Minority Health Conference committee recognized with UNC Diversity Award

March 29, 2016

The Minority Health Conference committee, part of the Minority Student Caucus, which is housed in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, has received one of the Eighth Annual University of North Carolina Diversity Awards, in the “student organization” category.

The awards recognize individuals and groups who have invested time and energy to further diversity and inclusion at UNC-Chapel Hill and in the surrounding communities.

Giuliana Morales (left) and Anna Dardick served as co-chairs of the Gillings School’s 2016 Minority Health Conference, held on Feb. 26.

Planning for this year’s Minority Health Conference, “In Solidarity: The Role of Public Health in Social Justice,” held on Feb. 26, was co-chaired by Anna Dardick and Giuliana Morales, master’s students in health behavior at the Gillings School.

“Participating in the Minority Health Conference goes beyond the Gillings School,” Dardick said. “It allows students, faculty members and members of the community to engage with each other in a global conversation about inequity and injustice. Our keynote speakers and sessions demonstrate public health at its best – active, solutions-driven, cross-systems work that is rooted in communities.”

Morales said that she felt honored to be part of the student organization selected for the award.

“We’re so proud of the Minority Health Conference planning committee, an interdisciplinary team whose vision, hard work and dedication to social justice and health equity made the conference a tremendous success,” she said.

Other awardees were Hudson Vaughan, deputy director for the Marian Cheek Jackson Center in Chapel Hill (alumnus); William Barber, president of the N.C. NAACP (community member); Terri Phoenix, director of the UNC LGBT Center (staff); Rosa Perelmuter, professor of romance languages and director of the Moore Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program in the Institute for African-American Research (faculty); Frank Tillman, doctoral student in pharmacy (graduate/professional student); Sara Khan, public relations chair for the Muslim Student Association, and Jeremy McKellar, president of the Black Student Movement (undergraduates); and Carolina Postdoctoral Program for Faculty Diversity (department).

Dardick, Morales and other honorees will be recognized at a ceremony hosted by UNC Diversity and Multicultural Affairs on April 6 at 4 p.m. in the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center’s State Dining Room.

Note: Video of the April 6 awards presentation is available here.

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Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: David Pesci, director of communications, (919) 962-2600 or dpesci@unc.edu