LEADER PROFILE
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David Acosta Chief Diversity Officer, School of Medicine
Michelle Bates
D
avid Acosta, M.D., chief diversity officer for the UW School of Medicine, became a leader because Dr. Tom Norris, professor and chair of Family Medicine, recognized his potential. Prior to joining the UW School of Medicine, Acosta spent many years working in a community health center that provided health care and education to rural, underserved and migrant farm-worker populations in Northern California. Norris recruited him to the UW to train Family Medicine residents in rural health and suggested that Acosta participate in a faculty development program. “I still draw on many of these skills today in my executive-leadership role,” he says. The next set of challenges was even bigger. In 2003, he became associate dean for Multicultural Affairs, a position he held for nine years. Under his leadership, the School of Medicine established a Center for Cultural Proficiency in Medical Education. Now, as chief diversity officer for the School of Medicine,
Acosta fulfills many other leadership roles in support of diversity, including: working with departments and units to identify diversity leads; developing department-specific metrics to track diversity and inclusion, and to identify and prioritize goals to be measured; surveying SOM units for successful “best practices” initiatives and disseminating these; promoting new initiatives related to diversity; developing a toolkit for widespread use to improve diversity and inclusion in all departments and units; and meeting regularly with chairs and unit leaders to provide assistance in improving diversity. Just as Norris did with him more than a decade ago, he looks for the potential within these leaders, and provides them with doors of opportunity to grow in the name of diversity and inclusion work. In 2009, he received the Washington State Association for Multicultural Education Excellence Award for his innovation and diversity work at the School of Medicine.
the story of diversity at UW
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