Jennie Williams, PhD, was appointed the Administrative Director of this initiative in 2021. The overall actionable goals of this position are to enhance diversity through active recruitment and retention, increased collaboration, generation of diversity awareness in research, and improvement of culture competency in the workforce. This will encompass faculty, students and staff in the Cancer Center.
These goals will be achieved through the development of a number of initiatives, such as:
- Creation of Diversity Career Development programs for graduate/medical students, postdoctoral trainees and early career faculty
- Development of a program in peer mentoring to provide peer perspective understanding and a scientific network (trained peer mentors: mentoring the mentors)
- Initiating culture appreciation events to promote exposure and understanding of differences and change perceived attitudes
- Recruitment outreach programs
- Internal community building, introducing topics in cancer racial disparity
- and promoting diversity, as in inclusion, when possible in all research efforts