The Influnce of Climate on Faculty of Color Experiences in Health Professions Schools
Rationale/ Background: FOC are a vital resource for increasing the number of health professionals of color in the workforce, decreasing health disparities, and improving the quality of academic environments. Despite the importance of FOC and a stated commitment to diversity on the part of health professions schools and professional organizations, many FOC continue to be underrepresented. In addition to being underrepresented, anecdotal reports suggest that FOC face numerous barriers to contributing to and benefiting from academic environments due to the deeply entrenched problem of racism. To begin to address this problem we conducted a national grounded theory study of the experiences of FOC in predominantly White schools of nursing, medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry.
Methods: Ninety-five FOC participated in the study. Data were collected via face-to-face and telephone interviews. Data analysis began with open coding followed by substantive open coding. The final stages of the analysis consisted of theoretical sampling and selective and theoretical coding to form the emerging theory.
Results: Findings indicate that the satisfaction and success of FOC are highly influenced by the school or departmental climate in which they work. By climate, we mean the most readily observed aspects of the work environment, such as leadership composition, communication patterns, and organizational structure. In contrast, the term culture refers to the more unstructured aspects of the environment, such as values and beliefs, which give birth to an institution’s climate. We identified four climate stages with associated characteristics common in health professions schools ranging from exclusionary to inclusive: 1) covert exclusion; 2) indifferent; 3) beginning inclusion; and 4) real inclusion. In addition to identifying school or departmental climate stages we also identified six major institutional elements that vary by climate: 1) recruitment and retention; 2) faculty and student diversity; 3) diversity programs; 4) reports of racism; 5) dialogue; and 6) leadership. We have incorporated these findings into a rubric to aid in understanding and evaluating specific contexts. In this presentation we show how the climate spectrum varies across these six elements and the ways in which these contexts shape faculty of color experiences.
Implications: These findings provide a rubric for understanding and evaluating organizational climate specifically as it relates to the experiences of faculty of color. Awareness of these contexts is critical for leaders to make needed improvements at their schools. Improving the climate for faculty of color in health professions schools is a critical component of the work that needs to be done to improve the satisfaction and success of this important group.