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January/February 2016
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Nursing and Pharmacy
How nursing and pharmacy schools are increasing
access to education and improving healthcare
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
Spring Semester Career Guide
What’s your
story
?
We want to know. Because at UVA School of Nursing, we know that nursing diversity goes far deeper
We want to know. Because at UVA School of Nursing, we know that nursing
far deeper
than diversity
numbers goes
and categories.
than numbers and categories.
It’s why we’re actively shifting how and who we admit, looking at the whole student — taking into
It’s why
we’recultural
activelyand
shifting
and who we
lookingand
at the
whole student
— takingmore
into
account
socialhow
backgrounds,
lifeadmit,
experiences
exposures
right alongside
account cultural and social backgrounds,
life
experiences
and
exposures
right
alongside
more
traditional metrics like test scores, grades and extra-curriculars.
traditional metrics like test scores, grades and extra-curriculars.
It’s also why we’re redoubling efforts to attract, recruit and retain a diverse group of professors who
It’s also why we’re redoublingbring
efforts
to attract,
recruit
and retain aand
diverse
group of
who
a rich
variation
of perspectives
scholarship
toprofessors
the classroom.
bring a rich variation of perspectives and scholarship to the classroom.
Why?
Why?
Because interacting across difference within an inclusive and respectful community expands one’s
Because
interacting
acrosstodifference
within
an inclusive
and respectful
community
expands
one’s
world view,
one’s ability
understand,
accept
and empathize.
Our brand
of diversity
isn’t about
world
view,
one’s
ability
to
understand,
accept
and
empathize.
Our
brand
of
diversity
isn’t
about
checking boxes or meeting quotas; it’s about nurturing sensitive, compassionate, culturally humble
checking boxes or meeting quotas; it’s about nurturing sensitive, compassionate, culturally humble
nurses.
nurses.
We’re cultivating the next generation of caregivers, nurse scientists, faculty and leaders ready for the
We’re cultivatingopportunities
the next generation
caregivers,
nurse
and leaders
ready
for the
of 21stof
century
care —
on scientists,
the unit, infaculty
the community,
and
classroom.
opportunities of 21st century care — on the unit, in the community, and classroom.
Find out more:
Find out more:
nursing.virginia.edu/diversity
nursing.virginia.edu/diversity
| IN THIS ISSUE |
January/February 2016
Special Report: Nursing and Pharmacy
22
Nursing Professionals’ Roundtable
28
Studying Medicines Abroad Makes for
Better Pharmacists at Home
By Alexandra Vollman
40
Scholarship Program Shows Incremental
Improvement in Representation of Men,
Minorities in Nursing
By Jamaal Abdul-Alim
By Rebecca Prinster
44
First-Ever Alaska-Based PharmD Program
Will Help Fill Critical Void
By Jamaal Abdul-Alim
32
UM-Flint Eases Transition for Veterans
from Military to Medical Service
By Rebecca Prinster
34
Insight into Pharmacy Education
with the AACP’s Jennifer L. Adams
By Alexandra Vollman
38
47
Advancing Graduate Nursing Education
Through Innovative Programs
50
On the Mend: Online Pharmacy
Programs Bring Education, Practitioners
to Rural America
A National Imperative: Increasing the
Number of Minority Pharmacists to
Improve Patient Outcomes
By Madeline Szrom
By Lakesha Butler, PharmD
Spring Semester Career Guide
54
How to Build a High-Performing, Diverse
and Inclusive Super A-Team
60
By Joseph Santana
56
Dear Employer, Diversity Matters
By Phyllis Finley
The Nontraditional Workweek: Embracing
Workplace Flexibility as a Business Imperative
By Alexandra Vollman
64
Who Is an Online “Applicant”?
By Jennifer Seda, JD
** Career opportunities can be found throughout the Spring Semester Career Guide **
EXTRA!
16
Why Diversity Matters: Fundraising
By Alexandra Vollman
18
Coalition of Universities Rethinks
How Students Apply to College
By Rebecca Prinster
insightintodiversity.com
3
UCF offers me a unique environment that
joins researchers together. By creating
collaboration in simulation, they’ve formed
an invigorating environment where I am
one of many developing techniques and
researching simulation.
— DESIREE DÍAZ
The best
new minds to
PREPARE
University of Central Florida Assistant Professor Desiree Díaz is
creating best practices in nursing simulation. Previously at Johns
Hopkins University and the University of Connecticut, Díaz develops
safe environments where students and nursing professionals can gain
practical experience before entering real-life situations. “My hope is
to answer, ‘What is simulation best practice?’ and improve patient
outcomes with my research.”
UCF is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.
We’re seeking 100 of the best
new minds in research and
teaching to foster diversity
and innovation in our 13
colleges. Visit ucf.edu/faculty.
| In Every Issue |
Connecting Diverse Professionals To Diverse CareersTM
January/February 2016
Volume 86 No. 4 & 5
In Brief
6 Diversity and Inclusion News Roundup
11132 South Towne Square, Suite 203
St. Louis, Missouri 63123
314.200.9955 • 800.537.0655 • 314.200.9956 FAX
[email protected]
[email protected]
www.insightintodiversity.com
Partner Profile
ISSN: 2154-0349
© 2016 Potomac Publishing, Inc.
7 Catalyst Takes Research-Based Approach to
Contacts:
Lenore Pearlstein | Publisher
Holly Mendelson | Publisher
Alexandra Vollman | Editor
Daniel Hecke | Art Director
Rebecca Prinster | Senior Staff Writer
Donald Washington | University Relations
Developing Inclusive Workplaces
By Alexandra Vollman
New Directions
8 Diversity Leaders on the Move
This Month’s Celebration
10 African American History Month
HEED Award Spotlight
12 Cultural Transformation Drives Inclusive Excellence
at UC College of Nursing
By Rebecca Prinster
14 With a Constant Focus on Improvement, Florida State
University Continues to Advance Inclusion
By Madeline Szrom
Careers
57 Job Opportunities
Editorial Board:
Pamela W. Arnold
Vicky Ayers
Brooke Barnett
Kenneth J. Barrett
Edna B. Chun, DM
Deborah Dagit
James A. Felton III
Tia T. Gordon
Jeffrey W. Larroca, JD
William Lewis Sr., PhD
Frank McCloskey
Kevin McDonald, JD
Julia Méndez
Tanya M. Odom
Joseph Santana
Shirley J. Wilcher, JD, CAAP
Anise D. Wiley-Little
Damon A. Williams, PhD
Shane L. Windmeyer
Contributing Writers:
Jamaal Abdul-Alim
Lakesha Butler, PharmD
Phyllis Finley
Rebecca Prinster
Joseph Santana
Jennifer Seda, JD
Madeline Szrom
Alexandra Vollman
The views expressed in the content of the
articles and advertisements published in
INSIGHT Into Diversity are those of the authors
and are not to be considered the views
expressed by Potomac Publishing, Inc.
Closing INSIGHT
66 Nursing & Medicine Quotes
Formerly the
Affirmative Action Register
On the Cover: The Consortium Library on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus
insightintodiversity.com
5
[ In Brief ]
American Indian Nurse Releases Textbook
Focused on Native Health Issues
Native Americans have the highest
rates of diabetes, substance abuse,
and teen suicide of any group in the
U.S., yet there is a dearth of medical
literature about how best to prevent
and treat the underlying causes of
these issues.
That’s why Margaret Moss, assistant
dean of diversity and inclusion for
the University at Buffalo School of
Nursing, and 12 other contributing
writers — nine of whom are also
American Indian nurses — published
American Indian Health and Nursing.
Released in December, it is the first
textbook focused solely on providing
care to this underserved population.
“This book was written to answer
the disturbing lack of information
and understanding of the most
underrepresented group in America —
as patients, health professionals, and in
academia,” Moss said in a statement.
Currently, less than 1 percent of
nurses are Native American.
She writes in the textbook that
disparities in healthcare policy
and environmental, historical,
and geographical factors have all
contributed to Native
Americans’ health
inequality. For example,
of the roughly 5 million
American Indians in
the U.S., 78 percent live
off of reservations, and
more than half of that
population live in cities,
where they are more likely
to receive care from nonNative nurses, leading to
an increased occurrence of
discrimination in care.
On the other hand, those who live
on reservations have limited access
to resources and healthcare due to
geographical isolation, and the impact
is tremendous; for example, the life
expectancy for men on the Pine Ridge
reservation in South Dakota is less
than 50 years. Moss says a distrust
of government based on historical
events, as well as low high school
and college graduation rates among
American Indians, further contribute
to their poor health
outcomes, especially
when it comes to mental
health issues.
“Poverty, isolation, and
overwhelming historical
trauma all weigh on
you and feed into how
you react,” Moss says.
“[In the book], we took
a wider view of health
to understand why this
population has such poor
health outcomes.”
The textbook takes a holistic
approach to Native American health by
looking at the topic through spiritual,
mental, physical, and emotional lenses
to develop culturally sensitive nurses.
Creating trust between patient and
provider is also paramount to the
textbook’s goals.
— Rebecca Prinster
A Year of Fostering Change
A major theme on many college
campuses this past year was the call for
greater social justice, with many student
activists demanding the renaming of
university buildings and the removal of
controversial objects from campuses.
University of North Carolina
Saunders Hall was renamed Carolina
Hall in May, after months of
protests and debate over the legacy of
William Saunders, a purported Ku
Klux Klan leader.
Eastern Michigan University
The school’s marching band dropped
the image of a Huron tribesman from
its uniforms at the beginning of the
6
January/February 2016
school year, following complaints from
the Native American community.
and Remembrance halls, respectively,
following sit-ins by students.
University of Texas at Austin
In August, students successfully spurred
the eventual relocation of a statue of
Confederate President Jefferson Davis
from campus to a historical exhibit.
East Carolina University
and Duke University
Both universities renamed dormitories
previously named after former
North Carolina governor and white
supremacist Charles B. Aycock.
University of Mississippi
In October, students and faculty
successfully petitioned to remove the
Confederate flag from campus.
Georgetown University
In November, Mulledy and McSherry
residential halls — named for former
slaveholders.— were renamed Freedom
University of Oregon
In December, students in the Black
Lives Matter movement demanded
dropping the name of university
founder Matthew Deady from
buildings on campus, due to his
advocacy for slavery.
[ INSIGHT Partner Profile ]
Catalyst Takes Research-Based
Approach to Developing
Inclusive Workplaces
By Alexandra Vollman
O
riginally founded in 1992
is its Inclusive Leadership Learning
with the goal of helping
Experiences, a research-based
women enter the workforce,
curriculum aimed at developing
Canadian-based nonprofit organization
inclusive leaders at all levels of an
Catalyst is now focused on the
organization. The
workplace itself.
initiative has three key
“We realized that it’s strange
components: online
to have women in the workforce
learning experiences
if the workplace is not ready
in partnership with
for them, and that caused us to
edX, blended learning
shift our focus from individual
experiences, and
women to organizations
experiential learning
themselves,” says Deepali
for employee resource
Bagati, executive director for
group leaders.
Catalyst’s U.S. region.
Thus far, Catalyst
Deepali Bagati
“Our mission is around
has launched two
expanding opportunities for women
online learning experiences focused on
and businesses, and we’re very careful
inclusive leadership training. The first
about that ‘and’ because we believe.—
one, “Becoming a Successful Leader,”
and there’s research that supports
reached more than 60,000 people in
this.— that it’s not just about women,”
200 countries.
she adds. “When you have an inclusive
Although Catalyst has offices in a
workplace where women and men have
handful of countries, Bagati says the
equal opportunity to succeed, advance,
Internet allows for much farther reach.
and lead, it has a ripple effect on the
“Technology allows us to have a global
economy and on the community.”
presence,” she says. “It also allows us to
In order to achieve its mission
look at nuances in each culture.”
of creating inclusive workplaces in
The second component of these
which diverse employees are able to
learning experiences is a leadership
thrive, Catalyst takes a research-based
development suite called Leading
approach. Much of this work has
with Inclusion, a combination of
focused on determining the barriers
virtual and on-site education created
women face and the cultural differences
in partnership with global consulting
that exist at companies around the
firm BlessingWhite. A complementary
world in order to develop best practices.
service offered only to Catalyst member
Through this research, Catalyst is
organizations, this experience consists
then able to provide its more than 800
of a series of six modules that explore
members, the majority of which are
strategies for developing leaders who
global corporations and organizations,
can effectively tap into the benefits of a
with tools and services aimed at
diverse workforce.
creating awareness of diversity’s benefits
In order to deeply engage with
and driving organizational change.
employees, Catalyst launched its
One of Catalyst’s major initiatives
Employee Resource Leadership
Initiative (ERLI) — the third learning
experience. It enables the organization
to connect with employee resource
group leaders across companies,
industries, functions, and regions to
share ideas and best practices on how to
drive inclusion.
Additional Catalyst research has
examined the experiences of women
of color in the workplace. The Women
of Color Research Initiative seeks
to discover not only the barriers
these women face, but also what
has worked for them in the past
and where gaps still exist. With this
information, Catalyst is able to offer
its members solutions and strategies
for improvement.
“[Discovering] situations in which
women of color actually feel included
and are comfortable sharing their
diverse ideas … is so important
nowadays,” says Bagati. “Women
of color are increasing in numbers
and increasingly getting professional
degrees, and that’s a big talent pool;
that’s an opportunity.”
Bagati says that Catalyst’s emphasis
on research helps lend the organization
credibility, but more important, it
provides legitimate, fact-based methods
for creating inclusive environments.
“At the end of the day, we want
inclusive workplaces,” she says. “There
are diverse groups of people in the
workplace, but unless you have an
environment where you can leverage that
diversity, [it] doesn’t work very well.”●
Alexandra Vollman is the editor of
INSIGHT Into Diversity. For more
information on Catalyst, visit catalyst.org.
insightintodiversity.com
7
[ New Directions ]
ALABAMA
Carla Jackson Bell, PhD, has been
appointed dean of the Robert R.
Taylor School of Architecture and
Construction Science at Tuskegee
University. She had been professor
and director of multicultural affairs
in the College of Architecture,
Design, and Construction at Auburn
University in Alabama.
Kemba Chambers,
PhD, has been named
acting president
of Drake State
Community and
Technical College in
Huntsville. She had
been dean of mathematics, natural
sciences, and pre-engineering at
Calhoun Community College in
Tanner, Ala.
Adam A. Smith has
been appointed
director of
undergraduate
academic advising and
student success in the
Office for Academic
Affairs at the University of Alabama
in Tuscaloosa. He had been assistant
vice president for student success at
the University of Akron in Ohio.
ARKANSAS
LaTonda Davis-Williams has been
promoted to employee relations
manager and Title IX coordinator at
the University of Arkansas at Little
Rock. She had been serving as
employee relations manager on an
interim basis.
Angela Williams,
EdD, has been
named assistant vice
provost for student
affairs and executive
director of the Career
Development Center
at the University of Arkansas in
Fayetteville. She had been director
of the center.
8
January/February 2016
CALIFORNIA
Julianna Barnes, PhD, has been
appointed president of Cuyamaca
College in El Cajon. She was most
recently vice president of student
services at San Diego Mesa College.
Tomas Gomez-Arias, PhD, has
been named the first chief diversity
officer at Saint Mary’s College of
California in Moraga. He had been
serving as chair of the marketing
department and professor of
marketing and global business at
the college.
Jefferson Huang, PhD, has
been appointed acting dean of
Claremont McKenna College in
Claremont. He retains his position
as vice president for student affairs
at the college.
FLORIDA
Angela Felecia Epps, JD, has
been named dean of Florida
A&M University College of Law in
Orlando. She was most recently
professor of law at the William
H. Bowen School of Law at the
University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Traki Taylor, PhD, has been
appointed dean of Florida A&M
University College of Education in
Tallahassee. She was most recently
a professor and dean of the College
of Education at Bowie State
University in Maryland.
GEORGIA
Arthur Dunning, PhD,
has been named
president of Albany
State University. He
had been serving in
the position on an
interim basis.
Ivan Harrell II, PhD, has been
appointed executive vice president
for academic and student affairs
at Georgia Piedmont Technical
College in Clarkston. He was most
recently vice president of student
success at Lone Star College-CyFair
in Cypress, Texas.
Paul Jones, PhD, has been named
president of Fort Valley State
University. He had been serving as
interim president of Darton State
University in Albany.
HAWAII
Doris Ching, EdD,
has been appointed
interim chancellor
at the University of
Hawai’i-West O’ahu.
She is emeritus
vice president for
student affairs for the University of
Hawai’i system.
ILLINOIS
Curtis Sartor,
PhD, has been
named assistant
to the president
for diversity
and spiritual
development at
Judson University in Elgin. He
retains his role as professor of
architecture in the university’s
School of Art, Design, and
Architecture.
KANSAS
DeAngela BurnsWallace, EdD,
has been named
vice provost for
undergraduate
studies at the
University of Kansas in Lawrence.
She had been assistant vice provost
for undergraduate studies at the
University of Missouri in Columbia.
Marché FlemingRandle, PhD, has
been appointed
assistant to the
president for
diversity at Wichita
State University.
She retains her position as
assistant dean of the university’s
Fairmount College of Liberal Arts
and Sciences.
MASSACHUSETTS
Joan Vitello, PhD,
RN, has been named
dean of the Graduate
School of Nursing
at the University
of Massachusetts
Medical School
in Worchester. She was most
recently associate chief nurse
for cardiovascular, thoracic, and
surgical acute and critical care
nursing at Brigham and Women’s
Hospital in Boston.
MISSOURI
Chuck Henson,
JD, has been
appointed interim
vice chancellor for
inclusion, diversity,
and equity at the
University of Missouri
in Columbia. He had been associate
dean for academic affairs and trial
practice in the School of Law at
the university.
Michael Middleton, JD, has been
named interim president of the
University of Missouri system. He is
deputy chancellor emeritus at the
University of Missouri in Columbia.
NEW JERSEY
Raul Sanchez, JD, has been
appointed equal employment
opportunity/affirmative action
officer at Union County College. He
was most recently senior director
for Title IX and risk management at
Stony Brook University in New York.
NEW YORK
Cynthia Bowman has been named
chief diversity and inclusion officer
with Bank of America. She had
been learning and leadership
development and diversity and
inclusion executive for Bank
of America’s Global Wealth
and Investment Management
organization.
Danielle LaraqueArena, MD, has
been appointed
president of
the SUNY
Upstate Medical
University in
Syracuse; she is the first woman
to serve in that position. She
was chair of the department of
pediatrics at Maimonides Medical
Center and vice president of
Maimonides Infants and Children’s
Hospital, both in Brooklyn, N.Y.,
and professor of pediatrics at
the Albert Einstein College of
Medicine of Yeshiva University in
New York, N.Y.
Allen Nelson Lewis Jr., PhD, has
been named dean of the College of
Health Related Professions at SUNY
Downstate Medical Center. He was
most recently department head in
the Department of Health Sciences
at James Madison University in
Harrisonburg, Va.
NORTH CAROLINA
G. Rumay
Alexander, EdD, RN,
has been appointed
special assistant to
the chancellor at
the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She
retains her position as professor
and director of multicultural
affairs in the School of Nursing at
the university.
