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Soyica Colbert, former interim dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and the Idol Family Professor of Performing Arts and African American Studies, was given the added duties of vice president for interdisciplinary initiatives at the university. She joined the faculty in 2013 and has served as chair of the department of performing arts and director of the Theater and Performance Studies Program. She is the author of Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry (Yale University Press, 2021),
Dr. Colbert is a graduate of Georgetown University, where she majored in English. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Arisa White was promoted to associate professor of English and creative writing at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. She was also granted tenure. She joined the faculty in 2018. White is the author of Who’s Your Daddy? (Augery Books, 2021).
White is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, where she majored in creative writing and literature. She holds a master of fine arts degree in English poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Samuel Johnson, a clinical associate professor at the Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, was appointed chair of the department of radiology at the medical school. Dr. Johnson joined the WSU School of Medicine faculty as an assistant professor and section chief of ultrasound in 1990. He served as course director of radiologic anatomy for first-year medical students from 2003 to 2017.
Dr. Johnson earned a bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences and a medical doctorate at the University of Michigan.
Sherard Robbins is a new lecturer in the department of leadership, policy, and organizations at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development. He is a former assistant research professor in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona.
Dr. Robbins is a graduate of Wheelock College, which is now part of Boston University. He holds a master’s degree in higher education administration from Salem State University in Massachusetts. Dr. Robbins earned a master’s degree in constitutional law and a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy studies from the University of Arizona.
Historically Black Howard University and Georgetown University are collaborating to establish a center for medical humanities. The Georgetown-Howard Center for Medical Humanities and Health Justice will focus on reducing health disparities in Washington by leveraging methods of critical inquiry at the heart of the humanities. The center is being funded by a $3 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Medical humanities is an interdisciplinary field that recenters health in its broader social, cultural, and historical context. Bridging the clinic and the archive, it uses humanities and social sciences methods to explore, analyze, and critique the contexts of illness and health. Disciplines represented include history, literary studies, philosophy, bioethics, cultural studies, religion, psychology, medical anthropology, and the visual and performing arts.
“These approaches play a frontline role in contextualizing healthcare, shaping health policy and communication, resource allocation, dismantling racism and health disparities, caring for vulnerable communities, understanding the experience of illness and suffering, providing a source of comfort, interpreting and making meaning from crisis, engaging with uncertainty, and envisioning alternatives,” says Lakshmi Krishnan, an assistant professor at the School of Medicine at Georgetown University and co-leader of the new center.
“In every way, the center will embrace the public aspect of public humanities and situate itself at the intersection of medical and health humanities to affirm its commitment to public health,” says Dana A. Williams, co-leader of the project and a professor of African American literature and dean of the Graduate School at Howard University. “It will serve as a research and educational hub convening community partners, academic faculty, and undergraduate, graduate and professional students.”
Dr. Williams holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Grambling State University in Louisiana and a master’s degree and Ph.D. both in African American literature from Howard University.
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