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The UI Carver College of Medicine quarterly alumni magazine

Spring 2008

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OPPORTUNITIES ALL AROUND

New associate dean, College committed to gender, ethnic diversity

Benita Wolff, MEd, joined the UI Carver College of Medicine March 1 as associate dean for diversity, a new senior administrative post. Citing the College’s longstanding goal to increase the gender and ethnic diversity of its faculty, staff and student body, Vice President for Medical Affairs Jean Robillard, MD (’74 F pediatrics), welcomed Wolff and noted her efforts will be crucial to the College’s success. Indeed Wolff, with a decade of experience in higher education administration and diversity initiatives, knows the field well and has remarkable enthusiasm for her new challenges.

Medicine Iowa spoke with Wolff to learn more about how she’s approaching her role at the UI.

What are your initial impressions of the UI and of the diversity environment here?

Iowa is a great university with phenomenal people who care about the learning environment. My gut feeling–and what led me to come here–is there are many opportunities to enhance gender and ethnic diversity in the College. I believe the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses, that the people and infrastructure exist to become a center of excellence for diversity and health care.

I’m originally from Kansas City and my husband is from St. Louis. My professional career has included positions at the University of Arkansas, the University of Nebraska and Washington University in St. Louis. So the Midwest is home for us. Beyond that, once you know you’re committed to a new place your heart starts to identify with it, so we are genuinely pleased to be here.

How does the UI compare with other universities in terms of diversity programs?

This is an age when some institutions are backing away from programs aimed at increasing gender and ethnic diversity, pulling back in the face of litigation. But here the commitment remains strong. In addition to the Iowa Promise (the UI’s current strategic plan, which contains a section on diversity), individual colleges also have their own diversity plans, so there is accountability at the college level. That’s very forward–thinking.

At a public university your constituents are citizens of the state, and here citizens, through the Board of Regents, are very engaged and very diligent to ensure the institution stays current with best practices. One thing institutions such as Washington University in St. Louis can do, with their private governance, is move relatively quickly to identify funds to address new initiatives in areas such as diversity. During my time in the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, there was an ongoing commitment to fund initiatives designed to increase gender and ethnic diversity in biomedical fields.

What are your goals for this year and beyond?

I look forward to meeting people and being involved in initiatives and programs that are already going on here in the Carver College of Medicine. I had the opportunity to meet with some medical students during my first week of work, and that was fantastic. It’s great to know they are the future of health care and that students here are being trained to be successful wherever they end up practicing. I am very impressed with the quality of the students.

More recently I’ve been meeting with department heads and hope to have met with each of them by the end of June. I am also working with departments and other units to elicit from them their strategies for including diversity within their areas of responsibility.

My overall goal is to collaborate with departments to develop an intentional, thoughtful plan to promote gender and ethnic diversity in the College. I hope to have a draft of the strategic plan by October and have the plan finalized by the end of the year. Ideally, in January 2009 we would move into the implementation phase.

Who do you see as your partners in meeting our diversity objectives?

Everyone is a potential partner. To be successful in this work I’’ll need great relationships with my colleagues across the campus and in the community, so I’m always looking for individuals and groups who want to collaborate.

Alumni certainly are partners. Their success is our success, and to the extent they’ve flourished they’re a reflection of what anybody can accomplish with an Iowa education. They recruit in places I’ll never be able to visit, and they’ll answer the question again and again, "Where did you go to school?"

Most people want to be affiliated with an organization where they can thrive professionally. In that, diverse candidates aren’t different from other candidates. Alumni who are willing to be a resource for prospective students, faculty and staff are invaluable.

I definitely want alumni to know I welcome their suggestions about how to move forward in this area. We have an opportunity to change perceptions about Iowa, so we’re going to work hard to make sure we capture and share information about all the outstanding work going on here.