PENNSYLVANIA
Nolan Atkinson Jr., JD, has
been named chief diversity and
inclusion officer for the city of
Philadelphia. He is a member of
and chief diversity and inclusion
officer in the Duane Morris LLP
law firm in Philadelphia.
TENNESSEE
George Hill,
PhD, has been
appointed the
first chief diversity
officer and vice
chancellor for
equity, diversity,
and inclusion at Vanderbilt
University in Nashville. He is a
Levi Watkins Jr., MD Professor
Emeritus in Medical Education
and the former associate dean for
diversity in medical education in
the university’s School of Medicine.
TEXAS
Pamela Anthony,
PhD, has been
named vice
president for
student affairs
at Southern
Methodist
University in Dallas. She had been
serving as dean of students at Iowa
State University in Ames.
VIRGINIA
Deborah Noble-Triplett, PhD, has
been appointed senior vice provost
for academic affairs at Virginia
Commonwealth University in
Richmond. She was most recently
assistant vice president in the
offices of academic affairs and
human resources for the University
of Missouri system.
Menah Pratt-Clarke, PhD, JD, has
been named the first vice provost
for inclusion and diversity and
vice president for strategic affairs
at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
She was most recently associate
chancellor for strategic affairs and
associate provost for diversity at
the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign.
Has your campus recently hired a new diversity administrator? INSIGHT Into Diversity would like to publish your news.
Please email: [email protected].
insightintodiversity.com
9
Ruby Bridges
On November 14, 1960, Ruby
Bridges became one of the first
African American students to
attend class at one of two allwhite elementary schools in New
Orleans, following the courtordered integration of the city’s public schools. The
6-year-old and her family faced harassment and
discrimination in response. In 2001, Bridges was
awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal. She is now
chair of the Ruby Bridges Foundation.
First president of the
American Medical Association:
Lonnie Bristow (1995)
FIRST!
The first HBCU owned and operated
by African Americans was
Wilberforce University
in Ohio, named for abolitionist
William Wilberforce in 1856.
Dr. Levi Watkins
Jr. performed the
first implantation
of an automatic
defibrillator into a
human heart, in 1980.
FIRST!
Otis Boykin invented electronic
control devices for guided
missiles, IBM computers,
and the pacemaker.
First president of the
American Bar Association:
Dennis Archer (2002)
Marie M. Daly
In 1947, Marie M. Daly earned a
PhD from Columbia University,
thus becoming the first African
American woman to receive a PhD
in chemistry. Her research related
to how chemicals in the body
digest food, and with Quentin B.
Deming, she discovered the relationship between high
cholesterol and clogged arteries.
Celebrating African
American History Month
This February, for African American History Month, we highlight
some of the accomplishments and firsts of African American
educators, inventors, and civil rights activists.
FIRST!
The African Free School
in New York City was
the first school for
African Americans
First Pulitzer Prize winner:
Gwendolyn Brooks (1950)
and was founded in 1787 by the
abolitionist group the New York
Manumission Society.
Charles H. Houston
Charles H. Houston was a
renowned attorney for the NAACP
who served as the first African
American editor of the Harvard
Law Review and vice dean of
Howard University’s law school.
He was instrumental in laying the groundwork for what
became Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that
school segregation was unconstitutional.
10
January/February 2016
Ralph J. Bunche was the
first African American to
be awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize for his work in
mediating the Arab-Israeli
truce in 1950.
In 2011, 1.6 million
African Americans earned
advanced degrees.
That same year,
there were 3.9 million
African American
college students.
FIRST!
First Ivy League university president:
Ruth Simmons (2001)
Mary Jane Patterson
As of 2005, there were 2.4
million African American
military veterans in the U.S.
Mary Jane Patterson was born
the daughter of fugitive slaves in
Raleigh, N.C., in 1840. When she
graduated from Oberlin College in
1862, she became the first African
American woman in the U.S. to
earn a bachelor’s degree. She went
on to teach in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.,
and became the first African American principal of the
Preparatory High School for Negroes, in 1871.
the highest of any
minority group
according to the American
Community Survey.
Degrees Earned by
African Americans:
Associate Bachelor’s
Master’s
Doctoral
1999-2000
60,221
108,013
36,595
7,080
FIRST!
2009-2010
113,905
164,844
76,458
10,417
Alain LeRoy Locke
% Increase
89%
53%
109%
47%
Charles R. Drew
established the first
blood bank in 1938.
First U.S. Supreme
Court justice:
Thurgood Marshall (1967)
Mary McLeod Bethune
Born to former slaves, Mary
McLeod Bethune was an educator
and civil rights leader best known
for establishing a private school
for African American girls, which
later became Bethune-Cookman
University. She also advised President Franklin D.
Roosevelt on African American concerns and shared his
New Deal message with African American voters who
had historically voted Republican.
Alain LeRoy Locke — nicknamed the
“Father of the Harlem Renaissance” for his
active support of the artistic movement.—
was a scholar and chaired the Howard
University Department of Philosophy until
his retirement in 1953. In 1907, as a recent
Harvard graduate, Locke became the first African American
selected as a Rhodes Scholar but was denied entrance to
several colleges in Oxford because of his race.
In 1968, San Francisco State
University became the first
four-year college to establish
a black studies program,
under Nathan Hare. The
program became the Black
Studies Department a year
later. Between 1969 and 1973,
roughly 600 similar programs
and departments were created
at U.S. colleges and universities.
More than half of all African
American public school
teachers and 70 percent of
FIRST!
black dentists and physicians
graduated from an HBCU.
There are
Rod Paige
107 HBCUs in the U.S.,
From 2001 to 2005, Rod Paige
served as the first African American
U.S. secretary of education. In
the 1980s, Paige taught at Texas
Southern University, where he
was also dean of the College of
Education for 10 years and established the university’s
Center for Excellence in Urban Education.
including public and
private institutions,
community colleges,
and professional schools.
In 1872, Elijah McCoy invented
an automatic lubricator for oiling
steam engines. “The real McCoy”
is a reference to his invention.
First Congressional Medal of Honor:
Sgt. William H. Carney (1900)
George Washington Carver and
Percy Julian were the first two
African Americans admitted to the
National Inventors Hall of Fame
in 1990 — Carver for agricultural
advances and
Julian for drugs to
combat glaucoma.
Sources: biography.com; U.S. Census Bureau, 2011; National Center for Education Statistics, 2013; images via Wikipedia
[ HEED Award Spotlight ]
Cultural Transformation Drives Inclusive
Excellence at UC College of Nursing
By Rebecca Prinster
R
ecognizing that lasting change
can come only from the
concerted efforts of a group
of people, the University of Cincinnati
(UC) College of Nursing, led by Dean
Greer Glazer, has taken deliberate
steps to create an inclusive culture and
address differences head on, rather than
shy away from them.
In July, for example, when a UC
police officer was involved in a fatal
shooting just off campus and the story
was established in 2013 as part of
the college’s strategic plan, which
Karen Bankston — associate dean
for clinical practice, partnership, and
community engagement in the College
of Nursing.— says is an intentional
linkage with the wider UC campus’s
strategic vision to create a more diverse
campus community. The council’s
mission is “to be a change catalyst for a
culture of inclusive excellence,” with a
vision “to inspire, influence, recommend,
UC Medical Center nurse Terri Tripp (L) mentors UC College of Nursing
student Christine Chege.
made national headlines, the College
of Nursing came together to talk about
racial inequality in the community.
“Rather than ignore the shooting, we
embraced it as a problem that affects
our college too,” says Gordon Gillespie,
assistant professor and co-chair of the
college’s Diversity Advisory Council.
“We held a discussion with the
parameters that everyone is allowed to
have a bias and a point of view, and we
talked about what that means, without
holding grudges. It was important to
have a safe space for discussion.”
The Diversity Advisory Council
12
January/February 2016
This year, the college is reading Wes
Moore’s The Other Wes Moore, the
true-life account of two young African
American men of the same name whose
lives followed different paths.
“What’s notable is that we [have]
used leaders and experts from different
departments outside the College of
Nursing [in the discussion sessions],”
says Glazer. “It has definitely led to
better conversations by having these
different, outside perspectives.”
Dean Greer Glazer (far left) and Karen Bankston (second from left)
with students at the college’s Summer Bridge Program graduation
and challenge” the College of Nursing
and the UC community to embrace and
reflect the diversity of Cincinnati.
But Gillespie says there are a number
of other activities that the council
organizes to encourage examinations
of difference, such as movie nights and
book clubs that involve all faculty, staff,
and students in the College of Nursing.
These culminate in group discussions.
Films screened have included Dallas
Buyers Club and A Place at the Table,
and readings have included The Help
by Kathryn Stockett and Rolling Back:
Through a Life Disabled by Mike Shirk.
“I’ve seen more and more
engagement,” she adds. “At first, the
people who were attending these
movies and book clubs were members
of the council, but more and more,
there is wider engagement and different
people are showing up.”
This increased participation is
evidence of the college’s progress in
bringing about a cultural shift among
its faculty, staff, and students. Glazer
says this is the first, and most crucial,
step to implementing successful
diversity strategies.
“It starts with the cultural
transformation,” she says. “You can’t
make all the other stuff work if the
campus culture doesn’t celebrate
diverse perspectives.”
One hallmark of the College of
Nursing’s diversity initiatives is its
Leadership 2.0 pipeline program,
which works with first-generation,
low-income, and underrepresented high
school students — mainly from urban
settings. Beginning in the 11th grade,
students in each cohort receive precollege advising and academic support
and take part in weekend academies.
Then they participate in a summer
bridge program, and when they arrive
on campus in the fall, they continue to
receive intensive advising and support,
both social and academic.
Bankston says students who
have participated in Leadership
2.0 have higher GPAs than other
underrepresented nursing students, and
some have higher GPAs than the general
nursing student population. Because of
its success, the college received a $2.5
million grant from the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services’ Office of
Minority Health this year. This money
will be used to expand the program
to ninth graders at one of the six area
high schools the college partners with
in an effort to diversify the healthcare
workforce and reduce health disparities.
“We found out it’s not good enough
to focus on incoming students, but
that we had to work on filling the
pipeline earlier. … Students in ninth
grade need exposure to health careers
and math and science support in high
school,” Glazer says.
The college has been able to assess
its progress through what Glazer
calls a “laser focus on metrics” and
by garnering feedback from student,
faculty, and staff surveys.
For example, to address concerns that
some were leaving the UC College of
Nursing because of discrimination, they
conducted interviews with 60 faculty
members and students in the college
to learn how microaggressions were
affecting their daily experiences.
“One international student said her
work group isolated her because they
assumed she couldn’t do the work as well,”
Gillespie says. “The faculty member told
the student to join the group, but that
faculty member didn’t understand the
situation. So we made a purposeful effort
to meet with the faculty and explain how
to deal with that.”
Gillespie says these interviews have
allowed the college to create a model
for inclusive policies — one that is built
on openness and teamwork.●
Rebecca Prinster is a senior staff
writer for INSIGHT Into Diversity.
The University of Cincinnati College
of Nursing is a 2015 INSIGHT Into
Diversity HEED Award recipient.
insightintodiversity.com
13
[ HEED Award Spotlight ]
Florida State University’s campus in Tallahassee
Students at Florida State University
With a Constant Focus on Improvement, Florida
State University Continues to Advance Inclusion
By Madeline Szrom
F
lorida State University (FSU),
with its more than 40,000
students, has built a reputation
on never settling. Although the school
has been recognized by the Institute
for Higher Education Policy (IHEP)
for its inclusion initiatives, university
leaders never see their job as complete.
Their goal is to continuously improve
the state of diversity on campus, ensuring
that current and future students have a
positive college experience that empowers
them into the future.
“A key component is ensuring that
FSU provides an environment that is
welcoming and inclusive and celebrates
diversity in a manner that faculty, staff,
and students know that FSU is the
place for them,” says Renisha Gibbs,
finance and administration chief of
staff and assistant vice president for
human resources.
With this focus on creating a safe
and welcoming space for all, FSU
boasts a diverse campus community.
“Our student body represents every
14
January/February 2016
county in Florida, all 50 states, and over
128 countries,” says Miguel Hernandez,
associate director of the Center for
Leadership and Social Change at FSU.
“Minorities represent 30 percent and
women represent 57 percent [of the
student body].”
In addition to having a diverse
student population, the university helps
ensure the success of underrepresented
students. Currently, FSU’s graduation
rate for African American students is 69
percent — which, according to the U.S.
Department of Education, is 24 percent
higher than the national average.
To cater to its large and diverse
student body, FSU has created a variety
of programs to increase the knowledge
and understanding of people from all
backgrounds. One example of this is
general cultural competency trainings,
which give students the opportunity to
delve into the histories and cultures of
different groups, with a focus on selfidentity and cultural respect.
The university’s Social Justice Ally
Training is another offering that
focuses on educating the campus
community around issues of identity,
gender, religion, and race. These twoday workshops aim to help students
build an understanding of individuality,
as well as increase their respect for
people who are different from them.
The goal of the training is to
“develop allies who will promote an
equitable and inclusive environment
and serve as social change agents
in a diverse and global society,”
says Michelle Douglas, director of
organizational development and equal
opportunity and compliance.
Through learning about oneself and
others, Douglas says participants are
better prepared for life after college.
For Hernandez, workplace
preparedness is a major reason behind
FSU’s offering these programs.
“In the context of the workplace,
valuing diversity means creating a
workplace that respects and includes
differences, recognizes the unique
contributions the individuals with
many types of differences can make,
and creates a work environment
that maximizes the potential of all
employees,” he says.
While FSU’s diversity efforts
emphasize training, they also deliver
support and guidance to specific
underrepresented groups. The
university’s Black Male Initiative
(BMI), for instance, helps guide
young African American men as they
transition from high school into college.
Overall, the initiative’s mission is to
instill in these young men values and
positive practices that will help them
succeed in college, as well as aid them
as they move into meaningful careers or
continue their education.
On a national level, only 33.1 percent
of African American men graduate from
college, compared with 54.5 percent of
white men and 44.8 percent of African
American women. Through mentoring,
academic counseling, leadership
and service, and attendance at social
functions, BMI fosters connections for
African American men, helping them
build a professional network via campus
and community involvement.
Veterans are also well supported at
the university. In an attempt to be the
“most veteran-friendly and empowering
university in the nation,” FSU’s Student
Veteran Center helps ease veterans’
transition from military service to campus
life by providing them the support and
resources they need to be successful.
FSU is also known for its support
of first-generation and disadvantaged
students.
In 2012, FSU created the Center for
Academic Retention and Enhancement
(CARE) — a version of which
was initially launched in 1968 as
Horizons Unlimited — by merging
Horizons with Multicultural Student
Support Services, Minority Academic
Programs, and the university’s Summer
Enrichment Program.
CARE provides support for
first-generation, socioeconomically
disadvantaged students and also
helps them with their transition into
college. Students selected for CARE
receive automatic admissions to
FSU, participate in a Summer Bridge
Program, and are connected to a
variety of academic and engagement
programming for the duration of their
time at the university. Services to these
students include tutoring, academic
advising, life coaching, financial
aid assistance, and financial literacy
education, among others. In addition,
faculty and staff help students stay
engaged on campus through workshops
and various activities.
“CARE operates to provide equity
and access to students disadvantaged by
world image and, in others, is very
monolithic,” Douglas says. “We have
to ask ourselves the question that even
though we may appear diverse, are we
truly inclusive?”
While she believes that FSU
is inclusive, she also says that it’s
important for the university to remain
innovative and informed, which it
does, in part, through its Diversity
and Inclusion Council. The council.—
composed of faculty, staff, students,
and community members, as well as
the president and members of the
president’s cabinet — is in charge of
Student veterans at FSU
virtue of educational and socioeconomic
reasons,” says Douglas.
Due to the work being done by
CARE, FSU was recognized by
IHEP in November 2015 as one of
the nation’s top 10 “Access Improvers”
for having made impressive efforts
to provide support and educational
opportunities for traditionally
underrepresented students.
Although FSU continues to work
toward increasing its already high
standards of diversity and inclusion,
Douglas says that determining where the
school excels and where improvements
can be made is often difficult.
“We are a very large institution that
recruits its student body and much of
its workforce from within a state that
in some areas presents a truly global
implementing and executing policies
and practices; these have included
a climate analysis, data reviews,
programming, and public relations,
as well as efforts to diversify faculty
and staff. These efforts ensure FSU
maintains its diversity while continuing
to improve upon inclusion.
“We have to continue to listen to
our campus community, move forward
with the efforts that we are currently
working on, and develop new ideas and
methodologies to address the needs of
our diverse community,” Gibbs says.
Madeline Szrom is a contributing
writer for INSIGHT Into Diversity.
Florida State University is a 2014 and
2015 INSIGHT Into Diversity HEED
Award recipient.
insightintodiversity.com
15
Why Diversity Matters:
Fundraising
By Alexandra Vollman
A
t a time when funding for
who is also chair of the Association
higher education in most
of Fundraising Professional’s (AFP)
states remains at preDiversity and Inclusion Committee
recession levels, colleges are enhancing
and serves on the board of directors for
fundraising efforts in order to elicit
AFP International. “I think focusing on
larger gifts from more donors.
[those] and being mindful of the ways
According to the Center on Budget
that you’re communicating with every
and Policy Priorities, the average state
single person you reach out to is only
currently spends 20 percent less per
going to help.”
student than it did before the 2007The caveat, she says, is that schools
2008 academic year. At the same time,
need to be doing good work in the areas
charitable donations to colleges and
of diversity and inclusion. Colleges and
universities reached an all-time high
universities that do well supporting,
in 2014, with nearly $38 billion gifted,
including, and ensuring a positive
based on the annual survey by the
college experience for all students,
Council for Aid to Education (CAE).
including underrepresented students,
While the nation’s private Ivy elite
may have better luck when asking
tend to amass the majority of
alumni for donations
this wealth — 28.6 percent
down the road, says Una
of the total amount donated
Osili, director of research
in 2014 went to fewer than 2
for the Lilly Family
percent of the roughly 1,000
School of Philanthropy at
schools that participated
Indiana University-Purdue
in CAE’s survey — public
University Indianapolis.
institutions are beginning to
“The bottom line, and
see the value in expanding
I think the big takeaway,
their own fundraising efforts.
is that a lot of the work
Jaye Lopez
Van Soest
Jaye Lopez Van Soest,
around building and
development director
cultivating donors has
at Public Justice and
to start with individuals
former director of development for
on campus,” she says. “And building
the University of the District of
that relationship with the university is
Columbia David A. Clarke School of
something that should be done while
Law, a historically black law school
they are students.”
in D.C., says that one way schools
When communicating with
can enhance their fundraising, and
university faculty and staff in her
set themselves apart, is by leveraging
previous position at Clarke School
diversity and inclusion.
of Law, Lopez Van Soest says she
“You have a situation where schools
emphasized that every interaction
absolutely have to raise additional
students have affects the school’s
funds, private support funds, and I
ability “to secure their support when
think that diversity and inclusion can
they are alums,” which is why she
play a role,” says Lopez Van Soest,
believes focusing on the student
16
January/February 2016
experience is so critical.
“The better supported, particularly
minority, students are from the second
they get here — even before they get
here, the second they are recruited, the
second they even contemplate coming
to the school — every interaction and
how they’re supported … is absolutely
going to impact whether or not they
give to you 10 years down the road, or
however many years,” she says.
