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

Introduction

The Minority Organization for Retention and Expansion (MORE) was founded in 2007 to address diversity, equity, and inclusion among underrepresented faculty at Yale School of Medicine (YSM). The group’s history, though, began many decades earlier with the stories of its members as they rose through the American medical training system and found their way to Yale as students or junior faculty. While these members faced adversity in many forms throughout their careers, they also felt a deep determination to challenge the system and change the culture that surrounded them. It was this desire that led them to found MORE, a group that has pushed YSM to make concrete policy changes and foster connections that tangibly impact the experience of underrepresented faculty members. As its history makes clear, MORE draws heavily on the precedents set by the earliest faculty of color at YSM. Their commitment to mentorship, understanding of the importance of community, and finally their tenacity and kindness of spirit, have woven through every stage from the group’s prehistory to today.

The work to document MORE’s history began as an oral history project in 2021, in which 14 of the group’s founding members and their allies in Yale's administration agreed to be interviewed. The stories that emerged from these interviews were so compelling that YSM’s DEI Office sponsored a broader historical and archival research undertaking to contextualize them. This exhibit incorporates content from those original interviews, highlighting the voices of MORE members through direct quotations. It also draws from archival collections at Manuscripts and Archives, the Yale Daily News, the Yale School of Medicine's alumni magazines and bulletins, and the personal collections of gracious MORE members.

Credits

This exhibit was curated by Sabrina Mellinghoff, Yale College Class of 2024, who also conducted the original interviews and the archival research. She is grateful for curatorial guidance from Melissa Grafe, Ph.D., John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History, and historical research support from Naomi Rogers, Ph.D., Acting Chair of the History of Medicine Section. This work was sponsored by Yale School of Medicine’s Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion under Darin Latimore, MD.