I wanted to share the good news that Geisel has received the 2023 Health Professions Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity Magazine for our ongoing commitment to building a more inclusive and belonging community. I’m exceptionally proud of Lisa McBride, our Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, and her staff in the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement for everything they do to support our students, and our entire community for embracing the importance of diversity in our research and education programs.

I want to echo President Beilock’s message that while we do not yet understand all the implications of today’s Supreme Court’s decision, I do know that it in no way diminishes our commitment to fostering a diverse and welcoming community for our faculty, staff, and students.  

We want to echo President Hanlon’s statement condemning the violence in the Atlanta area, which left eight people dead, including seven women, six of whom were of Asian descent. While this tragic event is still being investigated, we do know that throughout the pandemic, there has been a significant increase in violence and racism against Asians and the Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) community in the United States. We must also recognize that violence against women is a serious ongoing problem in this country. 

UPDATE:  The Valley News has published an obituary for Dr. Nugent, which you can find here.

Please see the note below regarding the passing of William C. Nugent Jr, MD, Emeritus Professor of Surgery, of Community and Family Medicine, and of The Dartmouth Institute.   

Dan Rockmore, director of Dartmouth’s Neukom Institute for Computational Science, invites faculty to submit their ideas of what the new Wright Center for the Study of Computation and Just Communities within the Neukom Institute could be and what issues, challenges, questions, connections (internal or external) that they could imagine included within the new center.

We should all consider the following: What would it mean for Geisel to be a national leader in racial fairness, equity, and justice in all of our missions of science and education? How might we get there? We cannot speed to quick fixes aimed to placate that are not long-term solutions, but we can commit, from this point forward, to working towards this vision as a priority for our school.