The Medical District UTSW-D FIRST Program

OVERALL: ABSTRACT This Dallas Medical District UTSW-D FIRST proposal is submitted jointly by the University of Texas Southwest- ern Medical Center (UTSW) and the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). Our institutions have complementary scientific strengths and a track record of productive collaboration. Our integrated FIRST approach will jointly

recruit a cohort of exceptional and diverse junior faculty to the Medical District in the three cluster areas of Bio- medical Engineering (BME), Brain Science, and Cancer. Our FIRST Programs will catalyze a cultural transfor- mation and increase diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility (DEIA) and vitality of our faculty. The overall goal

is to improve DEI culture that will enhance recruitment of talents from URGs to become FIRST Scholars, and to nurture them through rigorous career development approaches to help them build their career and retain them in the long run. These achievements in diverse excellence will further increase DEI culture and have long

term impact. Aim 1 will establish an innovative joint FIRST cohort program using fiscally responsible, evi- dence-based approaches that will be rigorously tested within our unique environment. We will leverage our ex- periences from existing institutional cohort development programs such UTSW’s Endowed Scholars (ES) Pro-

gram and UTD’s ADVANCE. The longstanding ES program has a 95% promotion rate to Associate Professor with tenure and produced 2 HHMI Investigators, dept. chairs and center directors. UTD’s NSF ADVANCE: Or- ganizational Change for Gender Equity in STEM Academic Professions program is newer but has great poten-

tial. We will learn from these programs to create our unique joint FIRST program with an explicit focus on co- hort hiring for diversity excellence. We will also grow the science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) pathways to increase future URG faculty. This aim will focus on recruitment of talented

URG faculty and is described in the ADMINISTRATIVE core. Aim 2 will ensure that our FIRST Scholars thrive and succeed at our institutions for the long-term. We will proactively onboard FIRST Scholars and provide cus- tomized mentorship and research support. We will offer, executive coaching, management and leadership

training, career development, allyship and sponsorship. These approaches are described in the FACULTY DEVELOPMENT core. Aim 3 will use rigorous evidence-based quantitative and qualitative approaches to eval- uate our FIRST program. We will assess the impacts of the cohort model, our interventions, and contextual

factors at multiple levels. This aim is described in the EVALUATION Core. Our evaluation will inform our future approaches to foster a sustainable institutional culture to increase the diversity of the UTSW and UTD faculty and leadership. The FIRST legacy will be sustained using data-driven strategies to guide institutional and de-

partmental leaders to incorporate best practices to overcome structural and institutional barriers for DEI cul- ture, and to enhance and deepen the science workforce pathways and academic-community partnerships.