As the nation’s demographics
continue to shift toward a new
minority-majority, colleges and
universities are also experiencing a
transformation, with larger numbers
of minorities enrolling and graduating.
Specifically, between 1984 and 2009,
the Latino student population increased
by 546 percent, the African American
student population by 240 percent, the
Asian American and Pacific Islander
student population by 314 percent,
and the Native American student
population by 219 percent.
“… For most colleges and
universities, their alumni in the past
were predominantly white,” Osili says.
“I think the challenge for many [of
these institutions] is how to reach
alumni of these diverse backgrounds.”
At Clarke School of Law, Lopez Van
Soest was in charge of raising money
from alumni, who she says are mainly
African American and Jewish. This,
she says, like any alumni fundraising,
requires knowledge and understanding.
“Those are not [populations] that
I am a part of, so it was a function of
me learning as much as I could about
the cultures and being extraordinarily
respectful and mindful of the cultural
nuances involved with fundraising
SU_DNA_InsightDiv_Ad_NOV_15_Layout 1 11/6/15 3:02 PM Page 1
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within those [populations],” she says.
According to Osili, a more culturally sensitive
approach to communicating and engaging with diverse
alumni is becoming the norm.
“In the past, the standard approach was maybe a tailgate
party for alumni at football games, but now what [schools]
are trying to do is build engagement of opportunities that
are perhaps more specific,” she says, “because let’s say a
group, for religious reasons, doesn’t drink; then a tailgate
party wouldn’t be appropriate.”
Instead, she recommends engaging alumni by
determining their background and interests and aligning
communications with those. “So if somebody was a science
and engineering major, inviting them back to attend a
lecture on campus, or if they were involved with classical
music while they were an undergraduate [student], maybe
inviting them to a big concert,” says Osili.
“It’s about tailoring those messages so that folks are
going to be most responsive,” adds Lopez Van Soest, who
emphasizes the need for schools to engage with alumni on
a regular basis.
She believes keeping alumni up to date on diversity and
inclusion efforts — as well as other positive work being
done across campus — and informing them of the role they
will play in the institution’s success as donors can affect
whether and how much they donate.
Specifically, marketing diversity and inclusion initiatives
in fundraising materials may also help colleges and
universities reach new audiences, says Lopez Van Soest.
“When you highlight your diversity and inclusion
programs, or your focus is on bringing as many people to
the table as possible, you may have people [reaching out]
to you who may not have talked to you before, and that’s
always a good thing,” she says.
Further influencing a school’s ability to fundraise is the
makeup of its advancement team. Lopez Van Soest says that
having a diverse mix of professionals on a fundraising team
will help schools better connect with their diverse alumni.
While touting diversity and inclusion efforts in
fundraising materials may resonate with some potential
donors, it may not have the same effect on others.
However, as the diversity of the nation, as well as the
student population, continues to increase, so will the need
for colleges and universities to support and connect with
individuals — both as students and alumni — in ways that
lead to future support for their institutions.
“I certainly think that in today’s world it is very important
to demonstrate best practices around diversity and inclusivity
for the general donor population,” Osili says. “Organizations
that are not serving students well are going to have a hard
time telling their story to potential donors and funders.”●
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insightintodiversity.com
17
Coalition of Universities
Rethinks How Students
Apply to College
By Rebecca Prinster
N
ext year’s college applicants
are on the cusp of generations
Y and Z; born in the mid
to late 1990s, this intermediary
group is the most diverse and most
technologically savvy demographic yet.
Colleges and universities are
beginning to realize that identifying
the most outstanding students from
such a group requires a unique
and multifaceted approach. Some
admissions officials say the current
Common Application process,
which is used by more than 600
U.S. schools, does not accurately
communicate an applicant’s strengths
and accomplishments, in part because
the student must scramble to compile
application materials over a compressed
period of time.
Further, in 2013, the Common
Application suffered major glitches
in its updated version. Students and
admissions offices alike experienced
setbacks, and many schools delayed
their early-decision deadlines.
The Coalition for Access,
Affordability, and Success developed
out of the frustration caused by those
glitches. Its goal is to improve the
application process for students and
colleges by offering an alternative to —
but not necessarily a replacement for.—
the Common App. The coalition.—
which consists of more than 80 U.S.
institutions of higher education that
have proven excellence in affordability
and graduation rates — has pledged to
offer an application format that strives
to be advantageous for low-income and
first-generation students.
18
January/February 2016
Member schools graduate at least 70
percent of their student body in six years
and are able to provide adequate needbased financial aid for in-state students
(at public institutions) and domestic
students with significant needs (at
private colleges and universities). Schools
meeting these benchmarks were invited
to join the coalition, but it expects to
expand in the future.
The new application, which is
tentatively set to launch in April 2016,
will include a collaboration platform
to facilitate communication between
students and prospective schools.
ninth grade, in fact. Critics say this puts
additional stress on students, but some,
like Rick Clark at coalition memberschool Georgia Institute of Technology,
say this is actually beneficial for
students, especially those from lower
socioeconomic backgrounds or who are
the first in their family to go to college.
“I make the parallel that the
application process is like shooting
off a starter gun, when the application
becomes available in August,” says
Clark, who is director of undergraduate
admissions at Georgia Tech. “Students
whose parents have gone to college and
In addition to its goal of establishing a better
application process, the coalition is committed to
encouraging students to start thinking about their
college applications earlier.
Students can also fill a private, virtual
“locker” with photos, videos, essays, and
other materials on which counselors,
teachers, and mentors can provide
feedback. When students apply to a
college, they can add components saved
in their locker to the application.
This new application will be
compatible with mobile devices,
laptops, and tablets for access on the go
and will allow students to apply to any
school within the coalition.
In addition to its goal of establishing
a better application process, the
coalition is committed to encouraging
students to start thinking about their
college applications earlier — as early as
come from a ‘college-going’ culture.—
for them the race is on in August,
with deadlines coming up in October
and November for early action. These
students know what the racecourse
looks like ahead of the game.
“But we know that there are many
highly capable students, who aren’t
from college-going backgrounds, who
don’t hear the gun and aren’t even in the
starting block. Some of these students
are testing for the first time in the fall
of their senior year.”
Clark says that by elongating the
timeline for applying to college, the
new application process will allow
students to compile information as
it is happening and will put them
in the college-going mindset earlier.
He gives as an example a student
requesting a letter of recommendation
from a teacher in ninth or 10th grade
and saving that to his or her virtual
locker. If that teacher retires or moves
by the time the student is applying to
college, a letter of recommendation is
already secured.
Research has also shown that students
who start thinking about college earlier
are more likely to apply, an essential
factor in bringing more first-generation
students into higher education.
As with the Common App,
coalition colleges and universities
become part of a database of
searchable member schools. According
to Clark, this was one of the reasons
Georgia Tech decided to join.
“We draw students from all over,
but we don’t have a sizeable marketing
budget or a robust recruiting staff,”
he says. “This is a way for us to be
in front of students [so] they see our
name when they’re scrolling through
the list of schools.”
Similarly, Clark hopes being a
coalition member will help Georgia
Tech enlarge its pool of applicants
and lead to an increase in women and
underrepresented minorities at the
college.
Illinois State University (ISU) has
similar hopes for the new application.
Troy Johnson, associate vice president
for enrollment management at the
university, says it will allow for a more
holistic depiction of prospective students.
“The new application gives students
the chance to shine and show their
ambitions and specialized qualities,
like civic engagement and volunteer
work,” he says. “More and more, we’re
seeing the application process look at
the different attributes students bring
with them.”
Johnson doesn’t see the new application
as a disadvantage for students who
choose not to use it but as a unique
option for those who do. Ultimately, he
sees the new process as a way to change
the perception of college for firstgeneration and low-income students.
“I’m hoping that this new application
spurs a nationwide conversation about
thinking and planning for college
earlier so [that] students and families
who otherwise may wait to apply or
may not get in on time — that these
conversations with students and
families across the U.S. and in Illinois
will start earlier and the college-going
rate will continue to grow.”
ISU plans to use its current
application process, along with the
new multimedia coalition application.
However, other member schools,
such as the University of Washington
(UW ), plan to use the new
application exclusively.
Paul Seegert, director of admissions
at UW, says the school can’t support
IT resources for two different
applications, but he’s confident that
CollegeNET, the vendor in charge
of developing the new application
platform, will be able to deliver the
resources students need to apply.
Like Clark and Johnson, he is
optimistic that the new application
will attract a more expansive pool of
prospective students.
“We hope that we receive more and
better applications from students who
are less likely to apply because of their
socioeconomic background,” he says.
“And we hope it’s easier for out-of-state
students to apply because they’ll be
applying to other coalition schools at
the same time.”
For now, ahead of the official launch
of the new application platform, it is
hard to predict what the results will
be and whether thinking about college
earlier will alleviate or exacerbate
students’ stress. The coalition does
not pretend to have all the answers
when it comes to college application
accessibility, but it says it will continue
to improve its platform based on
feedback from students, parents, and
admissions counselors.●
Rebecca Prinster is a senior staff writer
for INSIGHT Into Diversity. For
more information about the coalition
and the new application format, visit
coalitionforcollegeaccess.org.
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20
January/February 2016
Nursing
Pharmacy
fast facts
In 2013, there were 287,420
pharmacists and 362,690
pharmacy technicians in the
United States.
55% of registered nurses (RNs)
hold a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Nursing employment — including
RNs and advanced practice
nurses — is projected to increase
20.2% between 2012 and 2022.
Pharmacy employment is
projected to increase 14%
between 2012 and 2022.
income
The median annual salary for an
RN was $65,470 in 2014.
The median annual salary
for a pharmacist was
$119,280 in 2013.
The highest-paid 10% of RNs earn
more than $96,320 per year, while
the bottom 10% earn less than
$45,630.
The highest-paid pharmacists
in 2014 earned approximately
$150,000 that year, while
the lowest-paid pharmacists
earned $89,000.
$
diversity
Nearly 30% of nursing
students at all levels represent
minority populations.
In 2013-2014, 13,838
professional degrees in
pharmacy were awarded;
60.4% went to women and
39.6% went to men.
Only 10% of the 2 million
RNs nationwide are men.
Of the total number of students
enrolled in professional degree
pharmacy programs for fall 2014,
61.4% were women and 12.4%
were underrepresented minority
students.
Demographics of RNs:
White: 80.4%
African American: 8.8%
Hispanic or Latino: 3.3%
Asian: 5.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.4%
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 0.1%
Two or more races: 1.3%
In 2014, a total of 293,000 people were
employed as pharmacists in the U.S.
Of these, 56.3% were women, 18.9%
were Asian, 8.1% were African American,
and 5.6% were Hispanic or Latino.
Sources: Health Resources and Services Administration, The U.S. Nursing Workforce: Trends in Supply and Education; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics;
Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014-2015 Occupational Outlook Handbook; American Association of Colleges of Nursing, The Changing Landscape:
Nursing Student Diversity on the Rise, 2014; U.S. Census Bureau; Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment Statistics; American
Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.
[ Special Report: Nursing and Pharmacy ]
Nursing
Professionals’
Roundtable
By Alexandra Vollman
Cherie Rebar
PhD, RN
Peter McMenamin
PhD
David Vlahov
PhD, RN
22
January/February 2016
INSIGHT Into Diversity recently spoke with three
nursing professionals about various issues within
nursing education and practice. They offered
insight into the increased demand for diversifying
the profession, the call for more highly educated
nurses, and more.
Cherie Rebar, PhD, RN, is a professor in the Division
of Nursing at Kettering College in Ohio, as well as an
adjunct professor of nursing at Indiana Wesleyan University.
She is also co-founder and co-president of RN2ED, an
organization dedicated to bridging the gap between clinical
nursing practice and education. She has written and edited
many nursing textbooks and other resources.
Peter McMenamin, PhD, is senior policy adviser for the
American Nurses Association (ANA), where he serves as
the organization’s health economist with expertise on the
economic value of nurses and nursing services. He previously
served as director of healthcare financing policy for the
American Medical Association and has worked in or with a
number of government civilian health agencies.
David Vlahov, PhD, RN, is a professor and dean of the
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School
of Nursing. He previously served as a professor at Johns
Hopkins University and Columbia University, as adjunct
professor at several prestigious nursing and medical schools,
and as co-director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s
Health and Society Scholars program.
The nursing profession has seen an increase in the number
of non-white nurses in the last decade, with minorities
now making up 25 percent, according to a 2013 report from
the Health Resources and Services Administration. What
obstacles does the profession face on the path toward
recruiting more minority nurses, and what strategies do
you recommend?
Rebar: I think marketing methods and outreach campaigns
are important — and strategic planning. Because these are not
things that we can grow overnight, there has to be a strategic
plan in place over a period of time to meet the challenge. For
example, the University of Maryland School of Nursing
applied for and received a $1.2 million contribution of cash
services and grants to develop a marketing campaign to
have a more ethnically diverse mix of men and women in its
nursing program. [The university saw] a 37 percent increase in
applications from last fall, which shows that when you plan for
something, you can produce.
Another thing that is so important is that we appeal
to prospective students at a middle school level whenever
possible; we are seeing that we need to be speaking to
students much earlier. … Middle school is an ideal time
to start painting a picture of what nursing looks like.
Internships are also important.
That is just recruitment. [Once they’re in college], these
students need support. They need to be plugged in to
mentors — and this is true for all nursing students; this
is not just for men or minorities. … Many times students
have families, they have relationships, they have jobs;
sometimes they are older, sometimes they are the first
generation in their family to go to college. That is why I
think it is so important that we partner with them on their
avenue to success.
McMenamin: If you look at nurses age 60 and older — both
men and women — 81 percent are white, and for those
under age 40, 72 percent are white, [according to data from
2006 through 2010]. If you look at the overall employed
population in the U.S., it is 68 percent white. So over the
course of 30 years, the distribution of nurses in the U.S.
had been moving in the direction of where the employee
population is. The youngest group is much closer to the
nation’s overall demographics, so diversity is increasing.
Vlahov: One of the things that I looked at was American
Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) data to see
what has happened to enrollment in colleges of nursing and
insightintodiversity.com
23
Embracing
diversity in
pharmacy
education.
Duquesne University’s six-year
Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.)
program blends classroom and
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students for rewarding careers and
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what has been the trend. In the U.S.
population overall, about 36 percent
of people are categorized as minority,
and if we look at AACN data for
2014.— for bachelor of science in
nursing (BSN) students.— 29 percent
were minorities. For the master of
science degree, it was 30 percent, and
for the PhD degree, about 30 percent.
So I think the increases that we are
seeing are the results of efforts by
schools to do outreach and have
Another example is the University
of Texas (UT) Health Science Center
at Houston. It was looking specifically
at [increasing the number of ] men, so
it convened a forum of male nurses to
ask them what would have attracted
them even more to the profession and
what [they thought] would attract
more men to the profession. One of
the things these men said they wanted
to see was more males within different
settings in nursing, such as emergency
“I think the American Association of Men in
Nursing (AAMN) … has done quite a bit to
develop recruitment materials and [increase]
communications ... about nursing — how great it is
for men and what a rewarding career it can be.”
David Vlahov
duq.edu/pharmacy
sensitivity training on how to address
microaggressions and deal with
unconscious bias, as well as really
work toward creating an environment
for people from diverse backgrounds
to come and get the most out of their
education.
According to U.S. Census Bureau
data from 2013, only 9.6 percent of
registered nurses (RNs) are men. What
is being done to increase the percentage
of male nurses, and why is their
representation crucial to the practice?
Rebar: Strategic marketing is the
most important thing to reflect on. …
There have been many institutions,
especially of higher learning, that have
taken on strategic marketing to attract
men specifically into the practice of
nursing, as well as minorities. One is
Johnson & Johnson. It has what it calls
a “Campaign for Nurses,” and it airs
strategic television [commercials] that
portray nurses from many different
backgrounds, of both genders, caring for
people from diverse populations. I think
this is a wonderful thing, because people
can see that and build an interest.
24
January/February 2016
and trauma. So UT started advertising
its nursing program on the sports
page of the newspaper. I think that is
a wonderful thing to show a balance,
rather than only using what they call
the “flowery, feminine language” of
nursing. Interestingly enough, UT’s
nursing school population jumped 29
percent after this campaign.
Vlahov: I think the American
Association of Men in Nursing
(AAMN) … has done quite a bit
to develop recruitment materials
and [increase] communications that
go out to high school students and
undergraduates to talk about nursing.—
how great it is for men and what a
rewarding career it can be.
A lot of the people whom I meet
that apply or consider applying to the
UCSF nursing school came to nursing
either because their own relatives said it
is a great idea, or they met [other] male
nurses; [they] also talked about the
communications they had received from
the AAMN. So I think that strategy
has been helpful, but I also think it can
become more extensive.
While women make up the majority of the RN workforce,
they earned an average yearly salary that was $9,600
less than that of male RNs, according to 2011 Census
Bureau data. What do you believe are the reasons for the
gender pay gap, and how do you propose this inequity be
addressed?
Rebar: The study that I am most familiar with, which was
conducted recently, looked at 88,000 RNs from the National
Sample Survey of Registered Nurses — who practiced from
1988 to 2008 — and 205,825 RNs from the 2001 through
2003 American Community Surveys; this study represented
males and females. It found an overall adjusted earnings
difference of approximately $5,148 across the board. Of
course, this is different in different demographics, and it
is different for different specialties. There are also some
limitations to this study because there are specialties that
were not included. A study conducted by nurse researchers
and published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association ( JAMA) showed there had been no narrowing of
that pay gap across settings, specialties, and job titles over a
quarter of a century.
I think [fixing] this comes down to very grassroots efforts
by institutions or locations of practice. The only way that is
going to change is by institutions being mindful of the skills,
qualities, and abilities that nurses — not male nurses or
female nurses — but nurses, bring to the forefront.
McMenamin: Nobody believes that there is explicit
gender discrimination, but there is inadvertent gender
discrimination. … I think the challenge is basically twofold,
and it involves childrearing and family responsibilities. Labor
economists have also found that workers of both genders
who take time off from their career for whatever reason,
when they come back, they don’t come back to where they
would have been if they had stayed — in terms of their
salary; they come back to where they were. They fall behind
and never quite catch up. This is true for both genders.
The other thing is culture and family responsibilities. For
whatever reason, in this country and many others, women
take over family responsibilities. That means that they are
less available for working overtime or doing extra shifts. The
Census Bureau does have information that suggests that
male nurses are more likely to be moonlighting — have two
or more jobs as opposed to just one.
Men do take off a little time for paternity leave but
typically only for a couple days or weeks as opposed to
women, who often take off weeks, months, or even years.
Vlahov: Men tend to go toward the higher-paying
specialties, so that could be part of it. [They] also tend to
move toward higher levels of education.
When I was going into nursing, I knew that I was going
to go through and get a PhD. I had that ambition right from
the beginning; I wanted to fast-track to leadership. So I
think some of that is selection.
One of the things that we do at UCSF periodically is look
at equity salary surveys and [determine whether] there has
been an unconscious bias in any possible way and how we
correct that. I think that is a practice that we’re going to see
more widespread in different employment scenarios.
