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After reading the article “Another Education Fight Over DEI Emerges…” on CNN.com, a daunting thought came over me. Some faculty in Texas may not be expected to demonstrate proficiency in knowledge transfer. This leaves in question whether it is considered a bona fide qualification or a valued skill. The article seems to make clear that incorporating a DEI statement into the application folio of faculty is not considered necessary. Moreso, it is regarded as an illegal practice in Texas. Knowledge transfer, i.e., intellectual accountability, is a critical component of academic excellence. Devaluing this as a skill can potentially adversely impact any institution’s diversity agenda.
Dr. Ken Coopwood Sr.
In fairness, incorporating a DEI statement can cause a significant issue of subjectivity when no criteria are established to measure what is extracted from the statement. But it’s a start. Still, standards must first exist. Otherwise, a person who states, “I treat all my students the same,” could be rejected for another who writes three pages of believable fluff. Moreover, a DEI statement can be considered an extension of a “philosophy” statement, which many faculty are familiar with and likely have for interviewing purposes. Perhaps the most important issue to think about is that a DEI statement cannot indicate whether a potential faculty harbors skill at knowledge transfer. Summarily, such DEI inquiry should help detect demonstrated achievement at transferring knowledge, engaging in advocacy, and impacting relevant change in human behavior across diverse groups. Some faculty speak to this in their philosophy statements. Still, it’s nearly impossible to gauge any breadth or depth in someone’s statement without criteria, a rubric, or some mechanism to weigh it against.
The article states that “faculty and students have to judge us by our actions” regarding support to their person and environment. Unfortunately, it seems that the “action” is to question the result of incorporating a DEI statement instead of advancing the merit of the practice, which is historically in line with the foundation of the academy – inquiry. Knowing how a person views the responsibility of knowledge transfer is essential. No amount of disciplinary knowledge will nullify the adverse impact of not learning to teach it to others.
The academy is supposed to enhance student and constituent out-of-classroom experiences. How can faculty with demonstrated instruction to 21st Century students improve our classrooms? How can an institution discern when opportunity, activity, and integration to readdress the mono-cultural instructional histories of its faculty is needed? How can more underrepresented students achieve A-level academic success in STEM disciplines? Classroom discourse should aid in managing the multiple stages of student identity development while promoting the conception of a global society. It should empower the student to apply the discipline freely and skillfully across racial, ethnic, social, economic, and cultural lines. This social justice mandate begs the question: Why would any institution want to hire a faculty person who can’t demonstrate the capacity to instruct at this level? Again, asking for a DEI statement is a start, however subjective, and needs to be supported to strengthen the practice for alignment with an institution’s diversity mission and vision. Calling it “illegal” and inferring that an inquiry practice is synonymous with “dogma” vetting is an illusion that suggests collaborative and malicious intent by diversity executives, professionals, and supporters.
I’ve learned from 30 years in higher education that transformative DEI initiatives are refined with technologies, information, education, and collaborations outside of traditional American educational values. They are grounded in real-life research and practices that celebrate the valor and contributions of people, cultures, and movements that shape the constructs for global atonement.
There is a growing assault on DEI as an opponent of academic excellence instead of as an essential component installed throughout the academy. I applaud and support Paulette Granberry Russell , president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, for speaking directly on the issue. I urge other national organizations to do the same. The DEI statement insertion into faculty interview folios is an overdue starting point. Still, the pressure is already mounting to make it a completed journey. There’s more to do, lest the assault on DEI results in a higher education that is more of a business rather than a human development infrastructure.
Dr. Ken Coopwood is the CEO of Coopwood Diversity Leadership & Education Universal LLC (Coop Di Leu).
Come July 2023, six of the eight Ivy League schools will have women leaders.
The Ivy League, with some of the oldest institutions of higher education in the U.S., recently announced bold choices in leadership. Dartmouth College, Harvard University, and Columbia University named new presidents, each to take office in July. For Dartmouth and Columbia, these are the first women presidents in their history, while Harvard welcomes its first African American president.
