About the Office of Pathway Innovation & Inclusive Excellence at UC

The Office of Pathway Innovation and Inclusive Excellence at the College of Medicine reflects our commitment to fostering team-based work cultures and creating expanded pathways for undergraduate students, graduate students, medical students, residents, faculty, and staff. This office supports the college’s ongoing vision for advancing pathways through innovative and inclusive initiatives.

This office is led by Senior Associate Dean Dr. Steven Kniffley Jr. PsyD, who joined the college in 2023 and facilitated strategic visioning around making medicine and healthcare more accessible to learners, clinicians, researchers and patients. Increased urbanization, greater focus on rural medicine, rapid innovation in healthcare, changing demographics, the importance of mental health and wellbeing and other factors have broadened who we serve as patients and how we serve them to achieve better outcomes overall. Accordingly, we are planning strategically to address the need to reduce inefficiencies in the academic medicine workforce pathway for future students and faculty and expanding the supports that foster their success. The concept of diversity has been defined across a spectrum of over 32 different dimensions, making this work both more complex and more connected to every part of the college. More coordinated and collaborative engagement across the university and health system alongside refining existing and emerging pathways are key to recruiting and retaining exceptional talent and achieving data-driven equitable outcomes.

The Office of Pathway Innovation and Inclusive Excellence will continue to focus on creating an academic medicine workforce with a broad representation reflective of our local and national communities. The Office of Pathway Innovation and Inclusive Excellence is committed to improving access to pathways in medicine through innovative programming that will increase exposure, mentorship, and preparatory opportunities.

The office interfaces with various departments of the college, the Greater Cincinnati community, and national offices committed to making medical education more accessible. The leadership team also works closely with medical students to ensure that each reaches his or her greatest potential.

In addition, the office works closely with the Office of Student Affairs to educate the entire student body and advising several student groups, including the Student National Medical Association (SNMA), the Multicultural Association of PreMed Students (MAPS), the Latino Medical Student Association (LMSA), the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association (APAMSA) and the Minority Housestaff Association (MHA).