Promoting diversity in health management: the University of Michigan Experience

There has been a resurgence in the call for greater racial and ethnic diversity in the health workforce. Researchers in health services have made the "business case" for diverse leadership of healthcare organizations, arguing that this will make these organizations more effective in serving diverse populations. Greater diversity in health management training programs will also have positive effects on their students. This article has three purposes: to discuss the importance of diversity in health management training programs; to describe the University of Michigan's Summer Enrichment Program (SEP), a program to increase the number of students of color who receive graduate training in health management; and to report the results of a survey of SEP alumni, conducted after the program's 15th year, which describe the graduate school and career experiences of 167 SEP alumni. Based upon the survey results, the SEP appears to have been very successful in enlarging the pool of students of color who attend graduate programs in health management and who embark on careers in the field. It has also had a very positive effect on diversity within the University of Michigan program. The implications of the Michigan experience and recent Supreme Court decisions for other graduate programs are discussed.