Faculty Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement
Enhancing DOM Diversity
The Department of Medicine has undertaken significant steps over the past couple of years to better understand its current level of diversity and explore opportunities for its divisions to share strategies and enhance their approaches to recruiting and retaining diverse faculty.
At the Department level, division chiefs are asked at regular intervals to:
- Determine the number and percentage of URiM and women faculty within their division,
- State what their goal would be for the number and percentage of URiM faculty in the division in two years, and
- Provide a plan for reaching that goal over the next two years.
Divisional progress is reviewed and is part of a larger institutional initiative to enhance representation of URiM and women faculty. As of December 31, 2023, our BWH-based faculty are approximately 8% URiM and 44% women.
Efforts to Advance the Careers of URiM Faculty
There have been several efforts to support and advance the careers of URiM faculty.
FACULTY RECRUITMENT
Dr. Stone has worked with division chiefs on several recruitment and search committees. In addition, we regularly convene division chiefs and other senior leaders to share best practices and discuss opportunities and challenges with recruitment.
NEW AND EARLY CAREER URIM FACULTY
We held our first reception for new and early URiM faculty on January 12, 2022. This reception was a wonderful kick-off to a series of events that will cater to enhancing the experience of our new early career URiM faculty within our community. Future events are focused on creating a sense of belonging at BWH and increasing institutional knowledge. We have hosted or will plan to host workshops on academic promotion pathways, employing social media as a career enhancement tool, and social events such as forest bathing – a practice of being present and doing so in nature.
Since July 1, 2023, 9 URiM faculty have joined the Department of Medicine. For a list of these faculty, click here.
MINORITY FACULTY DEVELOPMENT SERIES
The Minority Faculty Development series serves as a monthly program led by Dr. Stone with content developed based on responses to the URiM faculty needs assessment. In addition, faculty career development efforts have focused on academic promotion, career enhancing strategies, and national opportunities.
Topics have included:
- HMS faculty promotions process
- Foundation and industry funding
- Navigating the Minority Tax
- Financial wellness
URIM FACULTY PROMOTIONS
Twelve URiM faculty were promoted at Harvard Medical School through the Department of Medicine between October 2022 and September 2023. For a list of these faculty, click here.
Efforts to Advance the Careers of Women Faculty
We have more recently developed a strategy focused on advancing the careers of women faculty.
NEW WOMEN FACULTY MENTORSHIP CIRCLES
ln the fall of 2022, we launched a program of mentorship circles for new women faculty. This program featured mentoring circles that addressed clinical, research, and teaching activities as well as topics such as work-life balance, institutional navigation, and experiences for women of color.
For more information on this program, click here.
Fifty women faculty joined our department between October 1, 2021 and September 30, 2022. For a list of these faculty, click here.
WOMEN FACULTY PROMOTIONS
Fifty-seven women faculty were promoted at Harvard Medical School through the Department of Medicine between October 1, 2022, and September 30, 2023. For a list of these faculty, click here.