Dr. Sian Beilock (Dartmouth), Dr. Minouche Shafik (Columbia), and Dr. Claudine Gay (Harvard) will join current presidents M. Elizabeth Magill (University of Pennsylvania), Dr. Christina Paxson (Brown), and Dr. Martha E. Pollack (Cornell) in leading institutions. All except one have been coed at the undergraduate level since the 1970s or 1980s.
“They are without a doubt powerhouses in their field and have proven themselves as effective, innovative leaders,” said Dr. Taylor Odle, assistant professor of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “I do think that folks should be excited about this because for better or worse in American higher education, institutions unequivocally mimic the Ivy League or the Ivy League Plus (institutions such as MIT and Stanford).
“Now, these three new women presidents can bring new vision and energy to these roles, where women have not always been in those spaces before,” he added. “I’m excited to see what their visions might entail and how those might even diffuse down the ladder to other institutions.”
Historical perspective
Dr. Felecia Commodore
Although it is somewhat unusual for the presidencies of three Ivy League institutions to come up in the same year, it is not unusual to choose women leaders, according to Dr. Robert McCaughey, retired professor of history and Janet H. Robb Chair in the Social Sciences at Barnard College (women’s undergraduate college of Columbia University). McCaughey is author of the books Stand Columbia: A History of Columbia University in the City of New York, 1754–2004, which he is currently updating for a revised edition, and A College of Her Own: The History of Barnard.
“I wouldn’t exaggerate the moment,” said McCaughey.
McCaughey noted that Harvard, Brown, and the University of Pennsylvania have had women presidents dating back more than two decades. He said Columbia seriously considered female candidates prior to the hiring of outgoing President Lee Bollinger in 2002.
“They’re meritorious candidates; I just want to see their agenda,” said Evan Mandery, professor of criminal justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and author of the book Poison Ivy: How Elite Colleges Divide Us. He said he sees more continuity than change.
“When the Penn Gazette announced [Magill’s] hiring (in 2022), Scott Bok, the chair of the board of trustees, said, ‘One thing that is for certain about Penn — and we made this clear to all the candidates we spoke to — is that there’s nothing broken and there’s nothing that really needs to be fixed,’” said Mandery. “One part of the problem is that the boards of these institutions look more like the management committees of Goldman Sachs and McKinsey than they do America.
“The question is whether these women, who have become custodians of institutions that were racist and sexist in their recent past and are classist in the extreme in their present, will work to make a meaningful commitment to promoting socioeconomic diversity,” continues Mandery.
Commodore said it would be interesting to know the makeup of the boards that selected these women leaders. Boards have been traditionally male dominated. She said she wonders if there has been a gender shift on boards that affects presidential selections.
Potential impact
“In the case of Columbia, the trustee search committee selected someone (Shafik) who has had very little contact with Columbia or with New York City or even with private American research universities,” said McCaughey. Shafik is an economist and current president of the London School of Economics and Political Science, which McCaughey notes is quite different from an American research university that has a substantial undergraduate program. He characterizes her as an outsider in comparison to selecting someone within Columbia or other Ivy League administrations.
Odle said Ivy League schools are increasingly global institutions, and Shafik’s presidency can be an asset for the university in attracting international faculty as well as developing international programs.
“It’s potentially an exciting opportunity for a fresh perspective of someone who hasn’t been steeped in the isomorphic tendencies of U.S. higher education,” Odle said. “She has the powerful excuse to ask why we’ve been doing things the way we have or thinking a certain way. Someone from a domestic peer institution maybe wouldn’t be able to ask those exact same questions.”
Commodore said having so many women in presidencies at the same time could have a broad impact. “Where we still don’t see a plethora of women presidents are at our large public research institutions,” Commodore explained. “What I hope, if nothing else, is that the Ivy League having this many women sitting presidents will signal to other institutional sectors in higher ed that women can lead large, complex institutions.”
Forward momentum
Dr. Taylor Odle
While there is data to support the idea that these women presidents will be role models, Mandery said he does not expect any of them will implement reforms to significantly diversify the undergraduate student population or the faculty. There are what he considers to be simple things they can change. This would include eliminating practices such as preferences for legacies and the children of donors and faculty members. Also, he said, the institutions should expand capacity.
“They should make sure the lion’s share of the additional opportunity they create is available to students of all means,” Mandery said. “They should be transparent about the data of not just who they admit, but who applies to the school.
