Feature: Recruitment of Women and Underrepresented Minorities by the CCEB
MARCH 31, 2009The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (SOM) has for several years focused on a strategic plan to recruit and retain minority and women faculty and to foster a more supportive environment. The CCEB and Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology (DBE) have long taken these goals to heart, strongly endorsing and pursuing such a strategy. This article will briefly summarize current CCEB/DBE recruitment and retention efforts pertaining to female and underrepresented minority (URM) faculty, focusing on pipeline programs. The accompanying graphs, prepared by Dr. Tim Rebbeck, Professor of Epidemiology, DBE, SOM, Director, Center for Genetics and Complex Traits, and CCEB Senior Scholar, compare the SOM, CCEB, and DBE in these efforts in terms of track and rank.
Comparison
Within the DBE, 45% of faculty with primary or secondary appointments with voting rights were female and 7.5% were members of a URM group in FY08. By division, 29.6% of epidemiology faculty were female and 5.1% were members of a URM group; 60.7% of biostatistics faculty were female and 10.7% were members of a URM group. Table 1 shows the overall summary of gender and URM representation in the SOM, CCEB, and DBE, revealing that the DBE is currently outpacing the CCEB as well as the SOM. National data from the AAMC are not directly comparable to the composition of the CCEB or DBE. That said, 46.7% of faculty in schools of medicine who worked in departments of epidemiology, public health, preventive medicine, biostatistics, biomathematics, bioinformatics, computational biology, statistics, or in divisions in these fields within other departments were women in FY08 and 9.3% were members of a URM group. The national data for FY08 from the AMMC that are more directly applicable to our local statistics pertain to biostatistics. Nationwide, 31.5% of faculty in schools of medicine who worked in departments or divisions of biostatistics, bioinformatics, biomathematics, or statistics, or in divisions in these fields within other departments were women and 12.3% were members of a URM. Note that 60.7% of biostatistics faculty were female and 10.7% were in a URM group within the DBE.
SOM Efforts of CCEB/DBE Members
J. Richard Landis, PhD, Director of the Biostatistics Division/Unit is Chair of the Office of Diversity and Community Outreach Advisory Board, which addresses developing best practices for recruiting and retaining minority faculty across the SOM. Dr. Landis and Rhonda Minyard, the CCEB's Director for Faculty Affairs, have served on the SOM's URM Committee. Lucy Wolf Tuton, PhD, Adjunct Associate Professor (DBE) and Director of Professional Development for FOCUS on Health and Leadership for Women (known as FOCUS), Patricia Scott, Director of Operations for FOCUS (working with Stephanie Abbuhl, MD, FOCUS Executive Director/Emergency Medicine), and Thomas Ten Have, PhD, MPH, CCEB Senior Scholar and Professor of Biostatistics (DBE) are members of the Executive Committee for Gender Equity in the SOM. Dr. Ten Have has also been an Affirmative Action Officer for the SOM for many years and has continued in that position in FY09. In addition, he is a member of the Gender Equity Council, which interacts with SOM Department Chairs on recruitment and retention issues for women faculty.
Scarlett Bellamy, ScD, CCEB Senior Scholar and Assistant Professor of Biostatistics (DBE) was appointed in FY09 within the Biostatistics Unit (BU) as Assistant Director for Diversity. She will lead collaborative research activities in minority health and health disparities and develop a program to attract URM graduate students into biostatistics. Ebbing Lautenbach, MD, MPH, MSCE, as Deputy Director of the Epidemiology Division, leads URM epidemiology trainee recruitment.
Recruitment
Direct recruitment of CCEB/DBE faculty is conducted by epidemiology and biostatistics divisional/unit recruitment committees. Annually, both of these committees send announcements/letters to institutions across the US. Both committees, which include female and minority members, have been charged with emphasizing gender and minority recruitment in all searches. Further, recruitment letters are sent to women's and minority organizations. Rhonda Minyard tracks Affirmative Action documentation for the DBE and ensures that all requirements are met or exceeded.
In addition, several CCEB/DBE efforts are pipeline-oriented programs to recruit minority and women faculty into the fields of epidemiology and biostatistics in order to to increase the potential pool of graduate students and, ultimately, faculty in these disciplines. Within Biostatistics, Dr. Bellamy is PI on behalf of the International Biometric Society's Eastern North American Region (ENAR) for a National Institute of General Medical Sciences-funded R13 workshop grant. She works with Reneé Moore, PhD, CCEB Senior Scholar and Assistant Professor of Biostatistics (DBE) and a colleague from ENAR to organize and present a workshop titled "Fostering Diversity in Biostatistics" for the national ENAR conference held every March. The workshop provides a forum for discussion of important issues related to diversity and targets persons from traditionally underrepresented ethnic groups. Undergraduate students interested in careers in biostatistics, as well as faculty and directors of graduate training programs, are especially encouraged to attend. Topics covered include career and training opportunities in biostatistics, mentoring, recruiting, and retention.
