Strategic Plan: Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Diversity, Equity and Inclusive Excellence

Objective 1: Enhance the overall climate to reflect, promote, and welcome diversity principles—the School of Medicine embraces a climate of inclusive excellence at every level.

Measurable results

  • Climate assessment: Improve School of Medicine climate through a regularly scheduled climate/culture/engagement survey.
  • Employee advocacy: Create/sustain the Inclusive Excellence Advocate program—diversity and equity professional development (at the department level).
  • Employee engagement: Implement and support employee education and engagement activities, including resource groups, to build community and promote inclusivity.
  • Reporting: Implement and sustain an incident portal system to facilitate responsive, transparent and easy reporting of bias-based behavior, especially mistreatment.
  • Identity-based collaboration: Create opportunities for faculty identity-based groups and student identity-based groups to collaborate.

Objective 2:  Improve and expand content and format of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training for faculty, staff and students in the context of professionalism.

Measurable results

  • Training: Enhance and expand best/next practice professional development and training for search, promotion, tenure and student-facing committees.
  • Talent development: Expand and enhance current career development and academic pathway programs.

Objective 3: Expand efforts to recruit Under Represented in Medicine faculty, staff and students to School of Medicine—retain, develop and promote strategies to diversify faculty, staff, student and trainees. 

Measurable results

  • Training: Enhance and expand current mentoring and leadership training programs.
  • Networks: Formalize mentoring networks for minoritized faculty, staff and students.
  • Recruitment and Retention: Modify tenure and promotion standards and training for Committee on Appointments, Promotions and Tenure members to explicitly acknowledge, consider and give credit for diversity-related service and scholarship.
  • Tools: Create mentoring tools to manage mentoring relationships.
  • Events: Enhance and expand Diversity, Equity and Inclusion-oriented networking events, lectures and training within School of Medicine community and community partnerships.
  • Grants: Establish a working group for minority faculty tasked with increasing (and securing) philanthropic, institutional, foundation-based and public funding for research. 
  • Scholarship: Coordinate research and education scholarship about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and under-resourced communities conducted by diverse faculty and students.

Objective 4: Increase the diversity of School of Medicine to reflect the changing health-equity needs of an increasingly diverse population and support all students for success in academic medicine and our new national/cultural milieu.

Measurable results

  • Admissions: Increase the number of minority students entering School of Medicine programs.
  • Curriculum: Revise School of Medicine curriculum content over time to best reflect the changing demographics and to better integrate cultural humility.
  • Professional development: Prepare students for success in and needs of a diversifying patient population and caregiver population.
  • Community building: Support increased participation in student identity-based groups
  • Social/emotional success.