INSTITUTIONAL DIVERSITY POLICY STATEMENT
LSU HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER-New Orleans, SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
The Louisiana State University School of Medicine at New Orleans believes that diversity
among leadership, faculty, and learners is essential to fulfilling the institution’s
academic mission. Thecontributions of individuals with diverse backgrounds and perspectives
enriches the educational experience for all learners, enables us to better address
health care inequities, increases cultural
competency in clinical care, improves service to our community, and expands the scope
of our scholarship. A diverse environment also fosters learner understanding, and
effective delivery of care to individuals of diverse backgrounds, which is integral
to the mission of the school. As an inclusive community, we embrace the full range
of human difference: race, gender, ethnicity, age, culture, national origin, religious
belief, physical ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic class,
and political convictions. We are committed to fostering growth in the matriculation
of African-American, Hispanic,Vietnamese, LGBT students as well as students from underserved
rural regions of Louisiana. Institutional efforts to qualitatively strengthen the
climate of inclusion and diversity of our learning community are inclusive of a focus
on the development of effective pipelines for recruitment of students and residents
from communities which are underrepresented in our region’s health professions workforce.
The institutional mission of advancing the quality of the educational climate, promoting
effectiveness of health equity research, and fully engaging equitable clinical service
is supported by a focus on the recruitment and development of basic science and clinical
faculty, and senior academic leadership who are underrepresented in our region’s academic
medical communitywith an emphasis on women, African American, Hispanic, Vietnamese,
and LGBT faculty.
The effectiveness and progress of our pipeline program development will be evaluated
through the implementation of systematic approaches to monitor trends in recruitment
ofstudents, residents, and faculty from target underrepresented communities. It is
recognized that the creation of greater campus diversity may not be readily reflected
among groups that are not easily measured.
We will assess the impact of our outreach efforts within diverse target communities
in terms of the quality of outreach messaging and programming. As we accept the opportunities
to demonstrate leadership in our community in advancing health equity, we embrace
the importance and value of continued growth of institutional diversity as an essential
element of success in fulfilling this mission.