentation, discussion, and activity. Results: The retreat was found to be a success, with positive responses received from 36 participants across each session. Outcomes included an increased awareness of personal biases and prejudices, heightened sense of belonging among peers, and a feeling of empowerment to make their environment more inclusive. Conclusion and Potential Impact: The positive outcomes of the retreat strongly suggest a need to implement long and short-terms programs catering specifically to the success of URM students. Ultimately, addressing the specific challenges faced by URM students will decrease rates of burnout and isolation among this population.

The Faces of Institutionalized Discrimination and Systemic Oppression in Higher Education: Uncovering the Lived Experience of Bias and Procedural Inequity

With seven cases drawn from both personal experience and informal interviews with colleagues from other research-intensive universities, we attempt to demonstrate the forms institutionalized discrimination and systemic oppression can take and if it is supported by policies or procedures encoded into an institution’s rules and regulations. We suggest heuristics for reexamining such procedures to more fully address such inherent biases. We proffer a qualitative methodological approach not only to explore the lived experiences of faculty of color but also to explore the latent as well as manifest meanings of these experiences for the faculty involved, which are frequently neither obvious nor transparent to both non-minority faculty and those responsible for carrying out institutional policies and regulations. Finally, we offer some criticisms of qualitative research in this arena to which organizational researchers must attend.

Preparing for tenure and promotion at PUI institutions

In this paper, we discuss the importance for faculty to become familiar with the general guidelines for collecting, assembling and preparing a tenure and promotion (T&P) application or dossier at a Primarily Undergraduate Institution (PUI) and the critical role that mentoring plays throughout the T&P process. While key elements of the application process such as submission timelines and documentation guidelines are usually outlined in the faculty handbook of the specific institution, many aspects of assembling the dossier are not necessarily detailed in writing anywhere. Instead, there are important elements of the T&P process that typically rely on institutional knowledge and guidance that is often communicated informally. Junior faculty who have limited access to “informal communications” are at a significant disadvantage when they go through the T&P process even when they show accomplishments in teaching effectiveness, research, and service. The problem is especially important for women and underrepresented minority faculty in STEM disciplines that are less well represented among senior faculty in STEM. Senior faculty often serve as informal or formal mentors to their less seasoned colleagues. The goal of this article is to help demystify the T&P process by offering practical suggestions and describing some of the specific materials and steps that are an important part of documenting the development of a faculty member at a PUI.

Delivering What We PROMISED: Outcomes of a Coaching and Leadership Fellowship for Mentors of Underrepresented Mentees

Research demonstrates that mentorship can significantly improve career success, career satisfaction, and persistence for underrepresented (UR) minority faculty. However, many UR faculty members do not receive the mentorship they need, nor do mentors always possess the range of skills required to guide UR mentees through the unique challenges they face. We developed a 1-year fellowship training program, PROMISED, designed to help mentors promote career self-authorship and leadership among their UR mentees. PROMISED fellows participated in a two-day in-person training to develop career coaching skills, followed by a series of one-month leadership training/mentoring modules. We assessed mentors’ skills at the start and completion of the program. We found that PROMISED fellows reported an increase in perceived skill level in nearly every training topic, with “addressing diversity” demonstrating the most significant change. These results provide evidence that career coaching and leadership training offer an effective supplement to traditional mentor training and that mentors can incorporate these skills effectively into their mentoring practice. Taken together, we believe our data suggest that a program designed to train mentors in coaching and leadership can enhance career satisfaction, persistence, and retention of their UR mentees.

The Diversity Efforts Disparity in Academic Medicine

The diversity efforts disparity in academic medicine can be defined as part of the minority tax that negatively impacts faculty who are underrepresented in medicine. This disparity can be defined as differences between minority and non-minority faculty in their recruitment or assignment by the institution to address diversity issues, climate concerns and conflict around inclusion in academic medicine. It can manifest as disproportionate committee service, being asked to be the face of diversity for the school on websites or brochures or being asked to serve on diversity task forces or initiatives. In this article, the author further characterizes the diversity efforts disparity and provides recommendations for how to identify and address it in academic medicine.