Interview with Dr. Lejeune Lockett, CDU Director of the Office of International Affairs( continued)
thing that I have often tried to do is to bring events or individuals to campus so that our students, faculty and staff can be exposed to people from other places.
I’ ve done that a lot in my career. When I was living in Mexico for 10 years, I worked at the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico as an international population fellow. I then stayed on to work there in research, and then went on to work for the Center for Global Education which is a study abroad program where we received American students to study in Mexico. With both of those, that was doing kind of what I do now.
Now, I’ m trying to create these opportunities for our students to actually go abroad and have that experience in another country like I was doing when I was receiving them in Mexico. And then also, I did that a little bit when I first went to Namibia as well, receiving American students there. So that’ s part of it. That’ s what prepared me for leadership. I know that area very well as something I did for about seven years of the international education piece. So that’ s something that’ s just been a joy to be able to bring that to my job. The other is, because when I was working for the Peace Corps, I was working for the federal government. I moved often in diplomatic circles, being a representative of the federal government. I was often in those meetings with USAID, the Peace Corps, the Department of Defense, and all of the other US federal agencies that are working overseas.
I communicated directly with the US Ambassador to make reports and also worked with other ambassadors and diplomats from other countries. That’ s another area that I feel comfortable in. That’ s part of the skill set that I bring to the University whenever I can. We’ ve had we’ ve had various diplomats come to the campus with a program called the Diplomats and Global Health Disparities series. Diplomats from other countries come to our campus so that we can learn about those countries, and then start to strategize on how we can actually partner and have academic and other types of business with those countries.
On the teaching side, in the Spring I teach two masters level courses focused on global health. In the Fall, I teach an undergraduate level global health course. Now, I lean on my experience working for the study abroad program where I was teaching Americans overseas, using experiential education with pedagogy. I try to do things to really immerse the students as much as I can, in the classroom, by bringing in people from different places.
In my classroom, it’ s not unusual for me to say,‘ Hey, tomorrow we’ re going to hear from a colleague who’ s going to join a classroom virtually from Bangladesh’ or from the Congo, Zambia, or Mexico to talk to us about X, Y or Z. They do that often. And that’ s a way to get them in touch with something beyond just the books.
There’ s a wide breadth of opportunities for helping regions address healthcare disparities. So how do you prioritize the work and focus on what service and relationships will provide the most impact?
One area that I’ m trying to develop is our study abroad opportunities for students. What I call clinical servicelearning opportunities abroad are limited. I tried to find ways that our students can make a difference when they’ re out in the field, but at the same time learn. Tapping into my networks through the various activities that I do and supporting faculty that may have networks that they might like to bring into this as well. This approach has created opportunities for students.
We’ ve tried to identify healthcare disparities in different countries that our students can learn from and have some tangible experience to help make a difference with certain populations. Understanding the health disparities, and target populations that we focus on at Drew. There are similar communities in other countries.
Over winter break we were in the Dominican Republic with our students, some staff, and faculty. We were also there last summer. After three consecutive trips, we’ re going to start a clinical rotation for the PA program in the Dominican Republic and hopefully, other clinical rotations as well. When we’ re in the Dominican Republic, for example, that’ s when we are absolutely trying to understand health disparities and help our students to make the connections to what they’ re seeing there and what they know to be true here at home.
There is always this reality that you may be looking at a problem that’ s in the Dominican Republic, but that
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 18