Since 2002, Shiriki Kumanyika, PhD, MPH, CCEB Senior Scholar and Professor of Epidemiology (DBE), has been PI of a Center of Excellence (COE) that has provided pipeline opportunities for engagement of undergraduate students in biostatistics and other health research activities through partnerships with the Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, a historically black institution within the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. This COE is funded by the NIH National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities Project EXPORT (EXcellence In Partnerships for Community Outreach, Research on Health Disparities, and Training) program. Through contacts established by this program, in FY07, Drs. Bellamy, Ten Have, and Moore, along with Justine Shults, PhD, CCEB Senior Scholar and Assistant Professor of Biostatistics (DBE), hosted Cheyney students interested in biostatistics who attended a "career day" at Penn. Drs. Shults and Ten Have continue to work with Cheyney students in collaboration with a Cheyney mathematics faculty member. An additional collaboration with Cheyney has developed through a research project on obesity treatment in primary care, funded by the State of Pennsylvania tobacco settlement funds. Several Cheyney students have become involved in the conduct of this study, including direct experiences with data collection and data management. As the study progresses they will also be involved in data analysis, working with the project biostatisticians, Russell Localio, PhD, CCEB Senior Scholar and Associate Professor of Biostatistics (DBE) and Knashawn Morales, ScD, CCEB Senior Scholar and Assistant Professor of Biostatistics (DBE). Drs. Ten Have and Shults are also sponsoring a new program within the CCEB's Biostatistics Analysis Center (BAC) for college students of color, led by BAC staff members Quincy Greene and Chris Coley. Students from Temple, Cheyney, and Penn State will be given opportunities to work on data analysis projects. The primary aim for this program is to attract these students to the field of biostatistics.
The Diversity initiative in Research for Underrepresented Minorities (DRUM), which provides summer internships to high school and college undergraduate students, focusing on URM students, is another successful pipeline effort. DRUM is led by Jesse Chittams and Catherine Williams, CCEB staff members, with input provided by Drs. Moore and Ten Have. Since 2000, Mr. Chittams has directed this program, the objective of which is to expose students to research and academic disciplines in biomedical research. DRUM has received support from the CCEB, Penn's Office of the Provost through its Diversity Fund, EXPORT, and the SOM Summer Mentorship Program. In 2008, DRUM partnered with EXPORT and the Summer Mentorship Program to provide workshops to 12 high school students from the Philadelphia area to introduce them to biostatistics and epidemiology. Former DRUM students participated in the workshops as presenters. The short-term goal is for DRUM students to return to their respective high schools with a heightened sense of career opportunities and serve as role models within their communities. The long-term goal is to increase the likelihood that these underserved students will attend and stay in college and seek careers in the biomedical sciences.
The CCEB also participates in Summer Undergraduate Minority Research (SUMR), a pipeline program led by the Leonard Davis Institute that recruits students nationally. SUMR provides URM undergraduate students (rising sophomores, juniors and seniors) with a chance to conduct health evaluation sciences on a topic of their choice, under the guidance of Penn faculty. The goal of SUMR is to foster and prepare top minority students for academic and research careers in health evaluation sciences. In addition to conducting research, SUMR scholars participate in an orientation program, attend weekly seminars and a national conference, and network with health evaluation scientists. The CCEB is sponsoring a student this summer.
Retention
Women's health has been an area of research interest and strength within the CCEB. Housed within the CCEB, FOCUS was established in 1994 in response to the need for a comprehensive approach to women's health research, education, and advocacy. In 1997, with support from the Dean, FOCUS expanded to support a dual mission toward diversity throughout Penn's medical faculty by: 1) retaining and advancing women in academic medicine and 2) promoting education and research in women's health. FOCUS works to achieve an increase in the proportion of women faculty in all departments, particularly at the senior levels and in leadership positions, by holding professional development conferences, seminars and workshops centered on skill building and networking, as well as annually monitoring faculty gender statistics. In addition, FOCUS raises funds to support junior faculty and medical students in fully-funded projects in women's health research. Thirty-four junior faculty thus far have received year-long seed grants from FOCUS to conduct investigations in women's health. FOCUS has also provided 40 medical students the chance to take time away from the traditional curriculum to work full-time for six months under the mentorship of senior Penn faculty researchers performing women's health research. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has bestowed national recognition on FOCUS, declaring it a model Women in Medicine (WIM) Program.
Conclusion
Overall, the DBE and CCEB have a higher proportion than the SOM of female and URM faculty. By track, the proportion of females in the Clinician Educator track is highest in the DBE, followed by the CCEB and SOM. The numbers are comparably low for the Research and Tenure Tracks. There is a higher proportion of URMs in all tracks in the DBE/CCEB as compared to the SOM. By rank, there is a higher percentage of females in the DBE/CCEB at all ranks than in the SOM, with a higher percentage in the DBE of assistant and associate professors and a higher percentage of full professors in the CCEB. There is a higher proportion of URMs in the DBE/CCEB at the assistant and full ranks as compared to the SOM. Of course, these statistics only serve to highlight where we are and indicate how much progress can be made across the board. Finally, in addressing the DBE's track record in the recruitment of women, Dr. Bellamy added perspective by offering, "Biostatistics, generally speaking, has more women than other disciplines within the sciences, so I think the Division has indirectly benefited from this higher representation that generally exists within the field and has had the luxury of not doing much in the way of targeted recruitment to increase gender diversity."
