The University Record, April 15, 1998
Gurin
Hurtado
Lichtenstein
Roubidoux
Williams
By Bernie DeGroat
News and Information Services
Five faculty members have been chosen to receive the 1998 Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award for their outstanding commitment to the development of a more culturally and ethnically diverse campus community, Lester P. Monts, associate provost for academic and multicultural affairs, has announced.
The $5,000 awards, named for the former dean of the School of Social Work, are given annually to full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty members to further their personal research, education and creative activities.
This year’s winners, chosen by a special campus committee, are:
Patricia Y. Gurin, professor of psychology and of women’s studies and faculty associate at the Institute for Social Research (ISR). As chair of the Department of Psychology, Gurin has hired many minority faculty and mentored hundreds of women and minority students, and has been a key player in expanding the University’s Intergroup Relations Program and in instituting LS&A’s race and ethnicity diversity requirement.
“She has been a consistently indefatigable and resourceful leader in opening the University community to diverse people and points of view,” says Aline Soules, director of the Business School’s Kresge Library and co-chair of the Academic Women’s Caucus.
“Prof. Gurin,” adds LS&A Dean Edie Goldenberg, “has been an activist and strong supporter of minority equity issues and has authored several books on this issue, with particular emphasis on racial equity. She is a great leader and advocate of diversity issues within the University community and nationally.”
Sylvia Hurtado, associate professor of education. Hurtado, whose scholarly work focuses on issues of racial and ethnic diversity in higher education, serves on the advisory committee of the “Diversity Works” initiative of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. She also is a member of the University’s Diversity Dialogue Committee and has served as a faculty mentor in the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program.
“During the six years she has been at Michigan, Sylvia has assembled a strong cadre of graduate and undergraduate students who are enthusiastically engaged in scholarly projects aimed at understanding racial climates and how they affect the social and academic adjustment and success of students of color in post-secondary institutions,” says Janet Lawrence, associate professor of education and director of the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education.
“Sylvia’s work has enhanced the success of students of diverse cultural and racial backgrounds, and she has heightened the awareness and commitment of individuals to bringing about equity in access and opportunity within higher educational institutions.”
Richard L. Lichtenstein, associate professor of health management and policy and ISR faculty associate. Lichtenstein directs the Summer Enrichment Program in Health Administration, a program he developed in 1986 to attract undergraduate minority students to the health administration field.
He is faculty director for the Institute for Diversity in Health Management’s Summer Enrichment Program, which provides health administration internships for minority students around the country. He also is involved in community-based public health activities in predominantly minority-based areas in Detroit and Flint.
“Richard Lichtenstein has dedicated his career to trying to improve the lot of the socially disenfranchised members of our society,” says public health Prof. Kenneth Warner. “Through his teaching, his research and his extraordinary commitment to service, he has focused his energies on addressing the health problems of America’s minority communities by working to develop a cadre of talented, educated, minority health administrators who are themselves building a network of professionals that can tackle those seemingly entrenched problems.”
Marilyn A. Roubidoux, assistant professor of radiology. Roubidoux, a pioneer in the investigation of breast cancer in Native American women, was the first researcher to present and publish mammographic findings of breast cancer in this minority group. She serves on the Network for Cancer Control Research Among American Indian and Alaska Native Populations, a group developed by the National Cancer Institute to address the cancer problems of Native Americans.
In addition, Roubidoux is a member of the American Association of Indian Physicians and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, which is dedicated to the mentoring of Native American youth for careers in science.
“I’ve worked with Dr. Roubidoux for over five years and have been impressed not only with her work, but also her commitment to cultural diversity,” says James Ellis, professor of radiology and associate chair for clinical services. “It is evident that her work with breast cancer among Native American women is having an impact on the quality of care for these disadvantaged peoples.”
David R. Williams, associate professor of sociology, ISR senior associate research scientist and faculty associate at the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies. Williams is one of the nation’s top scholars on racial and socioeconomic differences in physical and mental health, and is one of the University’s most dedicated mentors of minority students.
“His efforts have positively touched numerous promising young Black scholars,” says sociology Prof. Donald Deskins. “There is no doubt that the University’s commitment to diversity as part of its educational mission has benefited from his established record of exemplary leadership, teaching and mentorship.”
ISR Director David Featherman says that Williams’ expertise and insight on race and socioeconomic differences in health is evident by his participation in numerous major national and international editorial boards and scientific advisory groups.
“In all of his work,” Featherman says, “David has documented the social and personal costs of injustice and inequality and the potential for alleviating them through constructive research and social policy.”