In order to respond to the “demands of an evolving
healthcare system and meet the changing needs of
patients,” the Institute of Medicine recommended in 2010
that 80 percent of RNs obtain a bachelor of science degree
in nursing by 2020 and that the number of nurses with
doctorates double in that time. Why do you believe it is
important that RNs hold a higher degree? What should
nursing schools be doing to increase the number of RNs
with a baccalaureate or advanced degree?
Rebar: I believe it is important for RNs to hold a higher
degree because research and literature show that there are
better outcomes for patients when they are cared for by
nurses who hold [an advanced] degree.
“The only way [the pay gap] is going to
change is by institutions being mindful
of the skills, qualities, and abilities that
nurses.— not male nurses or female nurses —
but nurses, bring to the forefront.”
Cherie Rebar
One thing that I think is so important is being prepared
to educate more nursing faculty. We are seeing a decrease
in the available number of nursing faculty as [their] average
age increases. And there are applicants for programs who
often go unaccepted, not because they are not qualified,
but because there are not enough seats or enough clinical
sites; that often comes down to not enough faculty to
accommodate the interest that exists.
It would also be wonderful if educational institutions
were able to partner with employers needing nurses with
baccalaureate or advanced degrees to offer tuition incentives
or partnerships for nurses to [easily] go back to school to
pursue a higher degree while still [practicing] nursing.
McMenamin: Contemporary data increasingly demonstrate
the growing depth and breadth of value of a BSN-grounded
education. If you are going to be a responsible nurse, you
ought to be constantly asking yourself, “How can I improve?
How can I better my skills? What can I do to make my
contribution to patient care more than it is today?”
It should be part of the ethics of any profession to
continue to improve, [but] it probably doesn’t make sense
insightintodiversity.com
25
for the oldest of associate degree nurses to be going back to
school — simply because the cost of getting the additional
education will not be repaid if they are only going to be in
practice for five to 10 more years. Those nurses will retire,
and when they do, the BSN needle is going to move a lot
“If you are going to be a responsible nurse,
you ought to be constantly asking yourself,
‘How can I improve? How can I better my
skills? What can I do to make my contribution
to patient care more than it is today?’”
Pharmacy: An Essential
Healthcare Profession
Peter McMenamin
26
January/February 2016
faster; the opportunities are going to be there to move into
those jobs. But I worry about those nurses because I think
there is a tradeoff between the BSN background and the
experience, and I worry that hospitals that are going in that
direction are being shortsighted.
I think what hospitals should be doing is taking their
most senior nurses, the ones who are going to retire soon,
and offering them the opportunity to extend their careers.—
maybe with less direct patient care and more time spent
being mentors to new graduates. And if hospitals hired a few
more new grads and used the senior nurses to mentor them,
they could build their own experienced workforce.
Pharmacists are the
medication experts on
the healthcare team.
Together with other
health professions,
they help people live
healthier, better lives.
Learn more about AACP:
www.aacp.org
Vlahov: How do we value education? It is not technical
training; that you can get on the job. I look at higher
education as teaching the philosophy of the work, and that is
providing framework that can organize people’s thinking, and
then providing life-long skills, in terms of developing critical
thinking. Higher education’s purpose is really to prepare people
for critical thinking, for thinking regarding how does all of this
fit into a larger framework — whether it is in the workplace or
through education. I think advanced education really creates a
much more thoughtful, powerful, and effective workforce.
There is a movement now toward making education more
widely available and accessible through online programs,
and there are [online] RN-to-BSN programs. I think these
are all good ideas in terms of increasing access, but we have
to be very thoughtful about the quality of the programs and
[their] content, as well as what the strategies are in terms of
instructional design and the most effective use of educational
technology. … It’s not just online education for its own sake.
Some studies have been done that show that online
[education], if done well, can be very effective and maybe as
effective for getting across the didactic information. So there
is a place for it.●
Alexandra Vollman is the editor of INSIGHT Into Diversity.
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[ Special Report: Nursing and Pharmacy ]
Georgia State University graduate Gloria Rinomhota dressed as the
emperor’s wife at the Summer Palace in Beijing, China
University of Connecticut students attend The Legend of Kung Fu play
at Beijing’s Red Theatre.
Studying Medicines Abroad Makes
for Better Pharmacists at Home
By Rebecca Prinster
T
his year, Chinese
pharmacologist Tu Youyou was
awarded the Nobel Prize in
medicine for her work in developing a
drug to treat malaria. The artemisininbased treatment that she helped
produce is based on ancient Chinese
remedies dating back 1,600 years and
has been administered to more than 1
billion patients since 2000, according to
the World Health Organization.
Artemisinin compounds used
in the drug are derived from sweet
wormwood, a plant native to Asia
that is commonly used in traditional
Chinese medicine (TCM). This ancient
tradition is generally considered an
alternative practice in the U.S., but as
Tu’s accomplishment illustrates, TCM
can have far-reaching, positive effects.
However, pharmacy curricula often
lack information about alternative
pharmaceutical methods.
“Patients are looking for nondrug solutions, but herbs are actually
28
January/February 2016
where drugs started,” says Lauren
Schlesselman, associate clinical
professor and associate dean for
academic affairs at the University
of Connecticut (UConn) School
of Pharmacy. “In pharmacy, herbs
make up a much smaller part [of
the curriculum]; we teach much
more about over-the-counter and
prescription drugs than herbals. TCM
is something that patients are really
interested in and knowledgeable about,
but faculty are not.”
Typically, easily avoidable drug
interactions can occur when
pharmacists are unaware of herbal
medicines that patients are taking. That
is why, with the increasing popularity
of TCM, some pharmacy schools are
recognizing the importance of teaching
students about alternative medicines by
taking them to the source — China.
Currently, only three universities
offer such excursions: UConn,
Purdue University, and Georgia State
University (GSU).
This summer, Schlesselman says 20
UConn pharmacy students traveled
to Beijing, China, for five weeks of
study focused on herbal medicine,
acupuncture, and Mandarin Chinese.
Only one or two students went on the
first trip in 2008.
In addition to knowing how
western drugs can interact with
herbal medicines, Schlesselman says
pharmacists need to be knowledgeable
about cultural differences to understand
how best to treat all patients.
“When you know the cultural
aspects of your patients and
have a cultural understanding of
alternative, traditional medicine,
you as a pharmacist are better able
to serve that patient population,”
she says. “Being aware of what
different cultures do and take to treat
themselves will make you more aware
of how drugs may interact.”
As with anything, there is a learning
curve to becoming knowledgeable
about a different culture, but for
UConn student Connor Walker — a
doctor of pharmacy candidate who
went on this year’s Beijing trip — that
was part of the appeal.
“Eastern culture was something
that I had not known too much about
before I went on this trip, and it was a
wonderful experience to be able to be
a part of a different culture,” he said
in an email.
“I absolutely love the concept of
[leaving] the safety of your comfort
zone and just completely immersing
yourself in an entirely different culture,”
he added. “There is nothing better for
making you grow as a person.”
Tonglei Li — associate dean of
graduate programs, professor, and
Allen Chao Chair in the Department
of Industrial and Physical Pharmacy at
Purdue University — also makes the
case for the cultural knowledge and
increased sensitivity pharmacy students
can gain from studying abroad.
Li says that TCM has endured for
thousands of years because a lot of its
methods work, but it looks different
from western pharmaceuticals in the
Top: UConn students take classes on TCM at the School of Pharmaceutical
Sciences in the Peking University Health Science Center; Left: Inside Chinese
pharmaceutical company Tongrentang in Beijing, which was founded in 1669
and is the largest producer of traditional Chinese medicine; Right: A display
at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine Exhibition Hall of Chinese
Materia Medica
way it is practiced. Exposing students
to these different approaches was a
driving factor behind Purdue’s College
of Pharmacy offering study abroad
opportunities to its students.
“Pharmacy students do not have
many opportunities to study abroad,”
Li says. “Exposing students to different
perspectives makes them more
appreciative of history and how other
people handle healthcare issues.”
Unlike western medicine,
which often treats a broad range
of symptoms with a single pill,
TCM examines how five different
elements.— fire, earth, water,
wood, and metal — manifest in an
individual. When a patient has an
imbalance of elements, a unique
combination of herbs is developed
to treat that patient’s particular
range of symptoms. TCM remains
a very popular mode of healthcare
in China, and Li says it makes up
about 40 percent of the healthcare
market share, compared with western
medicine at 60 percent.
This coming spring, Li will lead
about a dozen pharmacy and prepharmacy students on a trip to
Shanghai, China, where they will visit
hospitals, pharmacies, and medical
gardens. He says they will also have
time to mingle with local residents.
“Culturally, I think it’s a very good
opportunity to get exposure — and
to get a different perspective — about
medicine, health, and about life,” he says.
At GSU, interest from chemistry
and biology students was the impetus
for developing a study abroad program
in pharmaceuticals. Since 2012, the
university has been offering a two-week
program in Beijing. Bin Xu, professor
of chemistry and study abroad program
director at GSU, says the average group
consists of eight or nine students.
“We wanted to give them the
opportunity to experience a different
way of life and culture and also focus
insightintodiversity.com
29
Bin Xu (left) and Gloria Rinomhota of GSU
on traditional and modern Chinese
medicine,” Xu says. “China has a
rapidly growing economy that cannot
be overlooked.”
Prior to departure, students take
noncredit courses in Mandarin, as well
as Chinese culture and history. While
in Beijing, they visit research
labs, where they observe
clinical trials. Xu says many
pharmaceutical companies
outsource this kind of research
to countries with emerging
economies because it is more
cost effective.
“Students learn something
that they can’t learn from
lectures,” she says. “They learn
the possible challenges that can
occur during clinical testing,
and when they are looking for
a job, they will have already had
some of these experiences.”
Gloria Rinomhota is
one such student; she traveled to
Beijing as an undergraduate chemistry
major while at GSU and says the
experience prepared her for success at
the University of Maryland School of
Pharmacy in Baltimore, where she is
a doctor of pharmacy candidate. She
says she saw firsthand how language
and cultural differences can be barriers
between patients and pharmacists.
“It’s helpful to see from the other
side,” Rinomhota says. “If you can’t
understand the community and
appreciate different people and cultures,
you won’t end up asking the right
questions or making sure you both
understand each other.”
While Xu and Schlesselman say
they doubt the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration will ever approve
TCM formulas for use — because their
makeup is so complex — they believe
these international experiences still
serve a valid purpose. As globalization
continues, the need for pharmacists
with an understanding of alternative
medicines and the patients who use
them will continue to grow.●
Rebecca Prinster is a senior staff writer
for INSIGHT Into Diversity.
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January/February 2016
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31
[ Special Report: Nursing and Pharmacy ]
Dr. Beverly Jones with current University of Michigan-Flint VBSN students at the university’s Veterans Day
Remembrance Celebration
UM-Flint Eases Transition for Veterans
from Military to Medical Service
By Rebecca Prinster
A
lthough rates of homelessness
and unemployment among
U.S. military veterans have
declined significantly in the past
decade, in 2014, nearly 50,000 veterans
were still without homes and 573,000
were unemployed, according to data
from the National Alliance to End
Homelessness and the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics.
Also, military veterans have a
higher risk of mental health disorders
and substance abuse, stemming from
trauma incurred during combat
service.— common factors among
people who are homeless.
It was because of these figures that
faculty members in the University of
Michigan (UM)-Flint Department
of Nursing decided that more needed
to be done to improve outcomes for
returning military service members. The
school’s recently launched accelerated
veterans’ bachelor of science in nursing
(VBSN) program is designed to ease
32
January/February 2016
the transition from military service to
employment for veterans and remove
barriers they face in accessing education.
Thanks to a three-year, $1 million
grant from the Health Resources and
Services Administration (HRSA) of
the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, UM-Flint is able to
offer specialized support for veterans, as
well as streamline the transfer of their
military medical training credits toward
their bachelor’s degree. Additionally,
because the program is accelerated,
veterans can earn their degree in 16
months, rather than three years.
Beverly Jones, VBSN project director
and assistant professor of nursing in
UM-Flint’s Department of Nursing,
wrote the grant proposal that secured
the HRSA funding. As a veteran herself,
she says her experiences in the Army
Nurse Corps were a motivating factor in
establishing the VBSN program.
“Military experiences stimulated
my awareness of the connectedness
of all peoples to each other and our
environments,” Jones said in an email.
“Army nurse experiences … deepened
my understanding of the impact and
importance of active participation on
whatever team I’ve been assigned or
have personally selected, and I saw
firsthand the sense of loyalty, goaloriented motivation, and the expanding
skills and abilities that military
experiences developed and nurtured in
both civilians and military personnel.”
John Collins, VBSN program manager,
says Jones’ presence on the faculty has
had a positive impact on how the
department serves its student veterans.
“Her being here creates a special
identification with other veterans; not
only is she a veteran, but she’s also
part of the nursing faculty,” he says.
“For student veterans to see her in that
position gives them a sense of being
part of something larger.”
Jones says the VBSN serves to
challenge the myths some non-
Veterans attend UM-Flint’s Veterans Day Remembrance Celebration.
veterans have about returning military
service members.
“The program offers the structure
for veterans to provide strong support
to other students through mentoring
and purposeful role modeling,” she says.
“Simultaneously it is fulfilling nursing
workforce needs and providing a cadre
of recruits who will further the diversity
goals of the nursing profession.”
Education Attainment and Innovation,
whether to accept certain military credits
is ultimately the decision of individual
colleges and universities.
“ACE ensures the integrity and
quality of education,” Spires says. “But
each institution establishes its own
protocols to align with its own mission
and vision. There is no one set of
protocols [for deciding how military
“Military experiences stimulated my awareness of
the connectedness of all peoples to each other
and our environments.”
Beverly Jones, VBSN project director
The VBSN allows veterans to build
on their previous military medical
training, but transferring credits for that
training into a traditional nursing degree
program is a complex process. Collins
says it requires considerable man-hours
to evaluate a student veteran’s Joint
Services Transcript ( JST) and assess his
or her readiness for the nursing program.
Veterans’ prior medical education
can be evaluated with help from
recommendations made by the
American Council on Education (ACE).
According to Michele Spires, director of
Military Programs at ACE’s Center for
credits should transfer].”
Because military healthcare training
is very specialized, she says there can
be “mini gaps” in returning service
members’ knowledge; for example,
a Navy hospital corpsman may have
extensive preparation for dealing with
bullet wounds but less for handling
civilian injuries.
At UM-Flint, incoming student
veterans must demonstrate competency
in certain academic and clinical areas
as a means of evaluating where those
gaps may exist before credits can be
transferred.
The VBSN program is not separate
from UM-Flint’s accelerated BSN
track, and returning service members
take classes with non-veteran students.
Currently, there is not a set number
of seats allotted for veterans in the
program, but Collins says that is
something faculty will be voting on.
The first cohort of student veterans in
the VBSN program began classes this
past fall, and the five students — all
male — should complete their degrees
by December 2017.
Students in the program receive extra
support through the Student Veterans
Resource Center on campus; UM-Flint
serves around 200 student veterans
and has been nationally recognized
for its student veteran services. In
addition to tutoring and help with
writing assignments, veterans can
access assistance with navigating their
VA benefits, housing allowances, and
tuition reimbursement.
Collins says faculty and staff in
the department are also dedicated to
helping student veterans find a nursing
job in their area of expertise once they
graduate. In addition, the school is
developing local partnerships to ensure
this happens.
“The transition between nursing
school and the nursing profession is
usually smooth, but sometimes it can
be rocky,” he says. “We are developing
relationships with communitybased health facilities, hospitals, and
emergency rooms to ensure a seamless
transition for veterans from school, to
the licensing exam — the NCLEX.—
to the profession. And we’ll be
following up with students and keeping
in contact [with them] for six months
after they graduate.”
Jones echoes this idea by saying the
supportive environment of the VBSN
program is intended to ensure veterans’
success through retirement.
“In a nutshell,” she says, “the program
is designed to put students who are
veterans ahead of the curve upon their
return to civilian life and college.”●
Rebecca Prinster is a senior staff writer
for INSIGHT Into Diversity.
insightintodiversity.com
33
[ Special Report: Nursing and Pharmacy ]
Insight into Pharmacy Education
with the AACP’s Jennifer L. Adams
How the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy
promotes diversity and inclusion in pharmacy education
By Alexandra Vollman
F
ounded in 1900, the American
Association of Colleges of
Pharmacy (AACP) represents
the interests of accredited schools
and colleges of pharmacy nationwide,
which includes more than 6,400 faculty
members, 62,500 professional students,
and 5,100 graduate students. As the
leading organization for pharmacy
education in the U.S., the AACP aims
to lead, as well as partner with, member
schools to advance pharmacy education,
research, scholarship, practice, and
service to improve societal health.
Senior Student Affairs Adviser
for the AACP Jennifer L. Adams,
PharmD, EdD, recently spoke with
INSIGHT Into Diversity about the
34
January/February 2016
organization’s efforts to increase
diversity and improve cultural
competency in the pharmacy
profession, as well as some of the ways
the AACP is working to influence
pharmacy education nationwide.
Q: According to 2014 data, 14.9
percent of pharmacists are minorities,
while 12.4 percent of pharmacy
students enrolled in first professional
degree programs in fall 2014 were
from minority groups. With this
in mind, what is the AACP doing
to improve opportunities for and
increase minority representation
in pharmacy schools and in the
profession at large?
A: The topics of diversity, inclusion,
cultural competency, and health equity
have been interwoven into the activities
of our organization for many years and
will continue to be interwoven into
the activities moving forward, until
it’s something that’s no longer talked
about or no longer an issue — which,
who knows if that will ever happen.
But it’s definitely something that our
organization is committed to helping
our members with. [We have] done
some good things, but we have a long
way to go as well.
Our organization is made up of
members who are faculty and deans at
schools and colleges of pharmacy, as
well as students who are interested in
Above: Jennifer L. Adams, senior student affairs adviser for the AACP
academic careers, and we have what are
called “standing committees” that are
charged each year by our president. In
2014, the president of our organization
charged the [AACP’s] Argus
Commission with looking into diversity
and inclusion and where we are as an
organization and as a profession.
That group published a report, and
one of its recommendations was for
the association to develop a task force
on diversity. Our current president this
year actually charged a task force on
that topic, but with a different spin.
The task force is called Diversifying
Our Investment in Human Capital.
… Obviously it’s important from a
health equity perspective to have the
right human capital in place, but it’s
really more of a focus on the actual
people … who make up our schools
and colleges of pharmacy — whether
[that’s] students or having the right
faculty in place.
That committee was charged with
[determining] what the barriers are to
diversifying our investments that we
make in human capital and what some
of the game-changing activities are that
are currently happening at some of our
schools, and then working to propose
some short- and long-term strategies
for our schools and colleges of
pharmacy — and for the profession.—
to be able to diversify the people who
are part of the healthcare team serving
the role as medication experts. That
committee met for the first time in
November, and it will be working over
the course of the next two years.
Q. Why does the AACP believe it
is important for people of all races,
ethnicities, and backgrounds to be
represented in the profession?
A: When we think about diversity
in pharmacy, it’s not just diversity for
diversity’s sake. [We] know that if we
have a diverse workforce, then we can
better combat the issues that come
with healthcare disparities. … To really
truly have health equity, we need to
have practitioners who are trained in an
educational environment where diversity
is evident and where they are trained and
prepared to be able to work with diverse
populations — and not just diversity
based on race and ethnicity, but looking
at patients with disabilities … or sexual
orientation, the LGBTQ population.
