Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Time to Reward Diversity and Inclusion Efforts in Promotion Decisions

“When you have diversity of viewpoints, you have better outcomes, better solutions,” said Marie Bernard, the National Institutes of Health’s acting chief officer for scientific workforce diversity. “If you don’t have a diverse team, you’re missing out on a lot of talent.”

What hasn’t been incentivized or credited, researchers throughout that ladder say, is work to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion — the task forces served on, the community outreach, the mentoring of trainees from underrepresented groups. Recognizing such work in more formal ways could not only encourage it, but actively help institutions achieve their stated goals of adding and retaining more faculty of color, particularly at upper leadership levels, according to interviews with Black, Latino, and Indigenous academics.

Some schools have revised faculty codes to consider such service scholarly activity, but for the most part, “schools do not provide any incentive for you to serve on that committee” or for the other diversity efforts, said David Acosta, the AAMC’s chief diversity and inclusion officer. 

https://www.statnews.com/2021/02/19/doctors-push-academiareward-diversity-work-in-promotion-decisions/