The JEDI Office will hold a healing space for faculty, staff, and students who identify as Asian and Asian American on Tuesday, March 2, Noon–1:30 p.m. via Zoom. Dr. Josephine Kim will discuss the history of anti-Asian discrimination in the U.S. and facilitate a processing space.

The JEDI Council Student Voices subcommittee will meet on Monday, March 8 at 4:00 p.m. via Zoom. We will discuss updates from the March 1 JEDI Council meeting, piloting a microaggressions workshop, and SHRS Task Force brainstorming. All interested students are welcome to attend. Contact Lindsey Lo with any questions.

Documentary Discussion on Flint's Deadly Water – Monday, March 15

Jasmine Hall, a Flint-based public health leader and epidemiologist, will join the JEDI Fellows on Monday, March 15 at Noon to discuss the documentary Flint's Deadly Water. Jasmine was born and raised in Flint, MI, and worked as an Americorps VISTA in the BPS Office of School-Community Partnerships. She attended Harvard Chan, taking on research, projects, and leadership roles in hopes of returning home to Flint. She now works at Michigan State University as a research assistant helping to implement solutions for the water crisis by addressing the social determinants through community-based participatory research (CBPR). Outside of her academic role, Jasmine serves as the Health and Environmental Justice chair of the Flint NAACP, a Lead Prevention Ambassador with Black Millenials for Flint, and a mentor for the Flint Public Health Youth Academy.

We will hear from Jasmine as she shares her experiences living through the water crisis and how healthcare providers play a role in the community. The discussion will include a Q&A session and reflection. Participants will stream the documentary prior to the discussion, available for free. Open to all IHP students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Register to join the discussion. Please contact Annika Chan in the JEDI Office with any questions.

Please fill out the When2Meet for this month's Black Student Space facilitated by Alyssa Torchon.

Attend the workshop "Auditing Your Syllabus for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion" presented by the Instructional Design and JEDI teams on Thursday, March 18 at 1:00 p.m. In this one-hour workshop for faculty, we'll help you develop a lens for examining your syllabus for Justice Equity Diversity and Inclusion and start implementing those with your own syllabus. We invite you to bring a syllabus and work through assessing your syllabus from a JEDI perspective. Register.

JEDI Fellows Annika Chan, Corliss Kanazawa, and Kana Sakai will hold a safe space for Asian and Asian American identifying students on Tuesday, March 23, Noon–1:00 p.m. via Zoom. Register.

Dr. Lori Patton Davis, one of the most influential scholars in the field of higher education, will give the talk "Masks, Mattering, Magic and Movements: Exploring the Challenges and Opportunities to Support Minoritized Students in Higher Education" on Friday, March 26 at Noon via Zoom. In this presentation, Dr. Lori Patton Davis will discuss the landscape of scholarship on minoritized students in higher education and the slow progress among campuses to implement change. Audience members will better understand why change is not only difficult but often fleeting in predominantly white educational environments. Recommendations for practice and policy will be offered.

The Office of Justice Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion will hold our inaugural Social Justice Research Conference on Friday, March 26 via Zoom, following the Baugh Lecture. The Social Justice Research Conference gives us an opportunity to come together as an institution to engage in critical conversations about our collective commitment to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion research. We hope to see you there!

The next Black Faculty and Staff Meeting will be held on Monday, March 29 at 1:00 p.m. via Zoom. Please contact Callie Watkins Liu with any questions.

The next iteration of Power, Privilege, and Positionality will be held virtually on Wednesday, June 2, 2:00–3:30 p.m. Facilitators are expected to monitor a discussion board on D2L and facilitate conversation at the June 2 event. We have an institutional goal of 100% faculty and staff participation this year. Current students, faculty, and staff are welcome to sign up.

Dr. Kimberly Truong, executive director for justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and Kay Martinez, director of DEI training, education, and development at Lesley University, will present "Power, Privilege, and Positionality: (re)framing community dialogues" at NASPA on March 11.

The Physical Therapy Department, under the direction of Keshrie Naidoo, Rania Karim, and Hailey Laflin with the collaboration of the JEDI Office, is developing a new cross-curricular thread focused on social justice and health equity. This thread is focused on the inclusion of curriculum regarding social determinants of health. The overarching aims of this curriculum inclusion are to teach students to appreciate health as a socially constructed phenomenon, prepare them to recognize, analyze, and intervene on factors which impact health disparities, and improve health and wellness for all. The onset of this new curriculum will begin Summer of 2021 with the PT graduating class of 2024. To successfully implement this cross-curricular thread, faculty co-curricular modules are also under development to expand faculty capacity to engage in conversations about health inequities as they relate back to social justice.

On Friday, February 26 the School of Nursing Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Nursing Faculty Leadership Team (Drs. Clara Gona, Eleonor Pusey-Reid, Abraham Ndiwane, Tomison Olayinka, and Kaveri Roy, and Professor Kenya Palmer) received the 2021 Nursing Leadership Award from the New England Regional Black Nurses Association. This award exemplifies their leadership in mobilizing the faculty, students, and staff in the School of Nursing (SON) to fully appreciate and respond to the urgent need for social justice to address systemic racism within our society and within the SON. Congratulations to this amazing team of faculty colleagues!  

