Latest UIC Pharmacy Diversity Award Adds to Impressive List of Recognitions

Latest UIC Pharmacy Diversity Award Adds to Impressive List of Recognitions

This summer, UIC Pharmacy again showed its commitment to diversity, earning the 2022 Inspiring Programs in STEM Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine. Honoring two Rockford pipeline programs, the award adds to a string of recognitions for diversity at the college.

Announced in August, the award recognized High School Pharmacy Camp, a half-day program for area high schoolers, and Summer Pharmacy Institute (SPI), a weeklong program for college students (with funding from the Community Foundation of Northern Illinois Dr. Louis and Violet Rubin Fund). These programs inspire interest in pharmacy and UIC via hands-on labs, faculty presentations, networking opportunities, and more. Most importantly for the award, they work to recruit students from underrepresented minority groups.

That includes targeted recruitment e-mails to members of these groups and, for SPI, seeking out historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and Hispanicserving institutions (HSIs). UIC also maintains strong relationships with Puerto Rican colleges and universities. For the high school program, “We reach out to those high schools . . . that represent the Rockfordarea diversity,” said Dr. Cindi Schaefer, Rockford director of student affairs, which keeps the pipelines running.

That work has paid off as 45% of this year’s High School Pharmacy Camp participants and 60% of 2021’s SPI students were from underrepresented groups.

The award joins an impressive lineup of recognitions. The Chicago campus’s Urban Pathways Program earned the same award in 2017, 2018, and 2021. Last year, UIC Pharmacy and Dr. Clara Awé, associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion, earned the Global Innovation and Inclusion Leadership Award from the Society for Diversity Inc. In 2019, UIC Pharmacy earned INSIGHT to Diversity’s Excellence Award.

Also a pipeline program, Urban Pathways targets underrepresented south- and west-side high schoolers. Over two months, participants shadow faculty, visit clinics, and serve as CVS and Walgreens pharmacy technicians. Tracking shows that roughly 67% of alumni have enrolled in pharmacy programs, with some giving back as pharmacists in their communities. Urban Pathways has served as a model for other colleges’ programs and shows that UIC’s efforts to bring more underrepresented minorities into pharmacy are working, Awé said.

With only 27% of U.S. pharmacists coming from underrepresented populations, these efforts address tremendous inequities. They also improve UIC Pharmacy for all, said UIC Rockford Pharmacy dean Dr. Kevin Rynn. “You’re working . . . alongside people from diverse populations. It opens your mind and your eyes to different thoughts and ideas and backgrounds.”