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L.M. Ryan 231would never have even considered applying for graduate studies, particularlyat a place like Harvard. This particular student did apply to Harvard, was acceptedand went on to be one of the strongest students in her class. She is nowa successful faculty member at a major university near Washington, DC, andhas published her work in top statistical journals. This student’s story is justone of many similar ones and represents a measurable successful outcome ofthe Program. After a few years of running the Summer Program, we succeededin winning a so-called IMSD (Initiative for Minority Student Development)grant available at that time from the National Institute of General MedicalSciences. This grant was much larger, supporting not only an expansion ofour Summer Program, but also providing funds for doctoral and postdoctoraltraining and expanding beyond biostatistics into other departments.The IMSD grant had a major impact on the Department and the Schoolas a whole. It strengthened the legitimacy of our diversity efforts by generatingsubstantial funds and also by influencing the nature of the researchthat many of us were doing. The IMSD grant required us to develop a strongresearch theme, and we had chosen to look at the development and applicationof quantitative methods for community-based research, with a strongemphasis on understanding and reducing health disparities. While it wouldbe an inappropriate generalization to expect that every minority student willbe interested in the study of health disparities, the reality was that manyof our students were. I’ll come back to this point presently, but I believe animportant element of academic success is giving students the opportunity topursue research in areas that ignite their passion. Embracing diversity willinevitably involve being exposed to new ideas and perspectives and this wasjust one example of how that played out in the department. We ran a weeklyseminar/discussion group that provided an opportunity to not only have formalseminars on health disparities research, but also to create a supportivecommunity where the students could talk about the various issues, academicand other, that they were encountering.21.3 Impact of the diversity programsOur Diversity programs had profound impacts, over time. I think it is fair tosay that the students weren’t exposed to overtly racist attitudes, certainly notof the extreme kind described in Nadine Cohodas’s book. However, they weremost definitely affected by many subtle aspects, especially in the early days ofthe Program. Examples included faculty expectations of lowered performanceor resentment from fellow students at a perception of special treatment. Bymaking such observations, I am not trying to criticize or cast judgment, oreven excluding myself from having stereotyped views. As discussed by MalcolmGladwell in his excellent book entitled “Outliers” (Gladwell, 2011), virtually