The Biomedical Sciences Program will be virtually hosting the 15th biennial Biomedical Science Careers Student Conference for postdoctoral fellows; medical, dental, and graduate students; post-baccalaureates; college and community college students; and high school seniors and juniors (particularly Black/African-American, Hispanic/LatinX and American Indian/Alaska Native individuals) on Friday, April 9 and Saturday, April 10. PT Instructor Lesley Smith will be on the panel "Getting into Health Professional School and Succeeding." Assistant Professor of physical therapy Keshrie Naidoo was featured on the panel last fall.

Please complete the Great Colleges to Work For survey. The data is being collected by an external party and they will aggregate the data in the analysis so that individuals cannot be identified. Please email Sarah Welch or Kim Truong if you should have any questions.

SON JEDI Fellows Cherman and Courtney King created an initiative within to highlight the significant contributions of Black individuals to our collective spirit and careers. They collected videos of IHP community members talking about their favorite African American figures in health care. Check out Cherman's video!

The JEDI Fellows held a virtual discussion on the documentary Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution on February 22. Disability justice and how to apply these concepts to our work in the health care professions and beyond were discussed.

JEDI Fellow Meg O'Brien held the Intersectionality Workshop: Part 1 on February 23. This workshop focused on learning about the original theory, as coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw. 25 IHP faculty, staff, and students participated. Following the workshop, Meg shared a variety of resources.

The JEDI Council met on March 1 and discussed the DEI survey, credit load guideline for faculty of color, and identity-first vs person-first language. Updates from the Student Voices Subcommittee, Equity Advocates Task Force, and PPP Committee were shared. Minutes from the January 11 meetings were approved. View all meeting minutes.

The BSU Leading for Change Consortium is a collaboration of higher education institutions in Massachusetts and New England committed to identifying student and employee diversity best practices through uniform and transparent use of data, institutional benchmarks, and reflective practice. The IHP group met in February to discuss whiteness in higher education. At consortium met on February 23, Mt. Holyoke College talked about their intergroup dialogue workshops and Bridgewater State University discussed a workshop series called "Decentering Whiteness."

Mass General Brigham's Office of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion has been working on plans to diversify the workforce, create courses for all Mass General Brigham employees, and is working on a DE&I lexicon. As a part of the United Against Racism initiative, the Mass General Brigham's DE&I Office is working on three virtual courses. One course is specifically for senior leaders and the other two courses are for all employees. The purpose of these courses is so that all employees understand anti-racist behaviors. The DE&I Office is also working on a system-wide lexicon to support racial equity training.

Harvard University Native American Program and the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine will present "Research with Indigenous People: Ethical Considerations and Community Engagement" on Wednesday, March 3 at Noon. Learn more.

Dr. Kimberly Truong will speak at the University of Pennsylvania's "Career Industry and Networking Series Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" panel on Wednesday, March 3. Other panelists include Cecilia Ramirez, chief of staff at Equal Justice USA, and Chris Noble, regulatory counsel at Ohio Credit Union League. The panel will be moderated by Alba Disla, diversity, equity, and inclusion coordinator at Comcast. Register.

The goal of the BIWOC Gathering Circle is to create a dialogue among, Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color, health policy professionals and decision-makers, health care providers, and relevant stakeholders about the key issues that uniquely or disproportionately impact the health status and health care of women of color and people who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Learn more.

Virginia Tech's Office of Inclusion and Diversity will hold "Making the Chair Fit" on Friday, March 5 at Noon. Dr. Menah Pratt-Clarke, VP for Strategic Affairs & Diversity will host a conversation featuring Latina Women Leaders at Virginia Tech: Luisa Burgos, Senior Assistant Director, Undergraduate Admissions, Dr. Dannette Gomez-Beane, Assistant Vice Provost, Enrollment Management & Strategic Initiatives, and Dr. Luisa Havens Gerardo, Vice Provost for Enrollment Management. Watch on Youtube.

When You Picture A Scientist, Who Do You See? – Wednesday, March 26

March 8 is International Women's Day. Inspired by the award-winning documentary Picture a Scientist, hear from experts who are leaders in their fields, the journey and obstacles each overcame, and what they identify as positive solutions that will allow for continued equity and inclusion within the scientific community and beyond at the event "When You Picture A Scientist, Who Do You See?" on Wednesday, March 26 at Noon. Learn more.

The Vot-ER Civic Health Fellowship is a 10-month leadership development program that aims to support, teach, and train a learning community of Vot-ER users across the country. Through a variety of learning settings, including lectures, small-group sessions, and more, fellows will leave the Vot-ER Civic Health Fellowship with a nuanced understanding of civic engagement, related health equity issues, and community organizing and activation practices. View more information.

A change in federal law has made more students temporarily eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). See if you qualify! Go to https://www.mass.gov/snap-benefits-formerly-food-stamps or visit your own state agency website to get more information.