Sept. 24, 2012 | Sept. 24, 2012 | Efforts to improve recruitment and retention of students and employees from diverse backgrounds, partnerships to provide culturally competent care to patients in need and many other projects are moving forward in the first year of a coordinated UAMS Center for Diversity Affairs.

As part of campus Diversity Month activities in September, Billy Thomas, M.D., M.P.H., vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion, provided an update of UAMS diversity efforts.

“Overall, we’ve made a lot of progress in the last year – we’ve established the direction where we want to go and a vision for what we want to achieve,” Thomas said. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

UAMS Chancellor Dan Rahn, M.D., pointed to strength in diversity and the ability to be a culturally competent organization as key to UAMS’ success amid challenges posed by health care reform uncertainty and a tight economy. UAMS is also challenged by an increasingly varied society with broad disparities in health care access and health care outcomes, he said.

“We are a talent-driving organization. Everything we accomplish is by the people who get up in the morning and come to work,” Rahn said. “Diversity and inclusion are about growing talent and learning how we can all work together to fulfill our mission.”

Every employee should understand why what they do matters and how it contributes to the UAMS mission of activities that improve health and health care for all, he said.

Thomas updated the presentation he gave last year, covering one-year and five-year diversity-related goals across UAMS patient care, education, research and other areas.

Among the highlights:
• A lecture series on diversity and cultural competency issues will start with the Oct. 24 presentation by Harvey Mekadon, M.D., director of the National LGBT Health Education Center and a clinical professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
• The center is teaming up with several campus groups including the College of Pharmacy to create the 12th Street Health and Wellness Center, which will offer a variety of student-provided health and wellness services, initially focusing on cardiovascular risk reduction for people in that neighborhood.
• The center is working with groups such as the Chancellor’s Minority Recruitment & Retention Committee, Minority Faculty Development Caucus, and historically black colleges and universities in the area on several programs to recruit and retain a talented and diverse student body, staff and faculty.
• The Social Determinants of Health Working Group was established to explore the role an academic health center like UAMS can play in addressing how socio-economic factors can influence health outcomes.
• Boosted by a National Institutes of Health grant, UAMS has been able to double – from 6.1 percent to 12.2 percent – the number of underrepresented minorities enrolled in the Graduate School.
Building on comments by Rahn and Thomas, Hosea Long, associate vice chancellor for human resources, said that diversity is not just increasing numbers of minorities in the workforce. “You’ve got to manage diversity and make all employees feel like they are part of what is going on and feel like they are involved in helping achieve our goals,” he said.

He said he hopes the slate of Diversity Month presentations offers tips and guidance for how all UAMS employees can be engaged.

Two more Diversity Month presentations are scheduled, along with the annual International Fest. The theme for this year’s Diversity Month activities is “Employee Engagement: Peeling Back the Layers of Hidden Diversity.”

Upcoming events include:
• Tuesday, Sept. 25, Noon to 1:30 p.m., Pauly Auditorium (COPH Room G219) – “Basic Instinct: Unconscious Bias – Its Effects on Employee Engagement,” will be led by Dennis Kennedy, founder and CEO of The National Diversity Council in Dallas.
• International Fest and International Students Week will be celebrated on Friday, Sept. 28. Cultural exhibits, displays and international cuisine will be available on the ED II Concourse from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.