“I think schools should be equitable,” he continued. “They should provide opportunity to all with pathways that are equally available to all. … The potential is intrinsically there by virtue of the extraordinary means that these institutions have.”
Commodore said as these women move forward in their presidencies, she hopes to see meaningful institutional change, such as being thoughtful and reflective on critiques the schools received about diversity, equity and inclusion, and bringing about cultural shifts. Their connections to Ivy institutions — either as students, faculty or administrators — are advantageous.
“It is limiting to assume that because of these candidates’ past backgrounds with the institutions or [because they] are from within that culture, that they can’t shift the culture if it needs to be shifted,” Commodore said. “We’ve seen how insularity can go wrong, but the other side of that is who better to understand what needs to be changed than people who understand the culture.
“The other thing is we lay a lot of things at the feet of the president — the successes and the failures,” she said. “The reality is that leadership at an institution is a team of people. … What we really want to see is will the board support the president in whatever her vision is for the institution and will the president be able to have a cabinet that can work as a team to set some goals and priorities for the institution that would ensure that they are executing their mission.”
To Dr. Linda Burnes Bolton, the profession of nursing is about accountability.
“We’re accountable to the patient, first and foremost,” Burnes Bolton says. “And we keep that in mind in everything that we do.”
Burnes Bolton, chief nursing officer emeritus at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, dedicated her life and career to the nursing industry, having joined the healthcare organization in 1971 and retiring at age 72 in 2022.
Dr. Linda Burnes Bolton
Throughout her more than 50-year career, Burnes Bolton has served Cedars-Sinai and its patients in multiple capacities, including senior vice president and chief health equity officer.
Outside of Cedars-Sinai, Burnes Bolton spent time as president of the American Organization of Nurse Executives (now American Organization for Nursing Leadership); president of the National Black Nurses Association; trustee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF); chair of the RWJF National Advisory Committee for Transforming Care at the Bedside and Veteran Affairs Commission on Nursing; and vice-chair of the RWJF Initiative on the Future of Nursing at the Institute of Medicine.
Burnes Bolton says that one of the feats she was most proud of accomplishing during her tenure was being able to increase the number of staff with baccalaureate degrees at Cedars-Sinai.
“We were the first institution in Los Angeles County to go with all bachelor’s degrees,” Burnes Bolton notes.
And yet, the nursing industry veteran expressed frustration with issues plaguing the field, one of which was that nurses were leaving the profession altogether.
“Some institutions still have registered nurses — that’s the top of the field — caring for more than four or five patients at a time, as many as nine or 10 patients at a time,” Burnes Bolton says. “That way, they cannot possibly, without assistance, be of use to the patient.”
She later adds, “So many people are leaving the profession because of their misguided use in terms of how they are being utilized as registered nurses.”
Because ultimately, the goal of a nurse is to effectively care for and be of use to others, she says.
“One of the things that my career has been about is making sure that everyone has the authority to call out when they believe that they don’t have the support they need to deliver the best possible care,” she says. “It’s very important that everyone who is in the human caring business – whether they’re physician, nurse, or pediatrist ... whatever their title is – understands the value of what they’re doing is caring for other humans.”
It’s a lesson she holds close to her and imparts on those interested in coming into the field. Because those who don’t understand what it means to be a nurse shouldn’t join at all, she says.
“I hope that they maintain their responsibility and accountability for caring for human beings,” Burnes Bolton says. “Some nurses don’t recognize the value of caring for another human being unfortunately. And they need to get out of nursing if they don’t recognize that.”
Following up plans for educational access and equity with actions has become the hallmark of Grand Valley State University, which has a statewide presence in Michigan.
After the death of George Floyd in 2020, Dr. Philomena V. Mantella, president of Grand Valley State, issued and completed a 15-point plan for racial equity as a clear statement on providing foundational knowledge around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and emphasizing commitment to the university’s values.
Dr. Chasity Bailey-Fakhoury
“The last piece we’re now launching is around structural changes,” he continues. “All of our divisions and our colleges are now appointing DEI leads and liaisons who are going to work with their vice president or deans around some part of our commitment to inclusion and equity and also convene with each other to set the university strategy moving forward.”
