Our History
On June 27, 2011, University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Price released Penn’s Action Plan for Faculty Diversity and Excellence. This landmark initiative sparked an unprecedented campus-wide effort to optimize diversity at Penn, redefining it as a critical pillar of an eminent institution. In the Fall of 2011, Dean Larry Jameson of the Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) began a strategic planning process that included a Diversity and Inclusion Subcommittee. This group was tasked with the development of a plan to strengthen faculty diversity and inclusion throughout the entire Penn medicine community and in so doing amplify the agenda set forth by President Gutmann and Provost Price. At this time, Blacks and Hispanics comprised less than 5 percent of full time faculty at the PSOM. Realizing the gross underrepresentation of such groups, the plan also highlighted the importance of developing a strong pipeline of outstanding underrepresented minorities (URM) from medical students to housestaff and onto junior and ultimately senior faculty positions. The creation of multidisciplinary mentorship experiences and dynamic social and professional networks centered at the resident and fellow level were seen as the core means of creating the rich URM community needed to truly support this effort. As a means of shaping, sustaining and growing a robust institutionalized system focused on the recruitment and retention of exceptional URM clinicians, educators and physician scientists at Penn medicine, the UPHS-CHOP Alliance of Minority Physicians (AMP) was born.
Historical Achievements
On June 27, 2011, University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Price released Penn’s Action Plan for Faculty Diversity and Excellence. This landmark initiative sparked an unprecedented campus-wide effort to optimize diversity at Penn, redefining it as a critical pillar of an eminent institution. In the Fall of 2011, Dean Larry Jameson of the Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) began a strategic planning process that included a Diversity and Inclusion Subcommittee. This group was tasked with the development of a plan to strengthen faculty diversity and inclusion throughout the entire Penn medicine community and in so doing amplify the agenda set forth by President Gutmann and Provost Price. At this time, Blacks and Hispanics comprised less than 5 percent of full time faculty at the PSOM. Realizing the gross underrepresentation of such groups, the plan also highlighted the importance of developing a strong pipeline of outstanding underrepresented minorities (URM) from medical students to housestaff and onto junior and ultimately senior faculty positions. The creation of multidisciplinary mentorship experiences and dynamic social and professional networks centered at the resident and fellow level were seen as the core means of creating the rich URM community needed to truly support this effort. As a means of shaping, sustaining and growing a robust institutionalized system focused on the recruitment and retention of exceptional URM clinicians, educators and physician scientists at Penn medicine, the UPHS-CHOP Alliance of Minority Physicians (AMP) was born.
Historical Achievements
- July 2012: 1st Annual Welcome and Orientation Event for new housestaff
- February 2013: Inaugural Reception to bring together the nearly 300 members of the Alliance of Minority Physicians
- May 2013: Awarded the Provost Grant for Diversity Initiatives
- September 2013: Mentoring Families created to bring together the 170 faculty, housestaff, and medical student participants into 12 mentoring groups named after historical minority figures influential in healthcare