Following the death of George Floyd, Penn State College of Medicine held a town hall on race relations June 1. Nearly 2,000 faculty, staff and students participated, and the college held a follow-up event June 5 titled “From Conversation to Action,” focusing on ways to improve the learner experience across the college. Penn State Health held a similar set of town halls addressing employee and patient experiences.
In an email sent after the first town hall, Interim Dean Dr. Kevin Black and Penn State Health CEO Steve Massini noted, “The conversation was deep, powerful, respectful and eye opening. We are now working on our next steps to build upon those conversations and create action plans that can improve our culture and communications for all whose lives we touch, within our organization and our broader community… This past week has been a learning experience for both of us, and for many of you as well. We are grateful for the courage of our minority colleagues who have shared painful experiences so that all of us can understand how we can do better and be better, individually and collectively.”
Also on June 5, faculty, staff and students from Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and the College of Medicine knelt for nine minutes in silent reflection on systemic racism and violence against people of color as part of a White Coats For Black Lives event on campus. The student-led national initiative aims to provide a period of silent reflection for participants regarding the public health crisis of systemic racism. See more photos from the event here.
University President Eric Barron also issued a statement following the death of George Floyd. See President Barron’s statement here.
Penn State Health and College of Medicine take incidents of bias seriously and offer a number of resources to help those in the campus community who feel they have experienced bias. See information on reporting bias here.