The College of Pharmacy (COP) Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI)

The College of Pharmacy (COP) Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI)

2014/15 Annual Report

Presented to: Dr. Jerry Bauman, Dean

June 9, 2015

The 2015/15 year has been one of looking back and forward for the College of Pharmacy Urban Health Program and the Office of Diversity and Inclsion. We have spent this past academic year in strategic directions through ambious studenty recruitment, retention and graduation of underrepresented minority students (URMs) albiet with a small hard working and dedicated staff and limited budget. Deespite the prolifiration of colleges of pharmacy in the Chicagoland areas who are also competing with the College for talented URM students, we are happy to say that UIC College of Pharmacy remains the number one preference of URMs. Through proactive recruitment efforts using social media and technology and partnerships, we are reaching URM potential pharmacy students who are originally from Illinois.We have conducted pre-pharmacy sessions at community and Universities with sizable URM students. In total, we have reached approximately over 25,000 potential URMs. In addition, we are continuing our focus of building URM pharmacy pipeline through our Chicago Public School Urban Pipeline Program.

Forming strategic partnerships with several of the College’s departments and offices, including other UHP health science staff has been critical in our outreach efforts of attracting and enrolling URMs into the College. To this end, the College reach an important goal the Urban Pharmacy (UPHARM) Services Program was approved as a concentration, making it possible for our students to practice in urban communities throughout Chicago and across the state to address the healthcare disparities that plague our communities and citizens.

Our full report shows that though the efforts from ODI though the publication of the community engagement report of our students and faculty highlighting the many hours that our students and faculty members are engaged in providing services as volunteers with the various communities. A foreign language survey was conducted that shows the diversity of students in languages spoken; English language immersion program for assisting non-native international students for patient communication. We implemented the peer education program for assisting in our student retention; workshops on stress management and mental health well-being of students across the two campuses. We have hosted several student supported cultural competency seminars and discussions with students from medicine, dentistry and applied health sciences. We are very proud of our accomplishments and excited about the future. The COP-UHP/ODI team bring new and fresh ideas as programmative initiatives. We have been productive this year thanks to Tiffany Bumpers, COP-UHP Recruitment Coordinator and Jason Rebello, Associate Director for Diversity and Inclusion.

The goals for next year includes an advising presence two days a week for our UIC undergraduate’s students who will potentially be our biggest feeder for the College. We will work collaboratively with the campus UHP, the African American Academic Network, the Trio Program and the Latin American Recruitment Educational Services, and the Native American Student Support Program.

I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Jerry Bauman, Dean and Professor, College of Pharmacy for his support.

ODI Report: Progress and Accomplishments

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion works collaboratively with all COP units to make sure that,“The College community fosters an inclusive and supportive environment encompassing acceptance and respect of differences among students, staff, faculty and guests. Differences include, but are not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disabilities, and beliefs (e.g., health, sociological, religious and socio-cultural barriers). These different groups will be represented in all facets of the College’s education and experiences such as our curricula content, faculty, student, staff and research representations to ensure a College climate that promotes the well-being and success of all”.

The following activities show some of the initiatives that helped in accomplishing some of our charge:

Scholarships & Awards

Every year the College awards 97 scholarships to its current students. Scholarships range from academic performance, interests and focus of research/volunteer work, as well as heritage and background. This year, the ODIworked to increase the overall UHP scholarship applicant pool. As a result 12% of scholarships were awarded to URM students.

College Student, Faculty, and Staff Climate of Diversity and Equity Support

As a strategic goal, the ODI doubled its efforts to achieve a greater interaction with students, faculty, and staff as a way to monitor any climate issues. We also provide and welcome students in need of a safe place to ask questions on any issue. ODI offices are designed safe zones for students/faculty and staff. ODI collaborates with other units in the College to promote and educate on issues of diversity and inclusion and work closely with the Provost for Diversity at the campus level. Through our efforts, at the end of the academic year, we had 51 climate-type appointments which included 5 visits to the Rockford Campus.

COP-Diversity and Strategic Thinking and Planning (DSTP) Committee

The Diversity Teaching and Learning Subcommittee, focused on creating a student focus group for spring 2016 with the goal of “Assessing the cultural awareness of the UIC College of Pharmacy faculty” by students. The subcommittee met many times to work on the IRB, focus group questions. The subcommittee under the leadership of Dr. Nick Popovich, is made up of students and faculty.