Undergraduate education
One of the commitments began expanding undergraduate education to make sure all students experience courses or curriculum related specifically to racism and racial equity, which was approved last fall by the general education committee and the provost.
The Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium, which is leading the analysis, administered the campus climate survey in November 2021. There was a recommendation to have focus groups beginning this fall with diverse populations of staff, faculty, and students to capture their stories.
“We’ll continue to do that throughout this year and also disaggregate the data at the division college level to allow for more local responses and action,” Bernal says.
An initiative that began during the pandemic is pulse surveys. “Getting out with key questions at key moments in time,” says Mantella. “When the senior team identifies issues, and also when we’re seeing them within our student government or president’s council, the council is intentional about what we call a slot analysis. What are we seeing? What is emerging that we’re unaware of? To test some of that, we may use a pulse survey to really dive a little deeper.”
Grand Valley State runs the most TRIO Programs (federally funded educational outreach) in Michigan. Mantella also wants to improve the pathways for students attending community colleges. “We have good transfer agreements,” says Mantella. “We also reverse transfer, which means…we will send their credits back to be counted should a credential get awarded as they continue on at Grand Valley.”
There are also efforts to reach approximately two million people in Michigan who have some college credits but still need to earn a degree. Mantella says Grand Valley State works on creating modalities in which these individuals can achieve their goals.
Community involvement
“We are trying to be more ingrained in the community and serving the community in Southeast Michigan, but also increasing the pipeline to not just Grand Valley, but all four-year institutions,” Bernal says. “We have some new hybrid programs that are being run at our Detroit center. We do a lot of community-based events and workshops out of our center in Detroit.”
Partnerships with external organizations and local governments have strengthened over the past two years. Dr. Chasity Bailey-Fakhoury, an associate professor and director of engagement for educational and community innovation, runs an incubator that works with traditional and non-traditional partners inside and outside of Grand Valley State to improve outcomes in higher education and in the K–12 workforce.
“We’re trying to help scale ideas that we think are going to have great efficacy,” says Bailey-Fakhoury. “In my role as director I go into the community, learning the aspirations of the community and figuring out ways that the Co-Lab and the university can align our mission to help serve the aspirations of the community. Seeing how the university can leverage our resources to help further advance the work of different community partners, organizations, schools and school districts so that we’re all in this trying to create a better community life for everyone.”
In 2020, Mantella created a network of racial equity advisors focused on the experiences of Black staff, faculty, students, and alumni. “I’m a proponent of having broad ownership, particularly in the area of diversity, equity and inclusion,” says Mantella. “They continue to refine and prioritize the work.”
Bernal meets approximately weekly with equity advisors, and Mantella and the university’s senior leadership team meet with them as a group each semester. A faculty fellow takes part in the president’s council and meets with Mantella monthly.
Another member of the team is Dr. Alisha Davis, allied health sciences program director in her second year as a presidential fellow for inclusion and equity as well as co-lead for the network of advisors. “We’re looking at how we create this inclusive and equitable environment using a social justice platform in order to positively impact various populations on campus,” says Davis.
Davis notes that there are seven initiatives in the pipeline for which implementation plans are currently being created. These include professional development, creating leadership opportunities and making sure that the climate on campus creates a sense of belonging and acceptance for all.
Many of the students in Davis’ program currently work in hospitals or other healthcare settings. “We have hybrid classes and in-seat classes that are designed to be able to accommodate students in a way that meets their needs,” she says. “Next year we’ll start a limited number of online classes as well.”
Collaborative effort
Even before the pandemic, courses covered healthcare disparities, such as social determinates of health, but students’ experiences in the early months brought a slightly different focus.
“Students had more of that tangible piece…because they were experiencing it,” Davis says. “I was already doing work on implicit bias, microaggressions and racism in healthcare. [The pandemic] caused me to focus a little bit differently on those concepts, definitely bringing in statistics on barriers to care and the deficit in patient outcomes.
“We try to create spaces within our program…to have conversations about race, diversity and inclusion, making sure we are providing the best, most equitable conversations in the classroom [that] we can,” she adds.
