Commitment to Anti-Racism
The UW Genetic Counseling Graduate Program is committed to identifying, dismantling and replacing racist behaviors, systems and policies within ourselves and our program. We recognize that racism is institutionalized in the United States, including in health care and in higher education. We are committed to making the UW Genetic Counseling Graduate Program a place where students, faculty, staff and fieldwork supervisors who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) are welcomed, feel comfortable and can advance and thrive.
These statements of commitment are meaningless unless they’re backed by action. We're striving for transparency and accountability in this anti-racism work, so below are some specific things we have done, are doing and will do.
- We’ve formed the Diversity, Anti-Racism and Equity (DARE) Committee to ensure we hold ourselves accountable.
- We’ve removed the GRE as a requirement for admission because of its racial and gender biases.
- We’ve developed a holistic admissions review process to reduce biases that plague more traditional metrics-based admissions.
- We’re exploring ways to actively recruit BIPOC students, in part through the UW Health Professions Recruitment Collaborative.
- We’re focusing on diversifying our faculty, guest lecturers and staff, including promoting job postings through the Minority Genetic Professionals Network.
- Our program leadership team, faculty and DARE committee members participated in the Undoing Institutional Racism workshop conducted by The People’s Institute Northwest. Our curriculum and supplementary activities include materials, discussions and workshops on diversity, anti-racism, equity and implicit bias.
We acknowledge that we have a mostly white program leadership team. We’re committed to educating ourselves and to doing the anti-racism work, both personally and professionally. We realize that to make true progress, we must actively listen to and take direction from BIPOC folks and then act.
We invite all people interested in our program, and especially those who are BIPOC, to engage with us. We encourage you to contact the co-chairs of the DARE Committee, Austin Bland and Susheela Jayaraman.
You can use this form to share your thoughts anonymously. Our leadership team discusses all input weekly, and your feedback will shape our work and our program.