Progress Through Persistence: A 60 Year History of Yale School of Medicine’s Minority Organization for Retention and Expansion (MORE)

MORE in Action

The fledgling MORE group crafted a mission statement and agenda with focus on recruitment, retention, and mentorship, and named Drs. Désir and Walke as their inaugural co-chairs. In September 2007, Désir and Walke met with Dean Alpern and the Minority Organization for Retention and Expansion became an officially recognized committee. Since then, MORE has elevated YSM by effecting far-reaching policy change that extends beyond the minority community.

Dr. Nii Addy speaks alongside Dr. Frank Minja at the 2017 MORE Picnic

Mentorship

The fledgling MORE’s first order of business was tackling the issue of retention. The diversity among medical students had steadily increased to about 20% by the early 2000s, but this number sank at each level of the institution: residency, faculty, tenured faculty. [1] MORE founders wanted to help minority students, residents, and junior faculty form connections that would make them want to stay at Yale.

First, they targeted the crucial early years of residency and were able to successfully advocate for a mandatory mentorship program that matched a mentor to every incoming resident. This program remains an integral part of Yale’s residency program to the benefit of all residents. Next, in 2015, MORE members Nii Addy, PhD, of Psychiatry and Frank Minja, MD, of Radiology  developed a matching program specific to the minority community that paired junior faculty with senior faculty outside of their home departments. [2]

Tailoring Recruitment

As it stood through the 2010s, recruitment to Yale as a potential faculty member followed an undifferentiated interview path. Applicants were reviewed by search committees, which often had no faculty of color on them. 

One successful agenda item for MORE was that there be at least one representative of color on every search committee so that diverse voices could help make major institutional decisions. Gary Désir points out, “The result of any search is dependent on who's on the committee.” [3] A second suggestion of MORE was that the recruitment experience be tailored to individual candidates. Beyond meeting with groups for gender and ethnic minorities like SWIM and MORE, candidates can opt in to learn about childcare options or religious groups in the community. [4]

Darin Latimore, MD, Inaugural Deputy Dean of DEI at Yale School of Medicine; pictured above speaking at a town hall and below at his desk in his office

A Seat at the Table

In 2017, MORE had been an officially recognized group for 10 years but still struggled to be central to the YSM administration. They advocated successfully for the creation of a new role: Deputy Dean of DEI and Chief Diversity Officer. Into it was hired Darin Latimore, MD, from the University of California at Davis.

Latimore reconciled this by noting that Yale, as well as other Ivy League schools, are “extraordinarily wedded to a historical, mythical past and a sense of excellence” that can hinder their self-reflection and change. From his place in an administrative office, Latimore felt he could change that. He describes himself as “symbiotic” to the MORE group, attending their executive meetings and always keeping them in the back of his mind when he is “at the table” with YSM administration implementing a Diversity Strategic Plan.

Endnotes:

[1]  “Annual Demographic Survey of Faculty and Staff at Select Institutions,” Duke University Office for Institutional Equity, 2004.

[2] Nii Addy, interviewed by Sabrina Mellinghoff, October 18, 2023, 2PM EST.

[3] Gary Désir, interviewed by Sabrina Mellinghoff, June 23, 2021, 9AM EST.  

[4] “Best Practices: Faculty and Leadership Searches.” Yale University Faculty Development & Diversity, Office of the Provost, September 1, 2015.

[5] Darin Latimore, interviewed by Sabrina Mellinghoff, August 23, 2021, 8AM EST.