We want to be educating our
students in environments where
everyone feels included, where everyone
feels like it’s a safe place to learn and to
be able to qualify as a good pharmacist,
and that comes with the culture
and the climate of the school or the
college. So, this is really the backbone
of the [Diversifying Our Investment
in Human Capital] committee that I
mentioned. To really provide health
equity, it has to start with the way we
educate our students.
Q: As the national organization
representing pharmacy education in
the U.S., does the AACP educate its
member schools on and emphasize
the importance of diversity, inclusion,
and cultural competency to pharmacy
education and practice?
A: We help to influence accreditation
standards. We are not the accrediting
body — that’s the Accreditation
Council for Pharmacy Education —
but we work with them. They provide a
minimum standard, and what we want
is to provide what our schools should
be aiming for that’s well above the
minimum; those are called the CAPE
outcomes, and CAPE is the Center
for the Advancement of Pharmacy
Education. Our organization runs that
center and provides the outcomes that
guide what our schools and colleges
do. Diversity, inclusion, and cultural
competency are a huge part of that.
We’ve also offered what we call
institutes. These are different training
conferences for teams of faculty and
administrators, [where they] come to
learn about different topics. We’ve
had institutes in the past on cultural
competency.
Q: Knowing that different
populations face varying health risks,
what is the AACP doing to improve
insightintodiversity.com
35
knowledge and understanding of these
to help current and future pharmacists
better address health disparities, as
well as treat and be sensitive to the
needs of diverse groups?
A: In terms of the training and other
things that we do, we can impact the
schools and the faculty, and then they
can take what they’ve learned from us
and implement that in the classroom
with students. So, it’s not anything
that we are necessarily providing, but
we’re helping our schools improve their
students’ knowledge and understanding.
We’ve talked a little about some
of the ways that we do that, but one
of the other ways is that we have
a couple of special interest groups,
[such as one] for minority faculty and
[another one] on cultural competence
and health disparities. We provide
those venues for our members to be
able to collaborate on research and on
teaching best practices in those areas,
and for people with similar interests
to engage. Our cultural competence
and health equity special interest
group, in particular, is very active and
engaged; they host webinars for their
membership on a regular basis.
Q: With the ongoing debate over
religious freedom in the U.S., is the
AACP doing anything to address the
issue of conscientious objection and to
educate schools and students both on
pharmacists’ obligations and rights, as
well as the rights of patients?
A: This is not necessarily something
that we have a policy within our
organization about, but the American
Pharmacists Association (APhA) does
have policies related to conscientious
objection. It’s not something that I can
fully speak to on behalf of the AACP,
but I can speak to it on behalf of the
fact that I am a pharmacist.
The policy they have at APhA …
says that pharmacists should be able
to step out of the way of caring for a
patient [if ] they have a conscientious
objection, but they can’t step in the way
of a patient receiving the appropriate
care. That’s a challenge for an
organization like ours because we have
schools and colleges of pharmacy that
are at faith-based institutions, where
the faith of that institution definitely
guides the way it provides education
and teaches students. We have to
be able to support those schools but
also support large public institutions.
It’s one of those topics that we hope
our faculty handle in a sensitive way,
because for people who do have a
conscientious objection, we don’t want
them to have to engage in anything
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36
January/February 2016
related to healthcare that they are
opposed to, but we also don’t want
them stepping in the way of patients
[receiving care].
I can give you an example. I
worked part time as a community
pharmacist for a number of years, and
I worked with a pharmacist who had a
conscientious objection to dispensing
birth control. If you were a patient
who visited that pharmacy, you would
never have an issue being able to
get birth control, but that particular
pharmacist was not the person who
was going to dispense it. … And I can
almost guarantee that there was not a
single patient at that pharmacy who
was on birth control who ever had
an issue being able to access the care
they needed.
It’s not necessarily something
that our association has tackled
from a policy perspective, … but
it is something that’s addressed in
our member schools and colleges
of pharmacy. Generally, most of the
education that we provide is based on
an expressed need from our schools
and colleges; this isn’t something that
has bubbled up in terms of being a
big priority, and I think the reason
for that is that they are already
incorporating it into the way they’re
educating their students.
The laws on conscientious objection
vary by state. … Regardless of what
state [a student is educated in], they
may do residencies someplace else;
they may move to another state and
practice. So when we educate, we try
to educate as broadly as we can, but
when you learn law, you’re learning it
for the state that you’re in. However, to
be a practicing pharmacist, [all states
require] that you take a law exam to be
licensed in that particular state.●
Alexandra Vollman is the editor
of INSIGHT Into Diversity. For
more information on the American
Association of Colleges of Pharmacy,
visit aacp.org.
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37
[ Special Report: Nursing and Pharmacy ]
A National Imperative:
Increasing the Number of Minority
Pharmacists to Improve Patient Outcomes
By Lakesha Butler, PharmD
A
ccording to Forbes’ list of the
best jobs in healthcare for
2015, pharmacists are No. 1.
Pharmacists are highly respected, they
are well paid, and their role continues
to evolve, as evidenced by their
current prescriptive authority in some
states and a soon-to-come insurance
provider recognition.
In addition, more and more students
are considering careers in pharmacy.
To meet the demands of the aging
population, and the nation’s overall
population increase, the number of
pharmacy schools has greatly increased
over the last five years to produce more
pharmacists. As of July 2015, there were
135 schools and colleges of pharmacy
in the U.S. — an increase from 72 in
1987.— and collectively they graduated
more than 10,000 students per year.
The increase in pharmacy schools
and the subsequent increase in
pharmacy students across the U.S. is
encouraging. The gender shift — nearly
50 percent of pharmacy students are
now female — is also noteworthy
38
January/February 2016
considering that pharmacy has
historically been a male-dominated
healthcare field. However, the racial and
ethnic makeup of pharmacy students
and graduates has not changed much.
The low representation of minority
students in schools and colleges of
pressing topic due to the changing
demographics of the country and the
impact more minority pharmacists can
have on the health status of Americans.
It is projected that by the year 2050,
minorities will comprise 50 percent
of the U.S. population. Yet, according
Research shows that minority healthcare
professionals are more likely to practice in
medically underserved areas where many minority
patients reside, which results in improved access
to healthcare for these populations.
pharmacy has been a consistent reality
for years despite the topic being a
focus of the American Association of
Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) for
more than 15 years. During that time,
the percentage of minorities enrolled
in pharmacy school has increased only
slightly. The concern over inadequate
minority student enrollment in
pharmacy schools has become a
to 2014 AACP student data, only
12.4 percent of pharmacy students
across the U.S. are underrepresented
minorities; specifically, 7.3 percent are
African American, and 4.5 percent
are Hispanic or Latino. Furthermore,
research shows that minority
healthcare professionals are more likely
to practice in medically underserved
areas where many minority patients
reside, which results in improved access
to healthcare for these populations.
Additionally, minority patient ratings
are higher when they are served by
providers who are racially and ethnically
similar to them. Therefore, the lack of
current and future minority pharmacists
needed to serve the growing minority
population is and will continue to have
a profound impact on the health and
well-being of our nation. Diversifying
students enrolled in pharmacy schools
has to be a priority that is carried out at
each school and college of pharmacy.
So why is the number of
underrepresented minorities so low
in pharmacy schools? Are minority
students aware of the benefits of a
career in pharmacy? Are schools of
pharmacy intentional about recruiting
more diverse students? Is diversification
of students a priority of U.S. schools
and colleges of pharmacy?
At Southern Illinois University
Edwardsville (SIUE) School
of Pharmacy, faculty, staff, and
administrators have been working to
address the issue.
Located in the Midwest, SIUE’s
minority student enrollment has been
lagging; in 2013, minority students
represented approximately 6 percent of
the total pharmacy student population.
This figure has been low since the
school opened its doors in 2005. Some
may think that this is to be expected
in the Midwest. However, Illinois
has a large minority population —
15.1 percent African American and
12.3 percent Hispanic — and most
of the school’s students come from
Illinois. Also, the SIUE campus is
approximately 20 miles from the city
of St. Louis, Mo., whose population is
almost 50 percent African American.
There is no lack of minority students in
the surrounding area.
Recognizing the value in increasing the
diversity of the pharmacy school student
body, and considering the low number of
minority students who are academically
prepared for and apply to the PharmD
program, SIUE developed the Healthcare
Diversity Summer Camp.
The summer camp is a one-week,
residential experience that exposes
underrepresented minority high
school students to college life and
SIUE’s schools of pharmacy, nursing,
and dental medicine. Students stay
in campus housing for the week and
are mentored by current minority
pharmacy, nursing, and dental school
students. The students spend the
first day touring the campus, learning
about student resources available at
the university. Then they are exposed
to hands-on activities and provided
admission information and tips for each
of the healthcare programs at SIUE.
On the final day of camp, students
participate in an ACT preparatory
course and a closing ceremony.
The goal of the camp is to inspire
these students and expose them to
healthcare fields while equipping them
with the knowledge and confidence
needed to pursue a professional
education and a healthcare career. As
a result of the camp, approximately
half of the participants have enrolled
in a pre-pharmacy, pre-medicine,
or nursing program, and one-third
of the participants have enrolled
in pre-pharmacy or are current
pharmacy students at SIUE. Since
the Healthcare Diversity Summer
Camp launched in 2011, the School of
Pharmacy has seen a 2 percent increase
in the number of underrepresented
minority students enrolled.
Programs like this provide an
example of how schools and colleges
of pharmacy can address low minority
representation in their student body
and in the profession at large.●
Lakesha Butler, PharmD, BCPS, is a
clinical associate professor of pharmacy
practice and chair of the Diversity
and Inclusion Pharmacy Committee
at Southern Illinois University
Edwardsville (SIUE) School of
Pharmacy. She is also the coordinator
of the university’s Healthcare Diversity
Summer Camp. SIUE is a 2014 and
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39
[ Special Report: Nursing and Pharmacy ]
Scholarship Program Shows
Incremental Improvement
in Representation of Men,
Minorities in Nursing
· By Jamaal Abdul-Alim ·
40
January/February 2016
When it comes to increasing the proportion of male
nurses, leaders in the field say schools of nursing
should study the lessons of the New Careers in
Nursing (NCIN) scholarship program — perhaps
the most large-scale effort to date focused on
broadening the diversity of the nursing profession.
“W
e really have had an
impact on changing the
face of nursing in terms
of bringing many more persons into
the profession,” says Vernell P. DeWitty,
deputy director of the national program
with the American Association of
Colleges of Nursing (AACN).
Launched in 2008 by the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation and the
AACN, NCIN provides scholarships
to college graduates without a nursing
degree who are enrolled in either an
accelerated baccalaureate or master’s
nursing program. Through the initiative,
130 schools of nursing have received a
total of $35.1 million to award 3,517
scholarships worth $10,000 each.
DeWitty says that more than 40
percent of the scholarships have been
granted to men. And, in line with
the program’s focus on increasing
diversity, she says those men have
represented many different races,
ethnicities, and backgrounds.
A 2015 Educational Testing Service
(ETS) evaluation of NCIN found that
the program has, in fact, contributed to
increased diversity in participating nursing
schools. The evaluation stated that schools
of nursing should “aim to build on the
progress seeded by NCIN in the areas
of student diversity, cultural competence
training, and student support services.”
A student in the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing
Financial and Academic Support
While men may shy away from nursing
for various reasons, they provide unique
perspectives and skills that can be
crucial to the field, according to the
Institute of Medicine’s 2011 report,
The Future of Nursing: Leading Health,
Advancing Change.
While the national average of men
in bachelor of science in nursing
(BSN) programs is 10 percent, at eight
NCIN case study schools, 45 percent of
scholarship recipients have been men,
according to the ETS evaluation. The
program has achieved similar results
with minorities.
“We have made a concentrated effort
to focus on those [groups] to try to
increase their percentage in the nursing
student population,” says David Krol,
a senior program officer at the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation.
NCIN scholarships have helped
these students in an area in which not
much aid is typically available. Students
in second-degree programs like NCIN
are not eligible for Pell Grants; thus,
NCIN scholarships provide them with
much-needed financial assistance.
Yet, while scholarships are a large
focus of the program, Krol says NCIN’s
success is built on much more.
“Yes, $10,000 is extremely important
and makes a significant difference,” says
Krol, “but we feel it is [about] much
more than just the money — it is all of
the support given to students.”
This support includes a pre-entry
immersion program that helps students
transition into an accelerated nursing
program; mentoring, through which
students are matched with alumni or
school leaders who provide support
and guidance throughout the degree
program; and leadership development
activities, such as guest speaker events
at which nursing professionals discuss
nursing careers and leadership roles.
Program officials have also developed
“tool kits” in each of those areas to help
schools of nursing increase diversity
within their programs. The kits, which
are available on the NCIN website,
come in the form of step-by-step
handbooks. The tool kit on mentoring,
for example, is an 88-page guide that
touches on topics ranging from how to
match a mentor with a student to how
to manage issues that might arise in the
mentoring relationship.
These efforts have benefited
many individuals, such as Onome
Oskopo, for instance — a former
food analytical chemist who decided
to go into nursing after working to
help individuals with developmental
disabilities live independently.
That experience led Oskopo, who
insightintodiversity.com
41
Onome Oskopo, an NCIN scholarship recipient who is completing a
master of science in nursing at the University of Pennsylvania
originally hails from Nigeria, to believe
he should be helping people instead of
working in a lab.
“Nursing was the logical choice
because it provided an opportunity for
direct care, and to influence healthcare
in the U.S. and across the world,” says
Oskopo, who is currently completing
a master of science in nursing in the
Adult-Gerontology Primary Care
Nurse Practitioner program at the
University of Pennsylvania.
He is also doing a clinical rotation
in the emergency room at the
Philadelphia VA Medical Center and
serves as a member of the Graduate
Nursing Student Academy Policy
Committee within the American
Association of Colleges of Nursing.
Oskopo first learned about the
NCIN program when he was accepted
to the 12-month accelerated BSN
program at Stony Brook University
in 2011. He applied for and received
a $10,000 NCIN scholarship. “The
money was particularly helpful to
offset the cost of living during the
program,” Oskopo says.
42
January/February 2016
David Krol, a senior program officer
at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Beyond the financial assistance,
he says the program enabled him
to succeed. In particular, he says
the pre-immersion program helped
him address areas such as stress
management, time management,
self-care strategies, and strategies for
success in an accelerated program.
“Frequent meetings with my
peers and the program liaison
at Stony Brook were a constant
source of inspiration, support, and
empowerment,” Oskopo says.
“The program introduced me to
excellent mentors who have greatly
shaped my career trajectory in nursing,”
he adds. “The program created a
platform for me to influence nursing,
nursing education, and healthcare in
ways I never imagined.”
Evaluating Success
While the scholarships have had a
noticeable impact, just how much of
an impact remains uncertain. And
while experts seem to agree on the
importance of increasing the number
of men in nursing professions,
they admit that doing so is also
accompanied by challenges.
An evaluation of the NCIN program
states that “men tend to advance more
rapidly in the nursing field than their
female peers.” It also notes that research
has shown that male nurses out-earn
female nurses doing the same work.
In addition, faculty theorized that
some male scholarship recipients didn’t
really need the scholarships and would
have entered the program regardless.
In fact, some male nursing students
actually conceded that the scholarship
was an “unexpected bonus.”
Program leaders say it’s important to
keep in mind that while NCIN made
a difference, the program’s efforts were
relatively small given that the program
provided scholarships for only 3,500
students. However, many believe that
if schools of nursing were to follow
NCIN’s example, the program’s impact
could be sustained.●
Jamaal Abdul-Alim is a contributing
writer for INSIGHT Into Diversity.
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43
[ Special Report: Nursing and Pharmacy ]
The University of Alaska Anchorage
First-Ever Alaska-Based
PharmD Program Will
Help Fill Critical Void
By Jamaal Abdul-Alim
D
espite a surplus of pharmacist jobs in Alaska, historically about the
only way to get the education needed to qualify for one of those
positions has been to leave the state. However, that’s not the easiest
thing to do when the nearest state is more than 2,000 miles away.
But the situation is set to improve beginning in fall 2016, when the
University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA).— in partnership with Idaho State
University (ISU) — will launch the first-ever Doctor of Pharmacy degree
program to be offered in the secluded state.
Aside from the fact that students will no longer have to leave Alaska to
get a pharmacist education, one of the biggest benefits expected from having
a state-based doctor of pharmacy program, or PharmD, is a pharmacist
workforce that better reflects the demographics of the local population.
44
January/February 2016
Robert Robl works with test materials in a lab in the ConocoPhillips
Integrated Science Building on UAA’s campus.
“There’s been a surplus of jobs for
many years, so employers have had to
rely on temporary pharmacists who fly
in from the lower 48 for a certain time
period,” says Thomas Wadsworth, an
ISU pharmacy professor who recently
relocated to Anchorage to serve as
assistant dean of Alaska pharmacy
programs for ISU. “The problem with
that is you can’t expand your clinical
pharmacy service with fill-ins. You
need permanent professionals in place
to develop your patient services and to
develop tenure in those services.”
The new PharmD program will
begin with 15 to 20 students in the first
class and each class thereafter. Courses
will be taught via “synchronous distance
learning technology” that will involve
the UAA campus, as well as ISU’s
main campus in Pocatello and its other
campus in Meridian.
“Synchronous means that the
professor and students at each delivery
site [will] interact with each other in
real time,” says Wadsworth.
This will be accomplished via twoway videoconferencing. Students and
faculty at each site will be able to see
and interact with those at the other
sites, and faculty will conduct in-person
lectures at each participating campus.
“This means that one day the lecture
might come from a professor who is
The School of Pharmacy at ISU
physically present in Anchorage but
videoconferencing to Pocatello and
Meridian; the next day, the lecture
might come from a professor who is
physically present in Meridian but
videoconferencing to Pocatello and
Anchorage,” Wadsworth says.
He believes the program will
enable Alaskans from diverse
backgrounds to begin to fill the void
suspect there’ll be a greater number of
Alaska Natives who might apply.”
Although Anchorage is 66 percent
white, the rest of the population is
quite diverse; specifically, 5.9 percent
of residents are African American, 6.9
percent are American Indian or Alaska
Native, 8.2 percent are Asian, 2.1
percent are Native Hawaiian or Pacific
Islander, and 9.1 percent are biracial,
“Our goal is to provide a
venue for this socialization
and experiential learning in
Anchorage.”
Thomas Wadsworth, a pharmacy
professor at Idaho State University
of pharmacists within the state.
“Although it’s not a stated purpose,
it’s kind of implied that we are going
to be giving preference to residents of
this state — whether that means natives
of Alaska or … a group that typically
didn’t have as great of an opportunity
to get this kind of education because
they’d have to leave the state, their
home culture,” Wadsworth says. “We
according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
With the city’s diverse population
come substantial wealth gaps. For
instance, 5.1 percent of whites live in
poverty compared with 11.8 percent
of African Americans, 14.7 percent
of American Indians and Alaska
Natives, 13.4 percent of Asians, and
15.9 percent of Native Hawaiians and
Pacific Islanders.
insightintodiversity.com
45
The program will place great
emphasis on “socialization” of
students to provide them with the
“requisite interpersonal skills to
effectively advocate for their patients
with other healthcare providers,”
ISU’s website states.
