COHP COVID-19 Update: June 19, 2020
Our college, like the other colleges, has been deeply concerned about the events of the past few weeks. We have been engaged in a university wide dialogue that includes small group as well as larger discussions on how we can contribute to solutions. Our strategy is to look internally first, to identify if there might be better ways for providing voices that will lead us towards breaking down the walls that may hide injustice in its several forms. We would like to reach out to our community contacts to begin discussions at that level in a coordinated fashion and we would like your help in identifying community contacts for our college to begin these dialogues.
Our college discussions over the past few weeks have taken us towards a campaign that was suggested by Jacen Moore (tentatively) called United (U) Together (T) to demonstrate that as part of the UT community we are against racial injustice and hate and violence at all levels and fully support racial equality and improving race relationships in health care and our community. The engagement of the Communication office may elevate this to a wider initiative, or it may remain with us, but more details will be forthcoming.
As a college, we want to do more than talk about the problems. We want to work together to identify how as an academic college, we can be part of the solution. The College has initiated several discussions for developing different strategies for recruiting underrepresented minorities to health career professions. We have made proposals for college engaged community projects to serve elderly, poor and those without health insurance who need care that can be offered by health professionals and our students, but to this point they are unfunded and have only remained as good ideas.
The more recent call for reducing barriers for minority populations to access admission to our programs, has caused us to begin looking for better ways to support and retain students after their acceptance. We would like to establish a college-wide task for recruitment and retention initiatives for the college. We are currently looking into establishing new scholarships to highlight Social Justice in Health Professions and bring attention to a deeper need in our society for training and retaining underrepresented minorities. The scholarships would engage a community leader and a college faculty as co-mentors for the scholarship recipient.
We recognize the need to do more. My hope is that this will only be the beginning of many new initiatives for our college. What the recent events have taught us is that there is much work to do, but the best work will start with individuals dedicated to find solutions. Our College’s goal for striving to be a top 20 institution means that we will have a stronger platform to make a difference in our community and society. We will work closely with the rest of the UTHSC campus to develop a unified effort, because we believe that by coming together, we can begin to make an impact now.
Stay safe.
Stephen E. Alway, PhD, FACSM
Dean, College of Health Professions