Pharmacy struggles to attract an applicant pool that reflects the diversity of the communities our graduates will serve. Our faculty and academic leaders are not as diverse as they should be. Creating the pipeline for students and faculty to achieve better diversity is our challenge.

The AACP Strategic Plan includes goals and objectives for improving diversity in our matriculant pipeline and in our members’ faculty, staff and administration. AACP added a Director of Recruitment and Diversity which increased our outreach to organizations whose missions include the encouragement of under-represented minority learners to pursue health professions education. A recruitment guide for our member institutions was produced to share strategies to enrich the pipeline with growing numbers of Under-Represented Minority learners.

AACP identified educational opportunities to increase pharmacy educators’ and leaders’ understanding of the importance of creating diverse and inclusive environments in pharmacy education. This includes programming at major AACP meetings, leadership development activities, and the creation of special interest groups for women, minority faculty, faculty interested in health disparities and public health. At our 2020 Annual Meeting, our keynote speaker was Dayna Bowen Matthew, author of Just Medicine, A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care, presenting a compelling story of the impact of structural racism on people of color and its contribution to the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on these citizens.

In January 2021, AACP is offering our members a Diversity and Inclusion Institute to support their local planning and implementation in keeping with our collective goals of enhancing our D&I efforts.

AACP’s D& I efforts are boldly integrated throughout various components of the organization, providing a variety of opportunities to highlight and measure the impact of our diversity and inclusion initiatives related to recruitment, leadership development, education, advancing social and racial justice, and health equity.

Lucinda Maine, CEO
Cindy Ziegler, Associate Director of Governance and Executive Office Operations