“The socialization process occurs
during traditional classroom learning,
the delivery of community outreach
projects, experiential learning, and
in small group case studies,” the site
explains. “Our goal is to provide a venue
for this socialization and experiential
learning in Anchorage.”
The PharmD program, which
takes four years to complete, will cost
about $18,000 per semester, or about
$144,000 total — ISU’s out-of-state
tuition rate. Because the program is
technically offered through ISU, a
state-funded university, there is no
way to waive out-of-state tuition for
non-residents of Idaho, according
to Wadsworth. However, he notes
that more than 100 scholarships are
available for pharmacy students to cover
program costs.
Though the tuition is higher than
the average for a pharmacy program
at a public university for a state
resident ($13,000), it is lower than the
average tuition for a private institution
($28,000), according to the American
Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.
Still, Wadsworth says going into
substantial debt to get a PharmD
degree is worthwhile because
pharmacists tend to earn hefty salaries.
In Alaska, pharmacists enjoy an
average annual salary of $105,610,
or $50.77 per hour, according to the
Alaska Department of Labor and
Workforce Development (ADLWD).
Currently, there are about 16 job
openings per year for pharmacists in
Alaska, and the ADLWD expects the
occupation to continue to grow at a
rapid pace, specifically 25.9 percent,
compared with 14.8 percent for all
occupations in the state.
Wadsworth says job placement
rates in the ISU PharmD program are
close to 100 percent. In addition, he
notes that graduates of the program in
Alaska may be able to pay back their
loans through the federal student loan
repayment program if they secure one
of the many federal jobs in the region.
“The Indian Health Service, the
Bureau of Prisons, and the military all
have a very large footprint in Alaska,”
Wadsworth says. “And almost all have
student loan repayment programs for
health professionals.”●
Jamaal Abdul-Alim is a contributing
writer for INSIGHT Into Diversity.
Find Your Future
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
SCHOOL OF PHARMACY AND SCHOOL OF NURSING
In 2015, College Factual ranked Pitt as the best
U.S. school to study health professions.
We are seeking students and faculty who
want to be part of a future where everyone
gets the care that they need.
SCHOOL OF NURSING
• Ranked fifth by U.S. News &
World Report
• Degree programs leading to the
BSN, MSN, DNP, and PhD
• Advancing nursing science,
education, and practice
nursing.pitt.edu
SCHOOL OF PHARMACY
• Ranked 14th by U.S. News &
World Report
• Offers PharmD, MS and PhD in
Pharmaceutical Sciences, and MS in
Pharmacy Business Administration
• Personalizes education
pharmacy.pitt.edu
46
January/February 2016
“A great university values openness, creativity, and
innovation—traits that all benefit from a dynamic
and diverse culture.”
Patrick Gallagher, Chancellor, University of Pittsburgh
[ Special Report: Nursing and Pharmacy ]
Advancing Graduate
Nursing Education Through
Innovative Programs
++++++++++
As the demand for more nurses with advanced degrees increases, so does enrollment
in graduate nursing programs. Because of this, graduate nursing schools are revamping
their programs, curricula, and facilities to attract students interested in furthering their
education. Here are some that are doing so through innovative programs and practices.
The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing
The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing is one of the
few schools of nursing in the U.S. to host a dedicated nursing
research lab focused on explorations by faculty from diverse
disciplines, such as nursing, pharmacy, cardiology, environmental
sciences, physiology, and more. At any given time, students
in nursing, pre-med, and engineering are likely to be working
together with researchers on projects that run the gamut from
physiology and nutrition to metabolism and neuroscience.
++++++++++
University of Maryland School of Nursing
A renowned leader in graduate nursing education, the University of
Maryland School of Nursing offers quality graduate programs (CNL,
MS, DNP, and PhD) that provide students with the opportunity to
study a wide range of nursing specialties. The school partners with a
variety of healthcare agencies in the state of Maryland to offer quality
clinical experiences for students, and courses are taught by leading
experts in practice, research, and education. To meet the needs of its
diverse student body, the School of Nursing offers courses in face-toface, blended formats, making use of the most advanced technology in
learning and simulation.
insightintodiversity.com
47
Florida State University College of Nursing
Today’s healthcare professionals have to be able to provide culturally
competent care to patients from around the world. To facilitate this
endeavor, the Florida State University (FSU) College of Nursing’s graduate
program provides students with opportunities to practice global healthcare
in a culturally competent manner by incorporating real-world experiences
into its curriculum. Through its “Exploring Grief, Loss, and Trauma in
British Culture” course, students have the opportunity to learn about
multicultural responses to grief, loss, and trauma. Also, in collaboration with
the FSU College of Medicine, students in the nurse practitioner program
can travel to Nicaragua and provide medical services to citizens who do not
have access to healthcare. While there, students diagnose and treat local
citizens for a variety of health-related issues.
++++++++++
Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
At the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, graduate programs turn out
not just great leaders, but good teammates as well. In the school’s doctoral
programs — as well as its master of science in nursing entry into nursing
practice and advanced nursing practice tracks — students are drilled on
interprofessional cooperation, patient safety, quality of care, and evidencebased practice by nursing faculty, whose evidence continues to establish the
norms in those areas. Graduates are prepared to treat anyone, anywhere in
the world. Adult gerontology curricula, for instance, focus on innovative,
non-pharmacological treatment of dementia and addressing lifelong
substance abuse issues. HIV curricula address not only the act of caring,
but also its psychological barriers. In addition, students confront their own
preconceptions about people they will eventually serve.
++++++++++
University of Cincinnati College of Nursing
University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Nursing graduate students
can hone clinical skills through innovative, interactive case studies —
online modules that follow a practitioner through a clinical scenario that
allows for input and immediate feedback. In addition, clinical intensives
provide students experience with high-fidelity simulators, providing a
safe environment for practice. The college’s extremely talented graduate
faculty boasts many awards in innovation and excellence in teaching
and research. UC College of Nursing is also part of a major Academic
Health Center, allowing for an interprofessional education and strong
partnership with some of the nation’s highest-ranked healthcare
institutions. UC College of Nursing is a 2015 INSIGHT Into Diversity
Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award recipient.
48
January/February 2016
++++++++++
University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing
For 75-plus years, the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing
has led the evolution of nursing education and research in response
to the needs of society and patients. Pitt Nursing offers rigorous
academic programs grounded in leading-edge research, preparing
students for evidence-based practice. The school created specialtyfocused doctor of nursing practice programs to ensure students
have appropriate clinical skills and comprehensive knowledge
of the evidence base in specific practice areas. Students benefit
from the school’s strong links to world-class clinical systems, as
well as the many research institutes at the university, which is a
member of the Association of American Universities. Designated
a “Nursing Research-Intensive Environment” by the National
Institutes of Health, Pitt Nursing also offers a PhD program that
matches students with outstanding faculty scholars.
++++++++++
LEAD
Leadership & Learning
Engagement
Advocacy
Diversity & Inclusion
www.aacn.nche.edu
insightintodiversity.com
49
[ Special Report: Nursing and Pharmacy ]
On the Mend
Online Pharmacy Programs Bring Education, Practitioners to Rural America
Pharmacy students at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.
By Madeline Szrom
T
he Pharmacy Manpower
Project, Inc., projects that by
2020, there will be a deficit of
nearly 157,000 pharmacists in the U.S.,
according to its report Professionally
Determined Need for Pharmacy Services
in 2020. The effects of low enrollment
in pharmacy schools are already being
felt across the country, particularly in
rural areas.
According to U.S. Census Bureau
data from 2010, people living in rural
areas account for 19.3 percent of the
total U.S. population, yet the National
Institutes of Health’s National Library
of Medicine has found that only 12
50
January/February 2016
percent of the nation’s pharmacists
practice in these regions.
To improve these figures, and the
quality of care for patients in rural areas,
some colleges and universities have
focused on expanding distance learning
programs to provide increased access
to pharmacy education for students in
even the most remote areas.
While several schools and colleges
of pharmacy offer online classes,
Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.,
has the only accredited, full-time online
pharmacy program.
In 2001, the university launched
the Doctor of Pharmacy Distance
Program.— with grants from the
National Community Pharmacists
Association — to lead more students
toward careers in pharmacy.
“We really reached out to those
students who had a lifelong dream
of being part of the pharmacy team,
but couldn’t relate,” says Zara Risoldi
Cochrane, director of the program
and associate professor in Creighton’s
Department of Pharmacy Practice.
“We found a good foothold for rural
communities and were able to reach
students in more remote areas. The
benefits were that we were able to address
healthcare needs in these areas as well.”
Filling a Need
For many people living in rural areas,
higher education is not necessarily the
next step after high school. According to
the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only
18 percent of people living in rural areas
have at least a four-year degree, and only
6 percent have an advanced degree.
Creighton is hoping to change this
situation and attract more individuals to
the pharmacy field by providing an easily
accessible, and affordable, education.
Students from across the country who
are enrolled in the university’s distance
program experience their entire education
from the comfort of home, except for a
few trips to Creighton’s campus.
Courses are available to students
through video-capture technology,
which works to keep them engaged by
providing activities, such as multiple
choice questions and quizzes, all while
the professor is teaching. Students are
able to flag troublesome or confusing
lectures and post questions in real
time, giving professors insight into
how well their students comprehend
aspects of the curriculum.
“It allows us that two-way feedback,
which is important to what we do,”
Risoldi Cochrane says. “We can’t be
successful unless we understand where
students are succeeding.”
In addition, all exams are
administered through an online
proctoring service that students
connect to through their personal
computers. Using webcam monitors,
the system is able to detect whether
they are cheating on tests by using their
notes or textbooks. Online proctors
also conduct basic troubleshooting
procedures and are prepared to assist
students if the system experiences
technical difficulties.
Creighton has developed effective
ways to ensure that students are
receiving not only a quality education,
but also academic support as they work
to complete the program.
“We hire mentors, similar to teaching
assistants, who live and work across the
country, and they [provide] additional
support for online students,” Risoldi
Cochrane says. “They communicate
through Skype so students don’t have to
worry about time differences, and there
is always someone available to respond
to their needs.”
This system allows participants to
engage with one another across long
distances, sharing experiences and
learning to work together.
Students also get the opportunity
to meet face to face. Each summer,
those enrolled in the online program
meet on Creighton’s campus for
two weeks to participate in handson patient care training and an
evaluation. Risoldi Cochrane says that
it is important for them to interact
with one another to further build
communications skills — an integral
aspect of the pharmacy profession.
Students in Creighton’s doctor
of pharmacy program are required
to enroll in clinicals during their
fourth year. To accommodate distance
learners, the university created a team
of faculty and staff to set up, monitor,
and manage clinical rotations in each
student’s hometown.
“Students are getting real-life
experience in the communities where
Above: Creighton University pharmacy students
Right: Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.
insightintodiversity.com
51
Students in the University of Kansas pharmacy program
they are living,” Risoldi Cochrane says.
“Our team communicates with [their
clinical] site and ensures there is an
educational plan for the student, and
we train the [pharmacists running the
clinicals] to give feedback and provide
management.”
Through its distance learning
program, Creighton aims to help fill the
pharmacist gap in underserved regions.
“Many of our distance students are
located in areas where there is a deficit in
pharmacists,” Risoldi Cochrane says.
“We’re attempting to meet that need.”
Creighton’s Pharmacy Assessment
Committee has conducted extensive
research on students’ success after
graduation, including where they find
employment. Results have shown
that graduates from rural areas tend
to stay in those regions, revealing the
important role the distance program is
playing in increasing service in areas
in need.
“There are several counties that
are so rural, so remote, that there
are no healthcare providers,” Risoldi
Cochrane says. “[The program] gives
students the opportunity to practice
pharmacy … as they cater to the needs
of their own communities.”
52
January/February 2016
KU’s School of Pharmacy, housed on the university’s main campus
in Lawrence
Alternative Distance
Learning Models
While Creighton may currently have the
only full-time online pharmacy program,
many universities are doing more to
expand their online presence to reach
more potential pharmacy students.
The University of Kansas (KU)
pharmacy program is the only one in
the state and is offered through the
university’s main campus in Lawrence;
however, the use of live-transmission
lectures allows the university to expand
its reach to students on the Wichita
campus, KU’s newest extension.
“We wanted to reach across the state
better,” says Kenneth Audus, dean of
the School of Pharmacy.
Audus says the university decided
streaming lectures would be the best
way to provide education to students
in Wichita from KU’s main campus.
In addition to the system allowing
students to listen to lectures in real
time, it also allows for interaction
between professors and distance
pharmacy majors.
Students are paired together during
lectures and use a desktop microphone
to communicate with professors
during the transmission; as they log in,
their pictures appear on the professor’s
screen, helping ensure attendance.
This format also enables students to be
active in discussion and ask questions
as they arise.
Students are required to purchase an
iPad, which allows professors to take
attendance in seconds and provides
students access to notes and lectures
any time using Blackboard, an online
educational management system.
Audus says the school’s efforts
to attract more students across the
state to pharmacy education have
contributed to the university’s placing
more pharmacists in rural areas
throughout Kansas.
“Kansas has 105 counties, and seven
of them didn’t have a pharmacist or
a pharmacy,” he says. “Now, we’ve
brought that down to two.”
While some students express
the desire to stay in urban areas,
faculty in KU’s School of Pharmacy
encourage them to consider jobs in
rural communities by emphasizing the
demand in those areas. During winter
breaks, the school takes students to
small-town pharmacies across the state
to show them where they are needed.
The University of Cincinnati (UC)
in Ohio is also working to expand
the reach of pharmacy education.
In January 2016, UC’s College of
Pharmacy will be adding to its offerings
an online certificate and master’s degree
program in pharmacy management.
These programs are geared toward
people who already hold a pharmacy
degree but would like to become a
leader in the industry.
“For a pharmacist who wants
to receive additional training in
management, their options would be an
MBA program or a master’s in health
administration,” says Neil MacKinnon,
a professor and dean of the UC
College of Pharmacy. “There’s nothing
pharmacy-related, but now, with these
programs, they can learn how to inspire
and manage people in the field.”
The online master’s degree program
in pharmacy leadership will be the first
of its kind in the nation, and since it
will allow students to earn their degree
from anywhere, those already practicing
in rural areas won’t be forced to leave
their communities.
MacKinnon explains that many
advanced pharmacy programs are
intense, full-time commitments,
meaning that students would have to
quit their jobs in order to complete
them. However, with UC’s new online
programs, this isn’t necessarily the case.
In addition, UC’s current pharmacy
programs provide recorded lectures, like
those at Creighton and KU, so students
can listen to them at a time that works
for their schedules.
According to MacKinnon, who was
previously the director of the Arizona
Center for Rural Health, each state
works to analyze where healthcare
practitioners are needed and recognizes
the demand for more in rural areas.
He believes online programs have the
potential to bridge this gap.
“[Online] programs have the ability
to reach pharmacists,” MacKinnon
says. “We’ve developed these to be
[completed] anywhere in the world,
and that provides the opportunity for
more education for pharmacists who
would otherwise have to give up their
current lives.”
Although online programs like
these may not be able to eliminate the
projected pharmacist deficit, pharmacy
schools are showing that using
technology to increase educational
access and opportunities can have
a positive impact on the future of
pharmacy education and practice —
especially in rural communities.●
Madeline Szrom is a contributing
writer for INSIGHT Into Diversity.
Strong on Academics
Strong on Service
Strong on Values
Regis University’s
School of Pharmacy
proudly supports the
celebration of diversity
TO LEARN MORE:
regis.edu/pharmacy • 303.458.4344 • [email protected]
insightintodiversity.com
53
Spring Semester Career Guide
How to Build a HighPerforming, Diverse and
Inclusive Super A-Team
By Joseph Santana
A
ccording to a recent study by
the Institute for Corporate
Productivity (i4cp), highperforming organizations place
a higher premium on workforce
diversity and inclusion than their
lower-performing competitors. The
study also revealed that in these
better-performing organizations, the
company places a higher value on the
ability of leaders to work effectively
with diverse stakeholders.
Leaders and hiring managers may
scratch their heads, wondering what
this means and how it correlates with
other important hiring factors. It’s well
understood that the best teams are
composed of people who bring a variety
of perspectives and cognitive approaches.
That intuitively makes sense, but what
about being qualified or being a good fit
54
January/February 2016
with the rest of the team? Aren’t those
even more important?
These questions are often posed as
if these factors were mutually exclusive.
But they are three distinct elements of
a team, which, if properly optimized,
will yield the type of high-performing,
super A-team that the highestperforming organizations around the
globe are known for.
Consider a company like Disney,
for example. Disney hires people who
have the core skills needed to be cooks,
greeters, performers, tour guides, and so
on. These employees, who come from
all parts of the world, bring a multitude
of formative experiences and cognitive
approaches. Yet, these diverse, multiskilled individuals all share a common
characteristic that makes them work
effectively in teams. They have aligned
motivations that support one mission:
to provide guests with an extraordinary
experience. That, in a nutshell, is the
magic formula — bringing together
groups of qualified individuals with
diverse perspectives whose motivations
align around a shared outcome. That’s
what results in powerful A-teams.
In these teams, the members possess
the required job skills, a range of
cognitive tools, and a shared motivation
for why they do what they do. (For
more about this “why,” read Start
with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire
Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek.
The book makes a great case for the
importance of teaming up with those
who share and support your “why.” Or,
if you are short on time and looking
for an 18-minute overview, check out
Sinek’s TED Talk Start with Why.)
So, what can you do to build your
own high-performing, diverse and
inclusive super A-team? How can you
optimize each of these factors in ways
that will result in a super A-team?
First, make sure you hire and
promote people who possess the
basic job skills. A required skill,
unlike a preferred characteristic, is
something that someone must have
in order to perform a particular job.
For example, the ability to program in
the C-language is a requirement for a
C-programmer.
One of the best ways to determine
if a candidate has the required skills
is to obtain a work sample. There are
many ways to do this. Some software
do well hiring and promoting people
who are dedicated to and motivated
by the thought of helping society grow
through access to resources.
There are many assessments
available online that will help you
determine what motivates a candidate’s
behavior. Make sure these motivations,
or why a person does what he or she
does, align with your organizational
mission. If they don’t, no matter how
well a candidate meets the job skill
requirements, I recommend you pass
on that hire.
Finally, strive to increase the richness
of the cognitive diversity you have on
your team. Mark Miller, vice president
of marketing at organizational
pool capabilities across the team.
So, once you find candidates who
have the required skills and who are
aligned with your mission, strive to
broaden your cognitive diversity and
put in place the tools needed to support
effective, inclusive collaboration across
your highly diverse team.
“Recognizing the need for cognitive
diversity is critical, but the activation of
different perspectives is what takes teams
and organizations to high performance,”
Miller says. “Collaboration becomes a
tool to access a company’s ‘why’ in more
distinctive and boundless ways, and that
means organizations are more aligned
[both] internally and externally with
their customers.”
That, in a nutshell, is the magic formula —
bringing together groups of qualified individuals
with diverse perspectives whose motivations
align around a shared outcome. That’s what
results in powerful A-teams.
companies ask prospective team
members for a sample of their past
work that approximates what he or she
will be expected to do for the company.
When examining this component,
focus solely on judging the person’s
output and determining if it meets your
requirements for the job.
