Clinton School student Heather Malveaux partnered with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences for a campus-wide initiative on race and diversity at Arkansas’s only academic health center.
Malveaux, who is completing the concurrent Master of Public Service/Master of Public Health degree program at the Clinton School and the UAMS Boozman College of Public Health, facilitated community conversations on race and ethnicity with students from each UAMS college and hosted a pilot event that served as an example of a diversity engagement initiative that grew to include UAMS students, faculty, staff and administration.
In partnership with Dr. Kate Stewart, director of the UAMS Office of Community-Based Public Health and associate professor of health policy and management, Malveaux completed the project as her final requirement in the Clinton School MPS program .
Her initial goal was to inform the establishment of a campus-wide formal student organization to promote and foster meaningful engagement across lines of race, ethnicity and culture, but it quickly developed into more, Malveaux said.
The projects culminating event brought together 25 participants from differing racial and ethnic backgrounds for a facilitated dialogue on race and ethnicity. UAMS faculty, staff, students and administrators were guided through small-group dialogue that was provoked by visuals depicting various stereotypes. Suggestions from participants on how the UAMS community can continue to be one of inclusion and acceptance concluded the evening.
“I’m very pleased that Ms. Malveaux chose to take on this challenge,” said Dr. Kate Stewart of UAMS. “It is an issue that sorely needs addressing and she did a great job on this project.”
The cornerstone of the project was Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR), an approach to research that equitably and actively involves participants in the research process. Students surveyed were calling for a group that was much larger in scope. Consensus was for faculty and staff to be invited, informed and involved in dialogue on race and ethnicity.
Malveaux also conducted key informant interviews with various stakeholders at UAMS to assess existing barriers and paths to the establishment of an organization that hosts varying diversity initiatives on campus.
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