We are in search of a new associate vice chair for diversity and inclusion as Dr. Deidra Crews will step down effective January 1, 2021.
As our inaugural associate vice chair for diversity and inclusion, Dr. Crews has worked with the directors, other vice chairs, faculty and trainees throughout the department to guide our strategic efforts related to diversity and inclusion in partnership with the School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University and the health system. During this time, she has impacted the entire culture within our department. In conjunction with Dr. Rachel Levine, associate vice chair for women’s careers in academic medicine, they have created an environment where all faculty are highly valued and have equal opportunities for career progression and individual success.
When selecting a person to fill this role, Dr. Crews seemed an obvious choice, as a leader of the Department of Medicine Diversity Council and founding director of the Doctoral Diversity Program, a research-intensive post-baccalaureate program of the Johns Hopkins Initiative for Careers in Science and Medicine. One role of the associate vice chair for diversity and inclusion is to direct the DOM Diversity Council, created in 2002 to promote increased recruitment, retention and advancement of faculty, fellows and residents from groups under-represented in medicine as well as to promote an inclusive environment across the department. In this role, Dr. Crews has been instrumental in recruiting prominent guest speakers, performing proactive outreach among high school and medical students and raising awareness of implicit bias and other factors hindering inclusion.
With the current state of affairs, where many are protesting racial injustice in pursuit of a world without racial inequities, it is perhaps more important than ever to focus on what we can do as individuals and as a department to combat racial, religious and sexual discrimination. As such, I am dedicated to the search for the next associate vice chair for diversity and inclusion, and I am excited for the prospects new leadership can bring. I’ve shared these sentiments before, but I truly believe that the more diverse we are as a department, the stronger and better off we are.
I’d like to express my immense gratitude to Dr. Crews for her resilient leadership over the past five years. She will step down to focus on her research, for which she has received many recent accolades including induction to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and receipt of the Johns Hopkins University President’s Frontier Award.
If you are interested in applying, please see the request for applications here.
Applications should be submitted by Monday, November 2.
