You asked several questions relating to the diversity policy of UConn School of Medicine.

SUMMARY

UConn School of Medicine has an unwritten diversity policy. Its goal is to create a student body that reflects the populations the Medical Center serves. To achieve this goal, the school has increased the number of qualified underrepresented minority (URM) students who apply and are admitted to the school. To increase the number of qualified in-state URM applicants, the medical school has partnered with local and national institutions to improve the science education Connecticut schools provide to URMs. As the diversity of the school's entering classes has increased, the grade point averages have increased and the medical college admission test averages have remained steady.

WHAT IS THE DIVERSITY POLICY?

While the medical school does not have a written policy, according to Dean Dr. Peter Deckers, the policy is to create a student body that reflects the demographic of patients the medical center serves. He explained that the school's accreditation with the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) would be in jeopardy if the school did not have and implement a diversity policy. This was confirmed by Dr.

Barbara Barzansky, assistant secretary of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). The LCME is the accrediting authority for United States medical education programs leading to a medical doctorate (M. D. ) degree. It is cosponsored by the AAMC and the American Medical Association (AMA).

Dr. Barzansky explained that to become or remain accredited, a medical school must have a diversity policy and show substantial steps towards implementing that policy. The LCME has no specific parameters for what a school's diversity policy must include.

WHAT ARE THE GOALS?

Dr. Deckers explained that the goal of the school's diversity policy is to create a demographic among medical professionals that reflects the populations being served in order to deliver more effective medical treatment and services. A demographic imbalance between medical professionals and the patients they serve creates an obstacle to providing adequate medical care, according to Deckers and Dr. Bruce Koeppen, chairman of the Committee on Undergraduate Medical Education (CUME), the medical school's primary educational policy-making body. CUME develops policies for all aspects of the undergraduate curriculum.

Bringing more individuals from URM groups into the medical profession will, they believe, make medical providers more aware of and sympathetic to the unique needs of the different patient populations they serve. In turn, patients from URM groups will be better able to communicate with their medical providers―resulting in more effective medical treatment.

IMPLEMENTATION

Generally

The medical school has worked towards this goal by, among other efforts, increasing the number of blacks, Mexican Americans, mainland Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans enrolled at UConn School of Medicine. These groups reflect those identified by the AAMC as underrepresented minorities in its “Project 3000 by 2000” initiative announced in 1991. The goal of the AAMC initiative was to enroll 3000 URM students to accredited medical schools by the year 2000. While this goal was not reached, AAMC did implement strategies to increase minority enrollment. One such strategy has been to require medical schools to develop and implement their own diversity policies.

Health Professions Partnership Initiative

In addition to its diversity policy, the medical school developed a Health Professions Partnership Initiative (HPPI), which was funded by an AAMC grant that provides funding to medical schools that link themselves “with neighboring colleges and K-12 school districts to improve curricula and educational programs in ways that will prepare and attract more underrepresented minorities into health careers. ” The AAMC grant was developed in response to research revealing that minority students express as strong a desire to enter health professions as other students but typically lacked the necessary secondary education to successfully pursue that goal.

UConn's HPPI program was in the first round of AAMC grantees and was selected by the New England Board of Higher Education as one of the first recipients of its New England Higher Education Excellence Award in 2003. The medical school launched the program in 1997 as an attempt to increase the number of qualified URM applicants from Connecticut to health-related programs. The school partners with a variety of local and national institutions to improve the science education being provided to URM students in Connecticut schools. Partners include the School of Dental Medicine, Health Center Faculty, Hartford Public Schools, University of Connecticut, Central Connecticut State University, Capitol Community College, Wesleyan University, Trinity College, Spelman College, and Morehouse College, among others.

In addition to the URM groups identified by the school's diversity policy, HPPI also targets “educationally and economically disadvantaged students of any ethnic group” in its educational component. However, economic status is not taken into account in the admissions process unless a student includes that information in his essay.

Students served by the HPPI programs so far originate from 45 towns throughout Connecticut. The number of matriculants to the School of Medicine from the HPPI pipeline has increased from three in 2000 to twelve in 2004. Other health-related programs around the state have also seen an increase in matriculants from the HPPI program, according to the program's founder, Dr. Marja M. Hurley. The percent of URM matriculants to UConn School of Medicine from the HPPI program was 25% in 2000 compared to 67% in 2004 — demonstrating an increase in the number of URM matriculants to the School of Medicine that are Connecticut residents.

IN-STATE, OUT OF STATE, AND INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

To increase diversity, the medical school has admitted more international and out-of-state applicants in recent years because a greater number of qualified URM candidates have appeared in those applicant pools.

Table 1 shows the entering class profiles for 2001 through 2005, including the number of female and male students, Connecticut residents, out-of-state, and international students.

Table 1: UConn Medical School Entering Class Profiles 2001-2005

Source: UConn School of Medicine

DIVERSITY AND ADMISSION STANDARDS

Entering class profiles over the last five years show an increase in the percent of URM students. Table 2 shows the race, ethnicity, and nationality of the students in the 2001 through 2005 entering classes. Table 3 shows the gender and race of the international students in these classes. Over this period, entering class profiles reflect an increase in the average grade point average (GPA) and steady performance levels on the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). Table 4 shows the mean undergraduate GPA and MCAT scores for these entering classes.

Table 2: UConn Medical School Entering Class

Race/Ethnicity/Nationality 2001-2005

Source: UConn School of Medicine

Table 3: Detail of International Student by Year

Source: UConn School of Medicine

Table 4: UConn Medical School Entering Class GPA

and MCAT Scores 2001-2005

Source: AAMC Data Warehouse

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