University Of Pennsylvania’s Decision to Restructure Diversity Office Sparks Controversy - Higher Education

University Of Pennsylvania’s Decision to Restructure Diversity Office Sparks Controversy - Higher Education:  In 1968, the University of Pennsylvania pioneered a formal structure to recruit and support students of color in the Perelman School of Medicine, creating the Office for Minority Affairs, believed to be the country’s first diversity office at a medical school.

The innovation spread, so that nowadays medical schools tend to have an office promoting diversity — a broader, more current term that encompasses other groups besides racial-ethnic minorities. In 2007, Penn’s medical school renamed its own initiative the Office for Diversity and Community Outreach.

At the end of the last academic year, though, the medical school dismantled the pioneering office, ousted its two long-serving administrators and reorganized diversity activities into the Program for Diversity and Inclusion, led by faculty members. A national search is underway for a vice dean for diversity and multicultural affairs.