UCSF today is launching Nurturing Diversity at UCSF, a website devoted to celebrating our differences and covering the actions underway and the challenges that lie ahead in building upon UCSF’s commitment to diversity.
Diversity refers to the variety of personal experiences, values and worldviews that arises from differences in culture and individual circumstance. Such differences include race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, language, abilities/disabilities, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and geographic origin, among others.
The new website, produced by the UCSF Public Affairs department, is the product of collaboration and input by a wide spectrum of representatives from throughout the campus community, including the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Eugene Washington, MD, the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Academic Diversity, the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Diversity, the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Disability Issues, the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Women and the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Issues.
Part of a larger communications plan on diversity, the website is designed to keep the campus community informed about how UCSF is “nurturing diversity,” one of seven strategic directions outlined in the UCSF Strategic Plan. The strategic plan, unveiled in June 2007, specifically calls on UCSF to “build upon its commitment to diversity” and to “educate, train and employ a diverse faculty, staff and student body.” The communications plan is also part of UCSF’s 10-point diversity initiative, which calls on the University to promote and nurture diversity at UCSF among faculty, staff, students and trainees, coordinate diversity outreach programs, and improve communication related to diversity.
In addition, enhancing diversity through outreach and strategies for recruitment and retention of women and underrepresented minorities to better address the health care needs of the 21st century is one of three areas of focus for UCSF’s accreditation process with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.
“I believe one of our noblest challenges is the need to honor and pursue diversity within every element of our campus community,” said UCSF Chancellor J. Michael Bishop, MD, in his welcome message on the website. “It is imperative that those from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds be properly represented in all walks of life, and in positions of authority and distinction. The shape of our future as a culture rests on that imperative.”
Diversity Website Features
A central feature of the diversity website is a new video series called Voices, which profiles diverse members of the campus community to emphasize the importance of diversity in achieving UCSF’s fourfold mission of education, research, patient care and community service. The series debuts with the inspirational story of Alicia Gonzalez-Flores, a native of Mexico who grew up in the San Joaquin Valley and graduated from UCLA. She is now entering her third year of medical school at UCSF and plans on serving the underserved as a physician.
“By giving individuals the opportunity to tell their own stories, we are able to tell the institutional story of diversity, highlighting the importance of an inclusive campus community to UCSF’s identity and function,” says Lisa Cisneros, assistant director of Public Affairs, who initiated the Voices series.
Another feature of the website is the facts and figures section, which will showcase the gender, race and ethnicity of faculty, staff, students and trainees over time. Information about the faculty, for example, is pulled directly from UCSF’s new academic search database, a project of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Academic Diversity (CACAD).
The academic search database functions by tracking applicant demographics, capturing current campus workforce data and reporting national availability data, which are crucial in the effort to monitor UCSF’s progress in nurturing diversity, according to Renee Navarro, MD, PharmD, director of academic diversity and a member of the CACAD. Read more about the academic database.
The diversity website also includes a section to recognize Champions of Diversity, a program that has honored more than 800 individuals at UCSF since it started a decade ago.
“Championing diversity has to become more of a movement to recognize folks who pay attention and those who put the oar in the water to pull the boat along without necessarily being the captain,” says Michael Adams, director of the Office of Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity and Diversity, which created and administers the program. Read more about champions of diversity in this story.
Lastly, the diversity website serves as a resource with news and events and links to existing UCSF websites and relevant reports, videos and podcasts.
UCSF Public Affairs welcomes comments about the diversity website. Please email your input and ideas to Lisa Cisneros at
[email protected].
