Project FORWARD
Looking back on the summer of 2020, our nation found itself in a tailspin. A global pandemic and unrelenting health crisis, political unrest and division and ultimately, the horrific death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Our country would pause, take several deep breaths in disbelief of the murder of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man at the hands of Minneapolis Police. For a total of eight minutes, a video featuring the murder of Floyd would replay again and again across all news media around the country for days on end. Floyd’s death would rattle our country. Open eyes to those who may not have been open. What can be done going forward? How can we as a people, as a nation, as academic institutions respond and do better for Black and Brown people in similar spaces of inequity on multiple levels. Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health heard from its student body during this unrest in protest of systemic racism, oppression, health inequity and injustice and responded with Columbia Public Health FORWARD.
FORWARD is an acronym for Fighting Oppression, Racism and White Supremacy through Action, Research and Discourse. The launch of Project FORWARD in July of 2020 presents a stated mission and goal to become an Anti-Racist Multicultural Organization as noted on FORWARD’s informational webpage, “...to accelerate the transformation of our school into an antiracist, multicultural, and fully inclusive institution in all aspects of its culture and operations, as well as into a global leader in dismantling the toxic structures that continue to support racism and health inequities.” FORWARD further boasts a strategic manner in obtaining this goal presenting an intricately detailed manner of creating and sustaining long- lasting change in the undoing of systemic racism within the walls of Mailman as a public health institution, for surrounding communities and to be a model for other schools, colleges, public health professions and the overall, public health community.
The Structure of Project FORWARD first began as a Dean’s Initiative, by Dean Linda Fried and Senior Leadership. Central to the project is the FORWARD Accountability Cabinet. The cabinet is a permanent advisory group consisting of two co-chairs, Dr. Raygine DiAquoi, Assistant Dean of Diversity, Culture and Inclusion, Assistant Professor of Sociomedical Sciences, and Dr. Charlie Branas, Chair of Epidemiology. The stated purpose of FORWARD’s Accountability Cabinet is to ensure the success of the project by providing recommendations and a level of oversight towards the project’s overarching mission and goals. Next, there is FORWARD’s Action Corps, a multi-stakeholder group which consists of over 100 members from the Mailman community: students (four of which will transition as students matriculate), faculty, staff, leadership, and alumni (to include members of Mailman’s Alumni Board and other alumni volunteers). FORWARD’s Action Corp’s purpose is to recommend to the Accountability Cabinet three to five short-term actions or “Fast Forwards” from the Corp’s respective, four focus areas to be addressed within the school. These four areas include: curriculum, student recruitment, faculty/staff recruitment and finally, community.
In working towards “Fast Forward” recommendations provided by the Action Corps, the Accountability Cabinet recently decided upon the first initial recommended actions to be taken within four designated target areas:
- Curriculum mapping project
- Invest in student support and retention resources
- Stipends of support for students in need
- And partnership with community to foster authentic community partnerships
The curriculum mapping project’s focus will be the launch of workshops in the fall 2021 semester. These workshops will be designed to introduce incoming students to the inclusive culture of Mailman while addressing equity principles, anti-racism and racial justice. Students will be supported through two programs: RISE and MOSAIC. Both mentoring programs will be available to students from marginalized populations, including first generation college students.
Stipends of support will be available through an application process to 5 students on an income-based basis. Lastly, the partnership with community will involve the creation of a Community Engagement Board to effect lasting change through authentic community partnerships between the Mailman community, Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), and the neighboring communities of Washington Heights and Harlem.
Additionally, FORWARD has implemented the Calderone Health Equity Awards. These awards include four awards of $40,000 each to those doing traditional and non-traditional work towards achieving and fostering public health equity through science and research. Also, the FORWARD Fellows program will support and encourage students to continue to advance race and health equity and justice at Mailman through programs created to develop and cultivate skills necessary for consistent change. The Fellows programs will include a six-student cohort to begin in fall 2021.
FORWARD is thoughtful, intentional, and hopefully will achieve its goals of transforming the institution to a “fully inclusive anti-racist multicultural organization in a transformed society.”
Mailman Alumni Board Member, Almaz Ahmed Falol, MPH ’09, Senior Consultant with Arcadia Solutions, board member since 2016, and advocate for the promotion of health equity and justice across racial lines asserts that she is “trusting and hopeful” of the outcome and success of FORWARD. Falol is a committed Accountability Cabinet Member along with 21 others from the Mailman Community. Heather Krasna, Assistant Dean of Career Services and co-leader for the Faculty and Staff Recruitment focus area, recently shared that FORWARD “is an exciting initiative and holds the Mailman School accountable for tangible action items toward becoming an anti-racist institution.”
Krasna’s team has already begun considering thoughtful, practical ways to seek and attract diverse candidates for Mailman’s open positions of employment. There are plans to implement a system for successful onboarding of new employees, as well as methods, to ensure fair and equitable promotion towards creating and maintaining a true workplace of diversity and inclusion.
This global pandemic has largely and disparately affected Black and Brown people in communities all across our country. The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner and too many other Black and Brown men and women at the hands of police have overwhelmingly placed race and racial justice top of mind for individuals, organizations and institutions across many areas and disciplines. These intersecting, simultaneous events have further compounded often unspoken and unaddressed ills of health inequity stemming from systemic and institutional racism. Dean Fried’s initiative presents a strategic system in moving towards racial justice and health equity with the design and implementation of FORWARD. It is a great undertaking, a necessary one. Yet, FORWARD is not dissuaded by the vast amount of work which lies ahead. FORWARD is inclusive in creating a culture for change with its many levels of members and networks from within the Mailman community and beyond. Great change will take great commitment and persistence. The Civil Rights Movement of the sixties took many years of strategic planning and dedication by many to effect change. The goals of that movement are not too far off from those of the present “movement,” and of Project FORWARD. Anti-racism, racial justice and racial health equity are still on the agenda for change. We are all hopeful that FORWARD will achieve its goals in “successive waves with an ongoing focus” as noted by another Accountability Cabinet member. We are, also, hopeful that FORWARD will continue to be top of mind until the transformation of Mailman into a fully inclusive Anti-Racist Multicultural Society is achieved for the benefit of the school, our community, our neighborhoods, our country and the world.
For more information, visit Project FORWARD.
– Stacey M. Cameron, Esq, MPH, ’15