MLK Jr. Day events in January: Health Sciences bring Dr. Mosoka Fallah and book dialogue to campus

 

 

January means the kick-off to the University of Michigan’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium. This year’s theme is “The Sounds of Change” and pays attention to auditory experiences of change: the cacophony, the hum, the whisper, the dialogue as we bring change into our world. Read more on the theme statement.

 

A number of events have been planned to celebrate the symposium, stretching from early January to the end of February and held across campus. The memorial keynote lecture features two speakers in discussion: Amy Goodman and Issa Rae. Amy Goodman is an award-winning investigative journalist, author, and syndicated columnist and host of Democracy Now!, an independent news program. Issa Rae is a writer, producer and star of HBO’s Insecure. She won the Shorty Award for Best Web Show for her series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.

 

The MLK Health Sciences Committee will host prominent speaker Mosoka Fallah, PhD, MA, MPH presenting “The Liberian Ebola Epidemic: Sounds of War and Sounds of Change.” Dr. Mosoka Fallah led the fight against the Liberian Ebola epidemic and will share his perspective as a front-line health responder on the effects of war on health care infrastructure, service provision, disease surveillance and disease management systems. He offers a review and assessment of the impact of community mobilization, novel service delivery and efforts to manage and reduce morbidity and mortality caused from the spread of the Ebola virus. 

 

The MLK Health Sciences Committee also invites students and community members to join in a book dialogue. This year’s book is "March Book One", a graphic novel by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell. It is the first of three books that tell Rep. Lewis’ story, and the story of other civil rights leaders, from his youth in rural Alabama, the beginning of the Nashville Student movement, to the height of the nonviolent protest movement for civil rights. 

 

The committee chose this book with the hope of inspiring students to think about activism in the health professions. Moderated by UMSN’s Dr. Patricia Coleman-Burns and typically attended by 50-60 people, the book dialogue attracts students from across campus and from the community. Although encouraged, attendees do not need to have read the book to participate.

 

The annual book dialogue provides the opportunity to discuss something timely and relevant, yet outside the normal scope of coursework for health science students. Last year’s book was "The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander.

 

For all event listings, see the Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives.

 

The School of Nursing is a partner in the MLK Health Sciences Committee and a sponsor of Dr. Mosoka Fallah’s visit and the book dialogue.