In June 2022, Grand Valley State hosted the first Black Boys and Men Symposium, a national convening of administrators, policy makers, K–12 educators and community leaders who work with students of color, particularly those who identify as Black and male. They explored issues around success and access and how institutions can better serve the population. About 300 people from around the country participated in the two-day event.
The university launched “Reach Higher 2025,” a new strategic plan approved by the board of trustees with three components: educational experience, lifetime learning, and educational equity. The Grand Valley Pledge is also a new commitment that anybody in the state of Michigan who graduated from a Michigan high school and whose family makes less than $50,000 per year can come to Grand Valley State tuition free. After filing the FAFSA, the university will back end the federal student aid with university support.
Presently, Grand Valley State has partnership agreements with five historically Black colleges and universities. If students at those institutions want to pursue a graduate program not available at their college or university, they may do so at Grand Valley State using two-plus-two or three-plus-one programs where they earn a bachelor’s degree at their home institution and then a master’s degree or second bachelor’s degree at the university.
Those opportunities for partnerships will likely increase as Grand Valley State develops new programs to reflect the digital economy, artificial intelligence and robotics.
“We continue to focus on content and areas that are really important — applied medical devices, different versions of informatics and computer science,” Mantella says. “The three components of [Reach Higher 2025] are going to continue to be our guide and we’re going to do them very well, with a lot of innovation and a lot of connection to those we serve and those we should be serving at a higher rate.”
Bailey-Fakhoury says university leadership is truly committed to DEI work but is honest in noting there is a lot to do. In the College of Educational and Community Engagement she hopes to see more work around recruiting and retaining BIPOC students who will become teachers. She says professors cannot hold back in preparing education students to be teachers aware of racism, sexism, classism and xenophobia and developing anti-racist pedagogy.
“It’s important to have a president who sets the tone for the work,” Bailey-Fakhoury says. “It makes faculty, staff and students feel that we’re going to help the university meet its aims and goals when it comes to issues around diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. That’s the framework that we really use.”
While still fighting for official provider status, pharmacists have proven to be crucial in delivering care and helping address healthcare disparities.
COVID-19 has placed unprecedented demands on frontline healthcare workers. Over the past three years, pharmacists have demonstrated that they are vital to addressing pandemic-related issues and bringing care to their communities.
Students pose with Dr. Johnnie L. Early II, dean of the FAMU College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
“Pharmacy has become more diverse in terms of the different opportunities offered to graduates,” says Dr. Margareth Larose Pierre, founding campus dean, director, and professor at the Durell Peaden Jr. Pharmacy Education Center in Crestview, Florida. The center is affiliated with the Florida A&M University (FAMU) College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
“We are more clinical, and the patients are more relying on our input in their health,” she continues. “One of the challenges we have is the fact that we’re still fighting to get provider status. Once we have provider status, the impact will be even greater.”
A provider is a licensed person or organization that provides healthcare services, and provider status would enable pharmacists to have more direct involvement in patient care in terms of assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.
Evolving role of pharmacists
“Pharmacists play a big role in the healthcare system,” says Clarissa Ferdinand, a fourth-year student in the Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) program at FAMU. “This can further assist with fewer medication errors. I’m looking forward to being on the frontlines to overall improve our patients’ health outcomes.”
In November 2022, the McKesson Foundation, a corporate foundation dedicated to advancing healthcare outcomes for all, awarded $4.1 million to pharmacy schools to help close diversity gaps and improve health outcomes. “The McKesson Foundation believes increasing diverse representation among pharmacists, training all pharmacists in inclusivity and regularly engaging with communities can help reduce healthcare disparities,” says Melissa Thompson, president of the McKesson Foundation and vice president of philanthropic giving. “Underrepresented-in-medicine minorities are more likely to work in communities or settings with medically underserved minority populations.”
McKesson Foundation is partnering with the pharmacy schools to introduce the pharmacist career path to high school and college students; enhance programs to recruit, prepare and support diverse students; build inclusive campus communities; and provide all students with cultural competency and an understanding of and ability to address social determinants of health.
Larose Pierre says some of the important things pharmacy students learn are the diagnostic issues that come into play before a patient’s treatment begins. Both she and Dr. Johnnie L. Early II, dean of the FAMU College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, say physicians have resisted such involvement from pharmacists.
