MBKU’s IDEA Center Awards its First-Ever Mini-Grants

In February 2022, Marshall B. Ketchum University founded the Inclusion, Equity, Diversity, and Accessibility (IDEA) Center, a campus hub whose mission is to instill and preserve core values that promote a vision for the University as a place that truly welcomes, accommodates and empowers individuals from every demographic. The IDEA Center grew out of the decision by MBKU to put a more deliberate focus on efforts to ensure MBKU graduates are skillfully prepared to provide health care in a diverse society. Part of this mission is to offer education that promotes understanding of differences, affirmation of identities and an understanding of the community’s role in reducing health disparities.

AN EXCITING RESPONSE

Melissa Contreras, OD, MPH, FAAO, was appointed as MBKU’s Assistant Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and one of the concepts at the core of Dr. Contreras’ leadership of the IDEA Center is that its work would be produced and embodied by the community itself, an organic outgrowth of MBKU’s mission and values. To this end, one of the IDEA Center’s first campus wide initiatives was the introduction of five $1,000 mini-grants, a venture meant to solicit and fund projects that promote inclusive practices, increase diversity, structural equity and accessibility. Announced at last year’s University Retreat, Dr. Contreras was hoping to solicit funding proposals from all corners of the campus, from students and faculty to staff and administrators, and to her great gratification, this is precisely what happened. The IDEA Center received many submissions, and through a careful process, selected the five projects that would beawarded the grants, with the goal of implementing them within the following year.

“I’m very excited about the response of the MBKU community,” says Dr. Contreras. “I believe it shows that people have the opportunity to take ownership of ideas that promote DEI, ideas that are sparked from needs within their own departments or clinics or classroom settings. And they can dream up the idea, they can propose it, and they can get it funded and they can implement it. And it can all happen with the support of the IDEA Center.”

CONNECTING THROUGH LANGUAGE

Dr. Elaine Chen, Associate Professor at SCCO, is the author of one of the approved grant proposals. As a faculty member, she was able to address observations she had made in her educator role: seeing that there was often friction stemming from spoken English, on the side of both non-native speakers and native speakers, she crafted a proposal meant to create an opportunity to bring people together in an environment where the stakes and the tension were low. “I saw groups of students who struggled with English as a second language and isolated themselves, as well as students who wished they could become more proficient at a second language other than English,” says Dr. Chen. “I was able to try to give opportunities to both these groups to connect. Ultimately, if our students speak different languages more fluently, it will foster better patient care in our community. Also, connecting students and staff to share languages within our own school will foster community in our own University.”

PROMOTING AWARENESS, IMPROVING OUTCOMES

As President of the Muslim Student Association, Sohaila Baheer spearheaded their program to promote awareness of the disparities  experienced by Muslim patients due to cultural barriers and misunderstandings. Sohaila’s proposal is a fitting representation of a member of MBKU’s community who is attuned by virtue of experience and background to the unique obstacles a minority group may face, and how the mini-grants create an opportunity to address it more widely.

“I was motivated to write a proposal for the DEI mini-grant because I saw an urgent need to address health care inequalities encountered by Muslim patients as a result of cultural barriers and misunderstandings. Muslim patients frequently have specific health care needs and preferences due to religion and cultural beliefs, and future health care practitioners, including optometry, physician assistant and pharmacy students, must be culturally competent in order to provide optimal care. The DEI mini-grant provides the financial support needed to make this important project possible.”

A COLLABORATIVE COMMUNITY

Dr. Contreras sees the first round of funding as a success story in how it demonstrated that the work of promoting diversity, equity and inclusion is not just falling on the IDEA Center itself, but becoming a priority in all the corners of the campus. It’s the tangible beginning of a larger mobilization to take on these ideas and to be inspired by them as they come to fruition. “It’s a collaborative process,” says Dr. Contreras. “We’re engaging our communities to offer their expertise and their ideas, because we will forever be learning about each other as individuals from different backgrounds, different cultures, different religions and different identities.

We have a lot of support from the University administration because MBKU understands that our people are our greatest resource. And if we can infuse cultural humility into the education of our future pharmacists, PAs and ODs, then from the perspective of the IDEA Center we are truly reimagining health care education.”

WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE RECIPIENTS OF THE INAUGURAL 2023 MINI-GRANTS.

SHILITA K. MONTEZ, PROJECT: EXERCISES FOR EXPLORING HUMAN INTERSECTIONALITY

Overview: A program to explore human intersectionality through exercises that provide empirical and visual analysis that measures and reveals in real time how humans operate within their intersecting identities.

DR. ELAINE CHEN, PROJECT: SECOND LANGUAGE MIXER

Overview: A language exchange event to promote inclusive learning that fosters relationships between students and further collaboration with their peers.

DRS. JULIE TYLER AND HEIDI WAGNER, PROJECT: PATIENT EDUCATION PROJECT – READ, RECOGNIZE, REFLECT BY STUDENTS (PEP-RRRS)

Overview: A project to increase recognition and reflection among students “regarding how race, gender, and other indicators … are represented in health professions education” through analysis of patient education materials.

MUSLIM STUDENT ASSOCIATION (MSA), PROJECT: PROMOTING CULTURAL/RELIGIOUS AWARENESS AMONG MBKU HEALTH PROFESSIONS PROGRAMS TO IMPROVE HEALTH CARE OUTCOMES FOR MUSLIM PATIENTS

Overview: A program to increase cultural competency and awareness about the needs of Muslim patients to address the health care disparities experienced by Muslim patients due to cultural barriers and misunderstandings.

MBKU LIBRARY, DR. SCOTT JOHNSON, WHITNEY SPROUL, KATIE GSTALDER, DIANA J ACOBSON, PROJECT: DEI LIBRARY E-BOOK INITIATIVE

Overview: A program to educate and inform, facilitate dialog and spark engagement to create a diverse, equitable and inclusive medical community and educational experience with new digital materials focused on DEI-related topics.