Committee on the Status of Women and Minorities (COSOWAM)

Mission

COSOWAM strives to create a climate of trust and respect where all people are valued and differences are recognized as an asset in the School of Medicine (SOM). COSOWAM provides leadership and guidance regarding the climate of the School so women and minorities can achieve their full professional potential. This will enable the SOM to reach and maintain a diverse faculty.

Activities

• Monitor representation of women and minorities
• Monitor salary equity
• Monitor climate in the SOM using exit surveys and needs assessments
• Disseminate our findings
• Make recommendations to the appropriate units to create a more inclusive environment
• Leadership role in Professionalism proposal for SOM Professionalism Committee
• Make available recruitment tools for chairs focused on minority recruitment and retention
• VCU SOM Recruitment Resources, updated 4/12/06 [PDF]
• AAMC book series on The Successful Medical School Department Chair

Surveys

• SOM 2004 Faculty Exit Survey, © VCU [PDF]
• See poster "Reasons for Faculty Attrition Among Respondents to a Faculty Exit Survey" [PDF] presented at the AAMC National Meeting, November, 2005.
• SOM 1997 Faculty Survey on needs for career development and mentoring [PDF]

Publications

The following articles may require subscriptions. Wherever possible, these are provided freely to the VCU community via the VCU LIbraries' proxy server. Visitors from outside VCU may need to check for local availability.

• Buckley L.M., Sanders K., Shih M., Kallar S., Hampton C.L. for the Committee on the Status of Women and Minorities. Obstacles to promotion? Values of women faculty and career success and recognition. Academic Medicine. 2000; 75:283-288.
• Buckley L.M., Sanders K., Shih M., Hampton C.L. Attitudes of clinical faculty about career progress, career success and recognition, and commitment to academic medicine: results of a survey. Archives of Internal Medicine. 2000; 160:2625-2629.

Presentations

• Buckley L.M., Sanders K.M., Hampton C.L. Using a faculty survey to drive organizational change. AAMC WIM Small Group Discussion, October 30, 2000, Hyatt Regency, Chicago, Illinois.