Ferdinand says she sees a range of career interests among her fellow students. Some are interested in industry or research, while others want to do residency programs, which is postgraduate training that can be general or focused on a specific area of practice such as infectious diseases or geriatrics.
Early notes that there are over 100 career choices that a PharmD prepared person can pursue. When FAMU held a career day, two metrics stood out. Fifty students from the graduating class of 2023 were made offers by Walgreens. Six students received offers from Pfizer. Dr. Jocelyn D. Spates, associate dean of clinical affairs and professor at FAMU, says 58% of the students who applied for residencies were matched with a residency program.
Even though pharmacists don’t have practitioner status, the curriculum in the PharmD program is replete with information about providing direct patient care, says Early, particularly in the experiential years of the program. Spates says it is part of the program’s accreditation standards to ensure that students have direct patient care experience throughout the curriculum.
Howard University College of Pharmacy has both a traditional pharmacy program, which takes six years (the first two years consist of prerequisite courses) and leads to the PharmD, as well as a non-traditional two-year online program for people who previously earned a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy (a degree largely phased out over the past 20 years) and now wish to earn the PharmD to increase their professional options. Dr. Oluwaranti “Ranti” Akiyode, dean of Howard’s College of Pharmacy, says today’s students have an expansive view of the profession of pharmacist, with their potential roles made even more obvious to the public during the pandemic.
“I hope they envision their roles as public health champions,” says Akiyode. “The pandemic has…revealed the value of pharmacists in the community. … Pharmacy teams delivered more than 270 million COVID-19 vaccinations and also averted more than one million pandemic deaths. Those numbers are quite powerful to help us see the impact that pharmacists have in this current healthcare landscape.”
A number of Howard PharmD graduates pursue work in community pharmacies, but others are in hospitals and ambulatory care settings. Akiyode says beyond the vaccines, pharmacists provide medication therapy management and reduce treatment failures and medication problems.
Public health
“The pandemic and the response to it on the health sciences side really highlighted the role of the pharmacists,” Early suggests. “It’s because of the wonderful work that practitioners do despite the limitations.
“There’s a definite role for us because we have a distinct advantage when it comes to understanding medicine…and health status improvement,” he adds.
A student works in the lab as part of studies in Howard University’s College of Pharmacy.
From the outset, Howard students are exposed to direct patient care activities, including simulations and hands-on opportunities in the lab, according to Akiyode, noting that currently only 4.9% of pharmacists are Black.
“We have objective skills clinical education; we have opportunities for them to learn how to work with other healthcare providers to develop teamwork skills,” Akiyode says. “They take a course with medical students and nursing students. They have experiential rotations. … They have hands-on opportunities to talk to patients in the clinic.”
When she was the founding pharmacist at the Howard University Hospital Diabetes Treatment Center (2007–17) Akiyode worked with endocrinologists, nurses and dieticians. Students and pharmacy residents observed her with patients. She says, particularly in public health settings, giving pharmacists practitioner status will increase access to healthcare.
“People from lower socioeconomic status, medically underserved areas, will have access,” says Akiyode. “Allowing us to have more authority can allow us to reach more people. Pharmacists are the most accessible health professionals. Opportunities for us to intervene in the lives of more people, especially those who are in medically underserved areas, we can truly reduce healthcare costs and improve patient outcomes.”
Among pharmacy schools to receive money from the McKesson Foundation is the University of New Mexico, at which all PharmD students are required to complete a four-week Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE) rotation in a rural area of the state. The McKesson Foundation is funding a program supporting students who want to complete an additional rural APPE rotation. Funding for the Creating Awareness and Responsiveness through Education program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will train students to recognize and address healthcare disparities in patients and populations in underserved and rural areas.
“The goal of both programs is to have more students choose to practice in vulnerable or rural communities after graduating,” says Thompson. “New Mexico and North Carolina have the most advanced practice designations. For instance, New Mexico permits pharmacist clinicians to conduct physical assessments, order lab and diagnostic tests and prescribe certain medication therapies.”