Next, make sure that your candidate is
aligned around a “why” that will support
your company and team’s core mission. If
your company exists to make computing
power available to the everyday person,
you don’t want to hire someone whose
core motivating “why” is to create a
strong class distinction between the
technical haves and have-nots.
On the other hand, if your
company’s mission is to create and
distribute new, affordable, and
accessible forms of energy, you might
development company Emergenetics
International, recently published an
article — titled “Improve Teamwork by
Utilizing Cognitive Collaboration”.—
in which he stresses the importance
of avoiding the Maslow’s Hammer
effect, which occurs when a team
takes a singular groupthink approach
because members are too cognitively
homogeneous — that is, every problem
appears to be a nail because everyone
has a cognitive hammer.
Miller — whose company has
identified seven distinct thinking and
behavioral styles, as well as a number
of behavioral attributes — strongly
recommends building teams that
include all of these styles and attributes.
Emergenetics International also offers
tools aimed at maximizing collaboration
between these styles so as to effectively
In today’s highly competitive, rapidly
evolving business ecosystems, no
organization can afford to have teams
on which any member lacks the skills,
commitment, or cognitive breadth of
vision and perspective needed to create
a super A-team. By optimizing each
of these factors effectively, any new or
existing team can quickly transform
into one that meets the opportunities
and challenges of the 21st century. It
can become a high-performing, diverse
and inclusive super A-team.●
Joseph Santana is chairman of the
Institute for Corporate Productivity’s
(i4cp) Chief Diversity Officer Board
and president of Joseph Santana, LLC.
He is also a member of the INSIGHT
Into Diversity Editorial Board. For
more about Joe, visit joesantana.com.
insightintodiversity.com
55
Spring Semester Career Guide
Dear Employer,
Diversity Matters
By Phyllis Finley
A
growing number of
organizations and their
leadership teams are
acknowledging the importance of
diversity and inclusion and the impact
they can have on business performance.
In fact, research by professional services
firm PricewaterhouseCoopers revealed
that 85 percent of CEOs whose
organizations have a diversity and
inclusion strategy say it has enhanced
employee performance. That is why
companies are developing innovative
programming to ensure that diversity
is an important part of their culture,
starting from the top of the company
down. One example is multinational
food services and facilities management
company Sodexo.
According to the book Why You
Should Do More Than just Talk About
Workplace Diversity by Susan Medina
and Peter Gomez, Sodexo ties 25
percent of top executives’ bonuses
and up to 15 percent of senior
management’s bonuses to meeting
diversity goals, demonstrating the
company’s view of diversity as a
business imperative.
The desire to work for a company
that values diversity and inclusion is
shared by many employees and job
candidates. Numerous studies show that
an employer’s commitment to diversity
and inclusion is especially important
56
January/February 2016
to younger generations now entering
the workforce, such as Generation
Z (people born in the mid to late
’90s), and is weighted heavily in their
decisions of whether to join a company.
Not surprisingly, the same is true of
minority groups.
According to a 2014 survey by
Glassdoor Inc., 72 percent of women
consider workforce diversity an
important factor when evaluating
companies and job offers. Also in the
survey, 89 percent of African American,
80 percent of Asian, and 70 percent of
Latino respondents said the diversity
of a company’s workforce is important
to them. These findings should
serve as a wakeup call for employers,
especially given that Generation Z
will be the most ethnically diverse
group to ever enter the U.S. workforce,
according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
To these workers, a diverse workforce
will be assumed a given because they
understand the value of diversity.
Furthermore, companies hoping to
remain competitive in the marketplace
will need to tap into the growing
buying power of minority groups. A
study by the University of Georgia’s
Selig Center for Economic Growth
showed that African Americans,
Asians, and Native Americans have
a collective buying power of $2
trillion.— 117 percent higher than the
$916 billion they had available to spend
in the year 2000. Having a diverse
workforce that understands the needs
and desires of an organization’s diverse
customer base will be a differentiator
for businesses in the future.
So, how does one evaluate an
employer’s commitment to diversity?
There are several ways to determine if
an employer truly embraces diversity as
a business imperative:
• Forbes, Fortune, and other national
publications compile annual lists
of businesses recognized for their
diversity policies and programs.
Actively search for these lists and read
them carefully to uncover why those
particular businesses shine within the
realm of diversity and inclusion.
• Take time to visit a company’s
website to learn about its philosophy
regarding diversity. Does it have a
page dedicated to diversity? Does it
publicize a formal diversity policy?
Has it participated in any diversityrelated programs or events? Look for
mention of established, measurable
programs that foster an inclusive
environment or employee resource
groups focused around issues of
common interest, such as ethnicity,
disability, or women in leadership.
These types of programs can help
you determine if a company values
diversity as a competitive advantage
beyond simply sponsoring events.
• Turn to social media and online
communities to uncover even more
information about an employer’s
diversity practices. You may find
criticism for a lack of commitment
to diversity or kudos for a well-run
program. However, keep in mind
that both praise and criticism may
include bias.
Executives who are on the hiring side
of the table must ensure that diversity
initiatives are part of the company’s
brand and are communicated effectively
both internally and externally. Often,
employees simply aren’t aware of a
company’s efforts and philosophy, and
many are unsure how to get involved.
Businesses should be as transparent
as possible, acknowledging areas
of strength, as well as areas for
opportunity and improvement.
Companies that establish formal
employee or business resource groups to
further collaboration of diverse teams
should effectively communicate these
offerings to employees.
Attracting diverse talent and
consistently looking for areas for
improvement will add value across the
company. For example, according to
a 2008 Gallup Poll, when employees
perceive that their employer and its
leadership team are committed to
diversity, they are more likely to stay
with the company, more likely to
recommend the company to others, less
likely to miss days at work, and more
likely to be engaged in their work.
Diversity and inclusion are gaining
more importance in the workplace as
research shows that more job seekers
are beginning to heavily evaluate
employers’ commitment to diversity in
their job searches. Just having programs
in place is not enough; it is essential
to communicate the existence of these
programs both internally and externally.
Shout it from the rooftops and into
cyberspace. Companies should also
ensure that both employees and job
candidates are aware of their efforts
and the ways in which they can get
involved, because without measures in
place to communicate programs and
drive engagement, organizations simply
cannot capture the true value of their
diversity initiatives.●
Phyllis Finley is the executive vice
president of diversity and inclusion
with Randstad North America.
TheDepartmentofOB/GynattheRobertC.ByrdHealthSciencesCenterofWestVirginiaUniversity-Charleston
Division,isrecruitinganadditionalfull-timenon-tenuredfacultymembertojoinouracademicallyoriented
Maternal-FetalMedicineDivision.
Job requirements are:
•MD,DOdegreeorforeignequivalentdegreefroman accreditedprogram
•BCinOB/GynandBE/BCinMaternal-FetalMedicine
•Possessaptitudeandpassionforeducatingresidentsand
medicalstudents
•Willingnesstoparticipateinappropriateacademic,clinical
researchorotherscholarlyactivityasmayberequiredof clinicalfaculty
•Proficientinobstetricalultrasoundandprenataldiagnosis
Benefits include:
•24-hourin-houseneonatologistinLevelIIINICU
•Onlyfreestandingwomenandchildren’shospitalin the state
•ExcellentbenefitspackagewithgenerousPTO
•Academicrankandsalarycommensuratewithqualifications
andexperience
•Vibrantcommunity
•Superbfamilyenvironment
•Unsurpassedrecreationalactivities
•Outstandingschoolsystems
Thesearchwillremainopenuntilasuitablecandidateis
identified.
Toapply,[email protected].
WVU is an EEO/Affirmative Action Employer – Minority/Female/Disability/Veteran
30468-J15
insightintodiversity.com
57
TM
ConnectingSpring
Diverse Professionals
Diverse Careers
Semesterto Career
Guide
Assistant/Associate Professor (tenure track): The School of
Nursing (SON), located in downtown Atlanta, invites applicants for
full-time, tenure track faculty positions. Responsibilities of these
9-month tenure track positions include developing or continuing
a program of health-related funded research, participating in
scholarly activities, and teaching in the undergraduate, and/
or graduate programs. Other responsibilities include student
advisement and mentoring, and involvement in school, university
and community services. The successful candidate will possess
evidence of a focused area of research. The SON provides
collaborative opportunities with many GSU Centers and Institutes
on Urban Health, Health Disparities, Heal Policy and Law,
Gerontology, Obesity and Biomedical Sciences.
The University of Utah, Department of Pathology is seeking a Clinical Immunologist at
ARUP Laboratories, an enterprise of the University of Utah. The successful candidate will
have a faculty appointment in the Department of Pathology at the rank of Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, or Professor in either the clinical or tenure tracks, depending on
the qualifications of the candidate.
Minimum qualifications include: 1)PhD or equivalent doctoral
degree, nursing preferred but others in health related fields
considered [e.g. biostatistics, psychology, social work, public
health] 2) a master's in nursing or equivalent degree. Certification
as an advanced practice RN and teaching experience desirable.
Competitive compensation package with startup funds available.
Log #s: 16-064, 16-065
Salt Lake City, Utah is diverse and vibrant and offers numerous opportunities for an active
lifestyle in a spectacular natural environment.
Nominations/applications are encouraged. Completed applications
for these tenure track positions, including a letter of application,
vitae, and contact information for three professional references,
should be emailed to: [email protected]
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
Further information may be obtained by viewing SON website
at http://snhp.gsu.edu/ or contacting Dr. Dawn Aycock at
[email protected]
Georgia State University, a unit of the University System of
Georgia, is an equal opportunity educational institution and an
equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and accommodates
individuals with disabilities. All applicants must comply with the
Immigration Reform and Control Act. Women and minorities are
strongly encouraged to apply. An offer of employment will be
contingent upon successful completion of a background report.
The School of Nursing at Sacramento
State University invites applications for
a full time Maternal Child tenure-track
position beginning in August 2016. To
view the full description and apply for
this position, please visit: http://www.
csus.edu/about/employment/
We also invite applications for a pool
of temporary applicants. Instructions
can be found at: http://www.csus.edu/
hr/facultyvacancies/Cont_Open_PT_
Vacancies_rev10.15.pdf
All offers of employment are subject
to, and contingent upon, confirmation
of work eligibility, satisfactory
completion of all pre-employment
background checks, and Board of
Registered Nursing approval.
Sacramento State encourages
applicants from every race, gender,
color, ethnicity and national origin,
as well as veterans and the disabled,
to ensure that all qualified individuals
have an equal opportunity for
employment at the University.
58
January/February 2016
Clinical responsibilities include interpretation of laboratory results, consultation with physicians, resident and fellow education, and quality control and quality assurance. Ample opportunities are available for collaboration with world-class research groups at the University
of Utah School of Medicine, and the Huntsman Cancer Institute.
ARUP is a full service reference laboratory with clients from more than half of the nation’s
university teaching and children’s hospitals, major commercial laboratories, military and
government facilities, and many community hospitals. As such, the laboratory sees a broad
range of specimen types and indications and offers a range of testing options in multiple
areas of immunology, including autoimmunity, allergy, primary and secondary immunodeficiency, cellular and innate immunity, protein immunology, transplantation, microbial
immunology, immunogenicity to biological, hepatitis and retroviral infections, and cancer
immunotherapy,among others.
The applicant should hold an M.D. and/or Ph.D. degree, and be board certified/eligible in
Clinical Pathology by the American Board of Pathology or be board certified/eligible in Clinical Immunology by the American Board of Medical Laboratory Immunology.
Applicants should submit electronically to http://utah.peopleadmin.com/postings/47256
a curriculum vitae, a brief cover letter and the names and addresses of three references.
For more information please contact Allison Boyer, [email protected]
For more information on the University and ARUP Laboratories, see www.utah.edu, or
www.aruplab.com.
The University of Utah Health Sciences Center is a patient focused center distinguished by
collaboration, excellence, leadership, and respect. The University of Utah Health Sciences
Center values candidates who are committed to fostering and furthering the culture of compassion, collaboration, innovation, accountability, diversity, integrity, quality, and trust that is
integral to the mission of the University of Utah Health Sciences Center.
The University of Utah is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer and does not
discriminate based upon race, national origin, color, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation,
gender identity/expression, status as a person with a disability, genetic information, or Protected Veteran status. Individuals from historically underrepresented groups, such as minorities, women, qualified persons with disabilities and protected veterans are encouraged to
apply. Veterans’ preference is extended to qualified applicants, upon request and consistent
with University policy and Utah state law. Upon request, reasonable accommodations in
the application process will be provided to individuals with disabilities. To inquire about the
University’s nondiscrimination or affirmative action policies or to request disability accommodation, please contact: Director, Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, 201
S. Presidents Circle, Rm 135, (801) 581-8365.
The University of Utah values candidates who have experience working in settings with
students from diverse backgrounds, and possess a strong commitment to improving access
to higher education for historically underrepresented students.
AVAILABLE TENURE TRACK
FACULTY POSITION
Searching for a candidate for a
tenure-track position, 10-month
appointment, beginning 8/1/16.
Eligible for rank of assistant
professor and licensure as RN in
Kentucky. Qualified applicant
must hold an earned PhD in
nursing or related field with a
master’s degree in nursing
preferred. Must have a beginning
focused area of research which
can be integrated with teaching.
Candidate will be supported to
obtain further extramural
research funding, and will
receive a startup package.
EEO/AA. Applicants must apply
online: www.louisville.edu/jobs.
(Job ID 32237)
LOUISIANA TECH
UNIVERSITY
School of Agricultural
Sciences and Forestry
Director and Chief Academic
Officer; Review of applications
begins February 15, 2016.
For complete position
announcement, contact Bill
Campbell (campbell@latech.
edu) or http://finance.latech.edu/
hr/vacan2336.php
Member of the University of
Louisiana System. AA/EEO.
Connecting Diverse Professionals to Diverse CareersTM
INSIGHT Into Diversity
Giving Back
DIVERSITY LEADERSHIP AWARD
INSIGHT Into Diversity recognizes the importance
of being a leader on campus, and we want to
honor those who go above and beyond their
everyday duties to "give back" to their institution
and community.
Help Us Honor Your President or Chancellor
Nominate your president or chancellor for the
Giving Back Award by Jan. 22, 2016. All honorees
will be featured in the April 2016 Leadership
Support and Giving Back Awards issue of INSIGHT
Into Diversity magazine.
insightintodiversity.com/giving-back-award
Our Next Issue:
March 2016
College Athletics
In our March issue, we will explore
athletic programs at colleges and
universities across the country, as well
as the role diversity plays across teams
and leagues. In addition, we will examine
the efforts of national sports leagues
to increase diversity and ensure the
inclusion of people from all backgrounds
and underrepresented populations.
Also in this issue, we will be celebrating
Women’s History Month.
The advertising deadline is February 2.
For advertising information, contact
Donald Washington at 301-529-9503 or
[email protected].
The Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Utah
School of Medicine is seeking qualified Anesthesiologists in
the areas of Perioperative Echocardiography, Critical Care,
Pediatric Anesthesia, and Pain Medicine to join the faculty,
providing exceptional clinical care, teaching and research at
the University of Utah, John Moran Eye Center, University Orthopedic Center, and other clinical sites as needed. Applicants
must be Board Certified or Board Eligible in Anesthesiology.
Successful candidates will receive a faculty appointment on the
clinical track in the Department of Anesthesiology. Rank will be
dependent on qualifications.
The candidate is responsible for faculty coverage on all
general inpatient and outpatient teams. The candidate will
be closely involved in the creation, implementation and
evaluation of multidisciplinary care process models aimed at
improving patient care. The candidate will be actively involved
in medical student and resident teaching in the inpatient and
outpatient settings. Interested candidates must demonstrate a
strong desire for exemplary teaching.
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
To request a nomination form, email
[email protected].
For additional questions or information, email
[email protected].
University of Utah Department of Anesthesiology
Opportunities exist to conduct research in a variety of
areas including education, outcomes/quality improvement, medical informatics and clinical projects. Faculty are
encouraged to develop relationships within the Department and with other Departments and Colleges to foster
research through collaboration.
To apply, applicants should submit a CV at the following
link: http://utah.peopleadmin.com/postings/47386
Inquiries may be directed to: Jeffrey Mann, Program Manager,
Department of Anesthesiology, [email protected],
801-585-0778
The University of Utah Health Sciences Center is a patient
focused center distinguished by collaboration, excellence,
leadership, and Respect. The University of Utah HSC values
candidates who are committed to fostering and furthering the
culture of compassion, collaboration, innovation, accountability,
diversity, integrity, quality, and trust that is integral to the mission of the University of Utah Health Sciences Center.
The University of Utah is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and educator and its policies prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, religion, age, status as a
person with a disability, or veteran’s status. Minorities, women,
veterans, and those with disabilities are strongly encouraged to
apply. Veterans’ preference is extended to qualified veterans.
To inquire further about the University’s nondiscrimination and
affirmative action policies or to request a reasonable accommodation for a disability in the application process, please
contact the following individual who has been designated as
the University’s Title IX/ADA/Section 504 Coordinator: Director, Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, 201
South Presidents Circle, Rm. 135, Salt Lake City, UT 84112,
(801)581-8365, email: [email protected].
insightintodiversity.com
59
Spring Semester Career Guide
The Nontraditional Workweek:
Embracing Workplace Flexibility
as a Business Imperative
By Alexandra Vollman
A
s the line between Americans’
work and non-work lives
continues to blur, employers
are more than ever seeing the
value in offering flexible workplace
arrangements to attract and retain a
diverse and talented workforce.
Though offering flexible work
arrangements was historically framed
as a women’s issue, it is now viewed
as more of a human issue, with men
actually reporting higher and more
frequent utilization rates (once a week
or more) than women, according to the
2015 Work-Life Survey by the American
Psychological Association’s (APA)
Center for Organizational Excellence.
Currently 51 percent of Americans
report working for employers that offer
some type of workplace flexibility.
While flexible arrangements may
vary by organization and industry, their
overall purpose is to give employees
more choices, and more say, in their
schedules — representing a shift from
the traditional nine-to-five workweek.
“For a long time, our employment
60
January/February 2016
policies in this country focused on
very rigid schedules — the idea of
‘punching a clock’ that people just
grew accustomed to. So [offering
flexible workplace arrangements] is
about embracing change, thinking
about working differently,” says Lisa
Horn, director of Workplace Flexibility
Initiatives with the Society for Human
Resources Management (SHRM).
Horn oversees SHRM’s strategic
initiative When Work Works, a
project.— in partnership with the
Families and Work Institute.— that
provides employers and human
resources (HR) professionals with the
tools, research, and effective practices
for adopting flexible workplace
arrangements.
“The way we define a flexible work
arrangement is really talking about how,
when, and where work gets done,” she
says. “So [this may include] flextime
and flex-place; it can be part-time
arrangements, part-year arrangements,
job shares, compressed workweeks,
alternate start and stop times. … It’s
basically giving employees some level of
autonomy over how, when, and where
they get their work done.”
These individualized workplace
arrangements, and the companies that
offer them, appeal to a wide range of
workers.— from millennials to working
parents to baby boomers, as well as
people from a variety of backgrounds,
lifestyles, and situations. And as
working Americans increasingly report
a better fit between their work and
personal lives, according to the APA’s
survey, both employees and companies
are reaping the benefits.