Community Engagement Report

Building on last years inaugural community engagement report, which was a highlighted positive feature during the colleges accreditation review, the Office of diversity & Inclusion embarked on increasing the promotion of the community engagement report to our student organizations, and faculty. The 2013-2014 report featured 77 student community health outreach events. Based on our promotion, the 2014-2015 report tallied 200 impactful community engagement events. This reflects 48% increase in community based events with 22% increase in total hours served. Overall, a 72% increase in the number of community members served.

COP Foreign Language Survey

ODI created the College’s inaugural foreign Language Survey which collects and tallies the foreign languages spoken by our student population. This served 3 main purposes: adding another layer of quantifiable metrics on the diversity at the College for internal tracking; to better market the diversity of the college to prospective students, and prospective employers; and finally, to provided a tool for the experiential faculty coordinators and faculty members with clinical outreach programs that are located in the City of Chicago and suburban Cook County since some of the programs are periodically conducted in languages, other than English. The information collected from this informal survey was instrumental in these faculty members in identifying students that speak various languages who might be able to participate in their programs.

Marketing & Advancement

Created a new Poster for the lobby display, which marketed the College’s “Urban Mission”. The poster features basic details about our Urban Pipeline Program in addition to highlighting the UPHARM concentration. The display has received very positive feedback from guests visiting the college.

Peer Education Program

ODI continued its initiative of supporting the academic progress of all students through the Peer Education Program. This program facilitates peer-education services that are offered free throughout the academic year for students in Chicago and Rockford. By the end of the academic year, 17 peer educators had a total of 23 hours of peer education services for 108 students. The feedback from students on peer education was very positive.

Stress Management

With the assistance of the campus Office of Academic Excellence, ODI and Office of Student Affairs, conducted stress management workshops and services throughout the year. The workshops included, test taking strategies, time management skills, coping mechanisms, and physical therapy in the form of chair massages for students during finals week. A total of 79 students participated in our various stress management activities.

Interpersonal Communication Workshop

Based on feedback from course coordinators and other faculty members, it became clear that we needed to create an opportunity for some of our non-native speaking students to practice their speaking, presentation, and interaction skills in a supportive small group environment. We piloted the program in the spring semester utilizing free campus resources from the east campus to help design and facilitate a communication workshop series. Student participants we as a result of faculty recommendations. The next step will be creating an ongoing workshop series for students across the P1-P3 years.

Transgender Patient Care Program

In collaboration with the College of Medicine, and the west campus QUEERS & ALLIES, group, we presented a lecture on transgender Patient Care featuring the Dr. Renata Smith, Clinical Assistant Professor, Pharmacy Practice.

Cultural Competency Inter-Professional Education (IPE) Seminar

ODI provided support to the College’s Muslim Student Association (MuPHSA) in an IPE with students from the colleges of pharmacy, medicine, nursing, and dentistry on April 17th on the topic of “Islam and Caring for the Muslim Patient”. Ahmed Abdemageed, PharmD. Was the seminar presenter. The seminar was made part of the leadership series that resulted in large student turnout.

Black History Month Program

In collaboration with SNPhA, College of Medicine, and the College of Dentistry, we hosted an inter-professional panel series with 6 healthcare professionals from various fields of practice discussing minority health issues, healthcare disparities in general in addition to career development/mentorship opportunities. There 75 students who attended the event.

Student Leadership Series

In collaboration with OSA, and Pharmacy Student Council, we facilitated 9 workshop events across both campuses with 280 total student participants. Thirty-four (34) student leadership certificates (24 Chicago, 10 Rockford) were presented to students who had participated in 4 leadership series events throughout the year

ODI Key Highlights and Accomplishments

• Publication of first COP Foreign Language Survey

• Publication of 2nd Annual Chicago/Rockford Community Engagement Report

• 200community engagement events
• 5,500 hours of community service
• 13,352 membersof the community served
• Launched Interpersonal Communication pilot workshop April 17,2015

• Facilitated Peer Education Program
• Creation of peer education corner in the student lounge
• 17 Peer Educators (Chicago/Rockford)
• 108 Students participated in peer education services (Chicago/Rockford)
• 12% of totalCOP scholarships awarded to URM students
• Advised approximately 45students across Chicago/Rockford
• Ongoing collaboration with Office of Student Affairs in Rockford
• Maintained bi-monthly office hours at Rockford campus
• Awarded Travel scholarship to support the SNPhA regional conference

• Hosted Stress Management program. 79 students participated

• Hosted Transgender Patient Care Program. 65 students participated

• Hosted inter-professional panel seriesfor Black History Month. 75 students participated
• Hosted Cultural competency workshop for Muslim patient care. 60 students participated
• Co-sponsored 9 Student Leadership workshopswith OSA.280students participated