GU Health Systems Administration Professor Earns Campus Compact Award
OCTOBER 2, 2018 – Christopher King, PhD, FACHE, associate professor of health systems administration at the School of Nursing & Health Studies, will be recognized by Campus Compact for his community-based academic work.
King has earned the organization’s Mid-Atlantic’s Early Career Engaged Scholarship Award, which he will receive at a special ceremony on November 8. Committed to “the public purposes of higher education” and “[building] democracy through civic education and community development,” Campus Compact includes more than a thousand colleges and universities.
“This award honors a scholar for their outstanding research in curricular and/or co-curricular service-leaming which advances the field,” said Madeline Yates, executive director of Campus Compact Mid-Atlantic. “Your commitment to the research of the intersection of public health, medical care, and historically marginalized communities of color has truly set you apart from your competitors.”
Creating Opportunities
King says he is honored to earn the award.
“As a professor whose work focuses on social injustice, I believe it is imperative to create opportunities outside of the classroom that help students make sense of the world,” he says. “These experiences inspire compassion and humility, helping them constructively process contemporary manifestations of historically rooted inequities faced by individuals and communities across the globe.”
The professor, who also directs the school’s Master’s Program in Health Systems Administration, served as the faculty leader of a recent report that looked at health disparities among the African American community in Washington, D.C. The effort, which included students, was cited by the D.C. Council in a budget appropriation to fight such disparities in the city.
‘Esteemed Public Scholar’
Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service nominated King, and Andria Wisler, PhD, the center’s executive director, and Christopher Murphy, JD, Georgetown’s vice president for government relations and community engagement, contributed letters of support.
“Professor King is an ideal awardee for this recognition; he displays a compelling and innovative commitment to community-based and service learning through his undergraduate and graduate courses and he is an esteemed public scholar . . . ,” Wisler wrote.
Murphy added, “. . . Professor King has been an extraordinarily effective community leader and advocate who seamlessly straddles the worlds of community-based, service-learning research and public research/advocacy-based research.”
Advancing Health Equity
Among his efforts, such as the disparities report, King also wrote one of four selected proposals that will allow his department and the school to jointly recruit a renowned scholar as a part of Georgetown’s new Institute for Racial Justice.
“This is such a well-deserved honor for Dr. King,” says Patricia Cloonan, PhD, RN, the school’s dean. “Advancing health equity is a fundamental way that this school illuminates Georgetown’s Catholic, Jesuit identity. Dr. King advances this mission in concrete and creative ways, and I am so happy to see his work recognized.”