Future goals
“Each program we support will have metrics that the partners can track and report,” says Thompson. “We’ll use the data to spotlight programs and their impact internally and externally through our various communications channels.”
With the vast expansion of telehealth over the past three years, it has become part of the education of pharmacy students. Spates has seen pharmacists transition in their careers to areas such as medication therapy management or working with insurance companies. Opportunities have opened with flexible and even remote options.
“The pandemic, as with the nurses as well as physicians, was very stressful on our entire healthcare system, including pharmacists, so a lot have begun to seek opportunities outside of the day-to-day operation in a pharmacy setting,” Spates explains.
“Pharmacists play a vital role in healthcare,” says Ferdinand. “If pharmacists are there on the frontline, in the treatment approach process, a lot of medication errors can be prevented. Ultimately, it can also assist physicians being less burned out. It’s up to pharmacists to assess the medication or decline it.”
Akiyode says there are many factors to healthcare disparities, such as social determinants of health. From a pharmacist’s perspective, it is about access.
“Increasing access to healthcare by having pharmacists be able to do more certainly is a great way,” Akiyode says. “If pharmacists have provider status we can really do more in terms of identifying drug therapy problems and helping individuals be on the right medications. We can have management of diseases — diabetes, high blood pressure, some of the common causes of death of people of color. Having pharmacists have provider status can go a long way to reducing healthcare disparities.”
Over the past decade, some historically Black institutions have developed women’s and gender studies programs and embedded courses within general education curriculum.
When Dr. Adele Newson-Horst was developing a grant proposal, she quoted a 2015 article published in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education that noted HBCU institutions had been slow to introduce gender-related programs. At Delaware State, students pursuing women's and gender studies are examining the intersection of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality.
“At the time I was quite unhappy that in 2015 we had so few HBCUs investing in this very important topic,” says Newson-Horst, professor of English at Morgan State University and director of the women, gender, and sexuality (WGS) studies program. “Nobody is going to tell our story and keep it from erasure but us.”
Clark Atlanta University and Spelman College are the only HBCUs that offer a major or degree program. Morgan State introduced its program as a minor in 2009 at the behest of Dr. Burney J. Hollis, then dean of the College of Liberal Arts. Newson-Horst is frustrated by the slow progress toward majors and more institutions having minors, but she says she is pleased by Howard University’s new Center for Women, Gender and Global Leadership, which showcases the field’s importance.
“At Morgan, our two required courses for the minor have been approved as general education credits, and that is certainly a good move because it’s saying whether you minor in it or not, you’re invited to take these courses,” says Newson-Horst. “We have a proposal for a graduate certificate program in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies that the provost supports. … We are in the next phase of pushing forward.”
Viewing through a gender lens
Delaware State University’s women’s and gender studies program seeks to motivate students to pursue their interests in matters related to identity and power relations regarding the intersection of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality.
“The world continues to be a patriarchal one that keeps Black and brown women relegated to the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder,” says Dr. A. Myrna Nurse, professor of English and women’s and gender studies at Delaware State. “Our students need to understand fully the historical underpinnings and current ideologies that continue to sustain this imbalance.
“They need to know how bell hooks, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker and the framers of the Combahee River Collective statement (that detailed an interlocking system of oppression), to name a few, shaped and developed Black Women’s Studies curriculum in higher education to effect positive change,” she adds. “Black and brown female consciousness, inclusive of scholars such as Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherrie Moraga, is central to our richer understanding of American pluralism and the common good.”
Guy-Sheftall is the Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies and the founding director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center at Spelman College. She is active in the National Women’s Studies Association and has been a vocal advocate for HBCUs developing women’s and gender studies programming. Newson-Horst is a Spelman graduate who was impacted by Guy-Sheftall and other Spelman faculty who inspired her to take on similar challenges.
The women’s and gender studies minor at North Carolina Central University was launched in the fall of 2016. Dr. Shauntae Brown White, professor of mass communication and coordinator of women’s and gender studies as well as Interim Associate Dean of the College of Arts, Social Science and Humanities, was part of the proposal process and the minor’s development. Courses were developed by various faculty members as far back as 2012, but the process stalled for several years until White stepped up and took the reins.
