Community Faculty: Exemplifying the CDU Advantage
Community Faculty: Exemplifying the CDU Advantage
COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
Prof. Lucas- Wright
The acknowledgement that local communitybased resident experts can play a vital role in carrying out the CDU mission was ingrained from its origins. Caffie Green, Lillian Mobley, Mary Henry, Sweet Alice Harris, and Ted Watkins were among the many historic figures that helped to bring the University to the Watts-Willowbrook community.
These activists lobbied and agitated for a sustained effort to improve local healthcare conditions. They were aware of the attendant disparities that faced their neighborhoods. Some of them even served on the early advisory boards that shaped the University ' s goals and operational direction. Their tireless work set in motion the collaboration that ultimately spawned the Community Faculty track at CDU.
Initially, the prospect of including communitybased experts as CDU faculty was an innovative, though novel, idea. 1 According to Aziza-Lucas Wright, now Co-Chair of CDU ' s Division of Community Engagement in the College of Medicine,“ the initial objective was to identify significant community leaders who could assist CDU in building a bridge for traditional faculty to better understand how to serve a community with a multiplicity of needs,” she noted. Community faculty were understood to have direct knowledge of what was happening in the community and that information was vital to the work of the traditional academic medical practitioner.
The relationship was spurred by the work of Dr. Loretta Jones, founder / CEO of Healthy African- American Families. CDU leadership decided that she should become a part of the University; and how could that effort be extended to other qualified people?
Essentially, it was understood that many departments could benefit from Dr. Jones ' expertise and guidance. According to Dr. David Martins, Co- Chair of CDU ' s Division of Community Engagement,“ the point was to blend significant community entities with CDU ' s mission so that the University could live out its purpose by understanding community people and their issues.”
In Dr. Martin ' s way of thinking, the concept of fostering greater understanding of client needs is a vital part of the healing process.“ The idea of healing existed long before there were doctors. This idea of being a ' god of health ' is an illusion. The Community Faculty track is CDU ' s idea of a community / campus partnership, realizing that no academic institution has a monopoly on knowledge.”
Dr. Martins
There was a practical motivation to the formation of the Community Faculty track.“ The emphasis on transforming the research approach occurred because someone in authority at a funding agency did a review and said that ' we ' ve spent a lot of money on science and health research projects. Trillions of dollars; and it has not transformed anybody ' s health much.' It is clear that we ' re not doing something right.”
“ Our community faculty program is an example of one way to implement the partnership effort. It
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