“When you work for an organization
that you truly believe cares about you
as an individual and as a person, and
provides the resources you need to be
at your best, then … you are willing to
give more to that organization,” says
David W. Ballard, head of the APA’s
Center for Organizational Excellence.
“So what they’re committing to you
affects how willing you are to make
commitments to [them].”
For Ballard, who designs and directs
David W. Ballard, head of the APA’s Center for Organizational Excellence, presents
an overview of the “Psychologically Healthy Workplace Model” to psychologists and
business leaders at the APA’s Ninth Annual Psychologically Healthy Workplace Awards
ceremony in 2014. (Photo credit: Larry Canner Photography via the APA)
efforts related to health and well-being
“Employers that embrace these
in the workplace, the business case for
types of work strategies certainly are
offering flexible workplace arrangements
putting themselves at a competitive
is obvious. In addition to helping
advantage.— and I think that trend is
improve both the mental and physical
only going to grow, and it complements
health of employees who use them,
an organization’s diversity and inclusion
they have been proven
strategy,” Horn says.
to contribute to lower
“Oftentimes, there’s a
levels of stress, higher job
way for HR professionals
satisfaction, and increased
to position flexibility to
morale.
suggest that there’s great
In turn, these marked
synergy between that and
improvements within a
[a company’s] diversity
company’s workforce have
strategy.”
a positive impact on the
organization itself.
The Best Talent for a
“Employers have found
Better Workforce
David W. Ballard
that giving employees
Attracting, retaining, and
control over decisions
accommodating a diverse
[around] the way they get work done on
and talented workforce is what global
a day-to-day basis improves the quality
professional services firm Deloitte
of work life and the quality of home life
Services LLP is all about. For more
for people,” Ballard says. “Those things
than a decade, the company has been
are, in turn, linked to better business
offering flexible work arrangements to
outcomes: higher productivity, lower
its 225,000-strong workforce.
absenteeism, and lower turnover.”
“It’s all about creating an irresistible
Because of the many benefits they
organization and appealing to the
provide on both sides of the table,
broadest pool of talent possible,” says
flexible workplace arrangements are
Carolyn O’Boyle, talent director for
increasingly being viewed less as an
Talent Strategy and Innovation with
employee perk and more as a strategic
Deloitte. “I think this is the way the
business imperative.
workforce wants to work, and if you
want to continue to be a leader in
terms of talent — getting the best
talent, having them feel a relationship
[with] and a connection back to your
organization — if you want to be
irresistible, you’ve got to be responsive
to the changing needs of [the
workforce].”
By taking a personal and
individualized approach, Deloitte
is able to offer employees flexibility
while ensuring predictability — crucial
elements toward ensuring that an
arrangement works for both employee
and employer.
“We try to work with every person to
figure out what works for them, simply
because everyone has very unique
needs,” says O’Boyle, “and what works
for me isn’t going to work for you, and
what works for me today might not
work for me a year from now.”
Although O’Boyle says offerings
vary based on an individual’s situation,
as well as what is important to an
employee (coaching a son or daughter’s
sports team, for instance), Deloitte’s
typical alternative work arrangements
include compressed workweeks (40
hours completed in four days instead
of five), flextime (no set schedule),
telecommuting, and part-time or
seasonal hours, among others.
Another, related initiative,
developed and implemented in
summer 2015, is the Deloitte Open
Talent (DOT) platform; its purpose is
to build a diverse pool of talent in the
form of freelance and contract workers.
“[It’s] been a priority and focus for
us over the past 18 months as we seek
to build an attractive way to engage
with those types of workers — really a
recognition that a growing population
of people across all different generations
are interested in that type of work
arrangement,” O’Boyle says. “They don’t
necessarily want to be with the same
company in a full-time capacity. They
want the flexibility that comes with
[this] type of employment structure.”
DOT connects different departments
within Deloitte with individuals of
insightintodiversity.com
61
[ moreINSIGHT ]
Common Flexible
Workplace Arrangements
Compressed workweek
Full-time employees work longer days for
part of the week or pay period in exchange
for shorter days, or a day off, each week or
pay period.
Telecommuting
Employees work remotely from home, a
satellite location, or anywhere from one day a
week to full time.
Flextime with “core hours”
Employees choose their work hours within
limits established by the employer. They
must work full time and be present on a daily
basis during “core hours” (for example, an
employer may require that employees be
present from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.).
Job sharing
Two or more employees share the
responsibilities, accountability, and
compensation of one full-time job.
Transition period, part time
Employees gradually return to work after a
major life event (e.g., the birth or adoption
of a child) by working part time for a set
period of time and eventually returning to
work full time.
Part-year or seasonal work
Employees work only a certain number of
months per year.
Phased retirement
Employees reduce their schedule and/or
responsibilities prior to full retirement.
Source: Society for Human Resource Management,
Workplace Flexibility in the 21st Century
62
January/February 2016
all backgrounds and abilities — from people with expertise
in Web design to those with analytics skills — in order to
quickly and easily pull them in on projects, as needed.
O’Boyle says the company’s open talent pool is composed
of people of all ages, backgrounds, expertise, and lifestyles.
She believes DOT helps bring a variety of perspectives to
the table that Deloitte may not have otherwise had access to.
“There are a lot of millennials in that pool. There are
also a fair amount of baby boomers who are getting ready
to retire but aren’t quite ready to fully pull out of the
marketplace yet; they’re looking to stay engaged in certain
ways, and open talent becomes a nice way for them to do
that,” she says. “So I think that opening up the talent pool is
a way for us to have a lot more diversity, whether it’s diversity
in backgrounds or cognitive diversity.”
Effective Flexibility
While both Horn and Ballard recommend the adoption of
flexible workplace arrangements, they also emphasize that
when it comes to individual companies, one size does not
fit all. Because organizations and their needs, as well as the
needs of each of their employees, vary greatly, Horn says that
“flexible flexibility” is key.
“There are no two organizations that are the same, and
… sometimes what flexible work arrangement will work in
one department or division at an organization won’t work
in another job division within that organization,” she says.
“So we talk oftentimes about effective flexibility; the way
we define that is, in order for the flexible work arrangement
to be effective, it has to work for both the employer and the
employee.”
However, she says that a company’s ability to offer
alternative work arrangements depends on its culture and, in
part, the industry in which it operates.
At Deloitte, O’Boyle says that what began as a “very
programmatic” initiative focused on a reduced work schedule
has since evolved into a “cultural expectation” by employees.
Yet while half of all Americans report having access to
flexible work arrangements, only 25 percent report using
these work-life benefits one or more times per month.
According to Ballard, this lack of use is due to the stigma
associated with not completing work on-site.
“There is still a feeling that if you’re not physically at your
desk, in front of your computer at work, that that’s going to
be viewed negatively — sort of out of sight, out of mind —
or that managers or supervisors might think you are not as
committed to your job or to the organization,” he says. “So
people are sometimes reluctant to use those flexible work
arrangements because they are afraid [doing so is] going to
hurt their opportunities for advancement or [affect] their
performance ratings.
“The unfortunate reality is there has been some research
that suggests that supervisors at times do assign lower
performance ratings to people who are not physically on
the job, despite the fact that their actual performance might
Education
not be lower.”
Ballard believes the solution to this dilemma lies in how
managers are trained. Because most supervisors are trained
to manage workers by watching them, many are unprepared
and unsure how to manage a remote and flexible workforce,
he says.
“The challenge is figuring out ways to measure
performance and to supervise and manage employees who
may not be sitting at a desk from nine to five,” he says. “So
we need to find better ways to evaluate and measure what it
is they are accomplishing on the job.”
In addition to properly trained managers, organizations
need to have structures in place to provide remote workers
the tools and technology assistance needed to adequately do
“It takes the right employees with the
right skill set, and the right job with the
right support from the organization to
be able to work effectively. So it is not
easy to do, but when it’s done well, it
has really good results.”
David W. Ballard, head of the APA’s Center
for Organizational Excellence
63208
Insight
Oakton Community College
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their jobs. However, Ballard also emphasizes the need for
employees to meet certain criteria as well.
“People need the skills to be able to work flexibly; they
need to have the self-motivation and organizational skills,”
he says. “It takes the right employees with the right skill
set, and the right job with the right support from the
organization to be able to work effectively. So it is not easy
to do, but when it’s done well, it has really good results.”
While specific projections in regard to their expansion in
the workplace are tenuous, some, like Horn, believe flexible
work arrangements will soon be engrained in the U.S.
business culture.
“In the not-so-distant future, … the terms ‘workplace
flexibility,’ or ‘flexible work arrangements,’ will no longer
exist,” she says. “[At SHRM], we feel pretty strongly that
this is just the way work is going to get done in the future —
because of the diversity of the American workforce and the
fact that we are a global economy, that work is 24/7.
“Companies that embrace flexible work arrangements
now are setting themselves up for success, and in many
ways, those that don’t are not only putting themselves at a
competitive disadvantage, but they may ultimately no longer
be in existence in the not-so-distant future.”●
“CULTURAL
COMPETENCE...”
Welcoming
Community
Diversity
Regard
Respect
Inclusion
Sensitivity
Awareness
Oakton Community College employs
individuals who respect, are eager to learn
about, and have a willingness to accept the
many ways of viewing the world.
Oakton serves the near northern suburbs of
Chicago with campuses in Des Plaines and
Skokie.
Individuals with a commitment to working in
a culturally competent environment and who
reflect the increasing diversity of Oakton’s
student body and community are sought to
fill the following faculty openings:
• Anthropology and Sociology
(dual appointment)
• Biology
• Computer Information Systems
• Computer Information Systems
and Computer Networking and
Systems (dual appointment)
• Mathematics
To learn more about these positions,
full consideration deadlines, and to complete
an online application, visit our Web site at:
Listening
www.oakton.edu
Click on “employment”
Experiences
Alexandra Vollman is the editor of INSIGHT Into Diversity.
Oakton Community College is an equal opportunity employer.
insightintodiversity.com
63
Spring Semester Career Guide
Who Is an Online “Applicant”?
How to minimize EEOC and OFCCP liability
By Jennifer Seda, JD
W
hen you are an employer,
knowing who is defined
as an “applicant” matters.
The Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) and the Office
of Federal Contract Compliance
Programs (OFCCP) focus on systemic
hiring discrimination and obtain large
monetary settlements every year.
Within the U.S. Department
of Labor, the EEOC investigates
charges of discrimination brought
against employers, and the OFCCP
conducts roughly 4,000 audits of
federal contractors and subcontractors
every year.
And here’s a well-kept secret: The
agencies do not have to prove the
employer intentionally discriminated;
rather, under the disparate impact
theory, they must demonstrate that the
employer’s hiring process negatively
• Candidates who submit an
expression of interest
• Candidates who meet the basic
qualifications
• Candidates who are considered (their
substantive qualifications reviewed)
• Candidates who do not expressly (or
who the employer may infer) remove
themselves from consideration
Similarly, for employers who are not
federal contractors or subcontractors,
to fall within the definition of
“applicant” in the Uniform Guidelines
on Employee Selection Procedures,
candidates must submit an expression
significant increases in their candidate
pools. But they should also be thinking
about how these large numbers may
affect potential liability in EEOC
investigations and OFCCP audits. (In
systemic discrimination investigations,
the agency often asks for three to
five years of applicant data; for the
OFCCP, the agency starts with one
year and may expand to two years if it
sees statistical indicators.)
In statistical analyses, big numbers
are bad numbers. The more applicants
in the analysis, the more likely the
employer is to tip over into statistical
significance; a standard deviation
greater than 1.96 is considered
statistically significant.
In the example below, the original
data contained all expressions of
interest (everyone who applied) for
a total of 10,000 candidates for one
Analysis
Rate for Females
(Hires/Applicants)
Rate for Males
(Hires/Applicants)
Standard Deviation
Original Data
50/5000
.01
100/5000
.02
4.113
Minus Not Considered
50/3000
.02
100/4000
.03
2.383
Minus Not Considered
& Withdrew
50/2000
.03
100/3500
.03
0.782
affected a group at a statistically
significant level. So, identifying and
strategically presenting who is an
“applicant” — who should count
against the employer in these statistical
analyses.— is critical in EEOC
investigations and OFCCP audits.
So, just who is an applicant?
The Internet Applicant Rule is the
single greatest idea ever contrived by
64
the Department of Labor. It defines the
type of applicants federal contractors
and subcontractors must include in
these analyses — and therefore who can
be removed — as follows:
January/February 2016
of interest, be considered, and not
remove themselves from consideration.
Big Numbers Are Bad
Numbers
Many employers allow candidates to
apply online, and for some employers,
that is the primary or only way
candidates can apply. With this
technology, employers are seeing
position. Often, employers remove
candidates who were not considered
and who withdrew — and, in the case
of federal contractors, candidates who
did not meet the basic qualifications;
this allows them to present their
applicant data in a better light. It is
this decrease in applicant numbers in
the above example that brought the
employer below statistical significance.
How to Decrease Large
Applicant Numbers
Develop Strategic Disposition Codes
under the Internet Applicant Rule
To take advantage of the rule, employers
should develop strategic disposition
codes that mirror elements of the rule
to identify who does not meet the
definition of “applicant” and can be
removed. For example, if the candidate
does not return calls, takes another job,
or wants too much money, the candidate
is not considered an applicant because
he or she is not willing to do the job,
and the employer can infer that the
candidate will remove himself or herself
from consideration. Similarly, if the
employer does not review the candidate’s
• Do not move between requisitions.
Similarly, moving candidates between
requisitions suggests that the
employer considers candidates for
more than one position and allows
the agencies to count them multiple
times. Instead of moving them,
consider inviting them to apply for
another suitable requisition.
• Use data management techniques
(DMTs). DMTs allow employers
to consider some of the candidates,
and those not reviewed do not count
against the employer. This technique
is especially helpful for entry-level,
high-volume positions. To use this
technique, look at the candidates in
batches, such as 10 or 20 at a time,
Identifying and strategically presenting who is an
“applicant” — who should count against the employer
in these statistical analyses — is critical in EEOC
investigations and OFCCP audits.
substantive qualifications because the job
was filled and the candidate applied too
late, the individual is not an applicant
under the rule because the employer did
not consider him or her.
Implement Best Practices
To minimize the number of applicants,
employers should consider implementing
the following best practices:
• Close requisitions when filled.
Closing requisitions when filled will
reduce the number of candidates
applying.
• Make one hire per requisition.
One hire per requisition also makes
the data cleaner to defend since all
candidates in the requisition were
considered for that specific position.
“Evergreen,” or “continuous,”
requisitions, on the other hand, are
difficult to defend because it is not
clear who was considered for each
position. When this happens, the
agencies can count the candidate
multiple times, which leads to
larger numbers.
by a qualification-neutral means,
such as timing — first received or
most recently received. Once you
have enough successful candidates
to move on to the next phase, stop
reviewing. Once the position is
filled, disposition the remaining
candidates who were not reviewed
as “Never Considered – Data
Management Technique.”
Using these suggested best practices
and the Internet Applicant Rule can
help employers reduce their applicant
pools, thus minimizing EEOC and
OFCCP liability.●
Jennifer Seda, JD, is a principal in the
Denver, Co., office of Jackson Lewis
P.C. She oversees the preparation
of many of affirmative action plans
each year. Over the past several years,
she has defended multiple OFCCP
audits, including on-site and corporate
management (“glass ceiling”) reviews.
For questions, contact Jennifer at
[email protected].
The Department of Nursing and
Allied Health Professions at Indiana
University of Pennsylvania (IUP)
invites applications for two full time,
tenure-track positions beginning
in August 2016 and a pool of
temporary applicants.
To view the full description and
apply for these positions, please
visit www.iup.edu/employment.
All offers of employment are subject
to and contingent upon confirmation
of work eligibility and satisfactory
completion of all pre-employment
background checks.
IUP is an equal opportunity employer
M/F/H/V and is a proud member of the
State System of Higher Education.
Department of Nursing
Tenure Track teaching Position
Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South
Dakota, has an exciting faculty opportunity
for a tenure-track Assistant or Associate
Professor in Nursing. A doctoral degree is
required and a PhD in nursing or a DNP in
a clinical specialty. If the doctoral degree is
in a related field, the applicant must have
a graduate degree in a nursing clinical
specialty. Expertise in adult/gero and/or
child health desired. Expertise in genetics
and genomics a plus.
About Sioux Falls: Ranked by Forbes as
the No. 1 “Best Small Place for Business and
Careers,” the city continues to be a vibrant,
growing and diverse regional center for
education, healthcare, financial services, biofuels, recreation and the arts. The metro area
boasts a population of more than 238,000.
Learn more & apply: www.augie.edu/jobs
Augustana University is an Equal Opportunity Employer/Affirmative
Action/Title IX Employer. Women and Minorities are encouraged to
apply. Applicants must comply with the Immigration Reform and
Control Act and may be required to submit
official transcripts upon employment.
insightintodiversity.com
65
Closing INSIGHT
nursing & medicine quotes
“To do what nobody else will
do, a way that nobody else
can do, in spite of all we go
through, is to be a nurse.”
— Rawsi Williams
“Nurses are there when
the last breath is taken,
and nurses are there when
the first breath is taken.
Although it is more
enjoyable to celebrate the
birth, it is just as important
to comfort in death.”
— Christine Bell
“Bound by paperwork, [and] short
on hands, sleep, and energy …
nurses are rarely short on caring.”
— Sharon Hudacek
“Nursing is an art — and if it is to be
made an art, it requires an exclusive
devotion as hard a preparation as any
painter’s or sculptor’s work; for what is
the having to do with dead canvas or
dead marble, compared with having to
do with the living body, the temple of
God’s spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I
had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.”
— Florence Nightingale
“As a nurse, we have the opportunity to
heal the heart, mind, soul, and body of our
patients, their families, and ourselves. They
may not remember your name, but they will
never forget the way you made them feel.”
— Maya Angelou
“The glory of medicine is that it is constantly
moving forward, that there is always more to
learn. The ills of today do not cloud the horizon
of tomorrow, but act as a spur to greater effort.”
— William James Mayo
“Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity.”
— Hippocrates
AND
Present the First-Ever National
Healthcare Diversity Virtual
RECRUITMENT FAIR
for Students and Alumni
Save the date: April 20, 2016
To participate as a recruiter, contact Lenore Pearlstein
at [email protected].
VALUES OF THE SCHOOL
•
•
•
•
Contemplation in Action
Cura Personalis
Diversity
Excellence
• Respect
• Social Justice
• Value of the Common Good
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE PROGRAMS
Health Care Management & Policy
healthsystems.georgetown.edu
Human Science
humanscience.georgetown.edu
International Health
internationalhealth.georgetown.edu
Nursing
nursing.georgetown.edu
MASTER OF SCIENCE PROGRAMS
Global Health *
globalhealthms.georgetown.edu
Health Systems Administration
Online Executive and Full-Time On-Campus Options
healthsystems.georgetown.edu
Nursing
On-Campus and Online Options
nursing.georgetown.edu
* The MS in Global Health Program is housed in the Graduate School of
Arts & Sciences and administered by the Department of International Health.
DOCTORAL PROGRAM
Doctor of Nursing Practice
nursing.georgetown.edu
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Learn more by visiting http://nhs.georgetown.edu/about/jobs.
CALL
(202) 687-2781
OR VISIT
nhs.georgetown.edu