“We are still kind of unknown,” says White, who notes that North Carolina Central does not require that undergraduate students have a minor. “[In the fall] semester, I gathered several students in mass communication, who have taken a class or two with me in women’s and gender studies — I teach “Women in Communication” and “Media Images of Black Women” — to help me develop a marketing plan to reach the students.
“I still think people don’t know what to do with it,” she adds. “Even in the teaching evaluations, students talk about how their thinking has been transformed through the class. … Students find value in the classes they have taken, but for whatever reason we have not gotten a critical mass for the minor.”
Developing courses
In 2010, Nurse wondered why Delaware State didn’t have a women’s studies program. An English major responded by creating a Power Point presentation titled “Hear Me Roar!” and presented it to the department chair who in turn presented it to the dean, Dr. Marshall Stevenson. The dean followed up, and an announcement was made at a faculty senate meeting. Twelve faculty members across disciplines developed syllabi that were included in the planning and implementation proposals. Stevenson insisted it be a women’s and gender studies program, and it proceeded as such.
“Women’s studies has been so dominated by Euro American women that the voices and experiences of Black women have been erased, much like the erasure of Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells,” says Newson-Horst.Civil rights advocate Kimberlé Crenshaw, left, is shown with Dr. Adele Newson-Horst, director of the women, gender and sexuality studies program at Morgan State.
Women, gender, and sexuality studies at Morgan State is an interdisciplinary program that draws faculty from various departments. It is dedicated to exploring and improving the lives and living conditions of women in the U.S. and globally. Both through courses and research, faculty investigate cultural, social, economic and psychological issues important to the lived experiences of women, especially women of color. Students give critical thought to how cultures construct and police gender and sexuality and the consequences of that. Among the course selections are the African American novel, human sexuality and behavior, power and gender, and science, technology and gender.
Newson-Horst commends Dr. Ida E. Jones, the archivist at Morgan State, who has organized the archives of several prominent figures, including those who examined the racism within the early women’s movement. “Now is the time to look to the archivists,” says Newson-Horst, who anticipates archival materials informing new courses.
Women’s and gender studies at North Carolina Central is an interdisciplinary program that explores the intersections of gender, race, class, religion, sexuality and other identities with social structures of inequality on the lives of women. It is concerned with the global experiences of all women, with an emphasis on women of the African Diaspora. Courses include “The Black Female Body in American Culture,” “Black Women and Activism” and “Diversity and the Media.”
“Even if you don’t do anything officially with the minor, it changes your perspective,” White says. “It helps you be aware of issues you might not have thought of before.”
Creating dialogue
“HBCUs have a unique calling,” says White, who did her undergraduate studies at Howard University. “Part of the mission of HBCUs is social justice, is consciousness raising, is being global leaders in a responsible way. You really can’t develop that unless you are considering all issues. In women’s and gender studies you’re not just talking about gender, but with that comes class, sexual orientation and ablism.
“If Black women don’t research about Black women, nobody else is going to,” she continues. “Black women are missing from feminist scholarship and we’re also missing from African American scholarship because those tend to focus on White women and Black men. We want to create a specific mission.”
Delaware State’s “Hear Me Roar!” campaign included aspects beyond the classroom, such as an extracurricular forum that would tackle issues that derive directly from the mouths of female students. Some of the momentum faded after the president of the program’s student organization died in a car accident, but the minor has continued.
“Women’s and gender studies courses have attracted male students who continue to register, especially for the ‘Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies,’” says Nurse, former director of the program. The majority of students pursuing the WGS minor at Morgan State are not pursuing majors in the College of Liberal Arts, which is home to the program. Most are in STEM areas, notes Newson-Horst.
“As long as Black women are paid 62 cents to the dollar that White males make…you really need a women, gender and sexuality studies program,” says Newson-Horst. “As long as people think that they can police someone’s sexuality…you need these programs. Education is not easy. … What we’re doing is interrogating other points of view.”
Newson-Horst also says collaboration across institutions is essential to advance this interdisciplinary course of inquiry and create more majors and minors at HBCUs. “We have to reach out to our counterparts,” she says. “We’re going to have to model [our programs] and put the information out there in order to get done what we need to have done.”
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