College aims for ‘purposeful’ effort to diversify enrollment

The UNMC College of Medicine is committed to enhancing diversity, and plans are under way to grow the applicant pool to attract a larger and more diverse group of medical school hopefuls, said Wendy Grant, MD, associate dean for admissions and student affairs at the college.

“One of the things we need to do is increase our outreach and active recruiting,” she said. “Once we have a more diverse group of people who apply, we can accept a more diverse class.”

The process will take time, Dr. Grant said. Huge change is unlikely in a single year.

Still, she said, “We would like to make this purposeful and as much a part of the process as possible.”

“Purposeful” is a word Dr. Grant uses often when she discusses how the college will admit a more diverse class.

“We have always had a robust, holistic review of every applicant,” she said. “We review the missions and the charges of the committee. One of the charges has always been to increase the diversity of the student body.”

Now, the team is working to increase the number and diversity of its entire applicant pool.

“We need more active recruiting into some of our pipeline programs, such as RHOP and UHOP,” she said. “And by ‘active,’ I mean not being completely dependent on the participating schools, such as UNK, Chadron State College, Wayne State College or the University of Nebraska at Omaha. There are opportunities for us as a faculty to go out and recruit in the high schools. Additionally, we can have a bigger presence at all the universities in Nebraska to encourage students to pursue medicine and understand that if they want to do this, we are here to help.

“We need to make sure that all students understand that there are opportunities available to them — we need to have a better idea of what the high schools do in terms of promoting medicine. Additionally, there are opportunities for potential mentoring relationships from members of the College of Medicine.”

Once admitted, all students are supported by the college and its faculty — that’s a message Dr. Grant said the college needs to share.

The newly created associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion position will be an incredible asset as the college works toward its diversity goals, she said, not only because of what that person will bring to the college, but the message that the creation of the position sends.

“This position is going to make a huge difference. This being said, we have to do this all together. We need to look at all levels, from recruiting students in high school to making our faculty as diverse as possible.”