Correcting the Narrative toward More Diverse & Inclusive Institutions.

As the first anniversary of the inaugural Sherman A. James Diverse and Inclusive Epidemiology Award from the Society of Epidemiologic Research approaches, I present a transcript of that session. Belinda: Good morning, everyone. My name is Belinda Needham, and I am chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan (UM). It is an honor to be here today to announce the first ever recipient of the Sherman A James Diverse and Inclusive Epidemiology Award. Although I arrived at UM a few years after Dr. James moved to Durham, I continue to see the lasting impact he's had on our school. Through his groundbreaking research and social epidemiology, his mentorship of students, including our own Dean [F. Dubois] Bowman, and [Dr. James's] vision for the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health, the first center of its kind at any US School of Public Health. Today we celebrate Dr. James's legacy by recognizing an individual whose research, teaching or service has expanded the scope of the field to underrepresented or disadvantaged populations or researchers. It is my pleasure to announce this year's recipient of the James Award, Dr. Lorraine Dean, associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Dean is a social epidemiologist whose research focuses on disparities in cancer and HIV. Her letters of support describe the many ways in which her research, teaching, mentoring and service activities have advanced diversity and inclusion in her department and beyond. One of her students said that Dr. Dean is the diversity and inclusivity champion we should aspire to be, because her compassion and charisma create structural changes that lead to a more just inclusive and diverse environment. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Dean. Dr. Lorraine: I'm really flattered and honored to be here and be the first recipient of this award. Honestly, to be even named in the same sentence as Dr. James, someone whose work I've admired for so long, is an honor. So, I would say I'm beyond words. But let's be honest, I'm a professor, so I'm never really beyond words. So, I have some words to share with you this morning. It's going to get a little "spicy", but I'm hoping that as an educator and instructor, we can think of this as an opportunity to expand what we understand and what we think about when it comes to diversity and inclusion. So today, I'm going to talk with you about correcting the narrative toward more diverse and inclusive institutions. And I say correcting the narrative, because despite the many gains that we've made in our institutions, in terms of diversity and inclusion, there are some persistent things that I still hear that I feel like we need to lay to rest once and for all. And these come in a couple of different areas. I'll talk about three briefly today. The first is human capital -- thinking about a diverse and inclusive workforce and how we cultivate that. The second is the knowledge that we teach -- curriculum and training, ensuring that we have curriculum and training that reflects diverse voices. And importantly, we have to be dedicated to structural change. That means shaping the context so that we have lasting inclusive environments that out extend the time that we are ourselves in those institutions.