Health Equity Course Celebrates 10 Years of Educating and Empowering Students

(February 26, 2025) — Over the last 10 years, about 150 students from across the university have taken “Health Equity Think Tank: Exploring Realities and Solutions,” an innovative course created by the School of Health and the School of Nursing that encourages students to take a solutions-oriented approach to health equity issues.

“We really wanted to look at determinants of health, what are the factors that are contributing to health inequities in our community, and we felt very strongly about the importance of having those conversations and the importance of looking at the research,” said Edilma Yearwood, PhD, RN, PMHCNS-BC, FAAN, professor of nursing at the School of Nursing, who co-leads the course. “But we also like the course to be very hopeful, and we wanted the course to center on creating potential solutions.”

Yearwood worked with Brian Floyd, MS, assistant dean and adjunct faculty at the School of Health, and nursing associate professor Ella Heitzler, PhD, WHNP, FNP, RNC-OB, to develop a course that would give students an opportunity to have deep conversations with a focus on the populations impacted by health inequities

In celebration of its 10th anniversary, Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington, D.C., wrote a letter of congratulations in February that expressed appreciation for the course, noting that it “promotes deeper understanding of health care disparities and provides tools for addressing them.

“Residents of the District of Columbia and beyond have benefited greatly from your dedication to training the next generation of health professionals to advance health equity,” Bowser wrote.

Drawing Inspiration from Leaders Past and Present

At “A Conversation: Inside the Health Equity Think Tank,” a February 6 event in W. Proctor Harvey Auditorium in the Med-Dent Building, students, faculty and staff came together to celebrate the course’s impact and learn from local African-American leaders working to promote health equity. The event was hosted by the Georgetown University Black Student Alliance in partnership with the Black Leadership Forum, NAACP and Black House in recognition of Black History Month.

Reflecting on the legacy of Carter G. Woodson, the historian and scholar whose work led to the establishment of Black History Month, Floyd, who served as moderator for the panel discussion, said attendees should draw inspiration from the contributions of Black leaders throughout history when thinking about how they can make their own contributions to improve health equity.

“This is an urgent moment in U.S. history to not only reflect on the lessons of the past but to commit to envisioning the next period of the nation’s evolution free of the inequality in various forms of the past years that have historically disproportionately affected those most in need,” Floyd said.

In a wide-ranging discussion, panelists spoke about the importance of engaging in dialogue with the community, collaborating with partner organizations and using data to inform decision-making.

Fathia Fasasi (H’27), a health care management and policy major, helped organize the event as part of the Black Leadership Forum and education chair for Georgetown’s student chapter of the NAACP. “One of the most memorable moments for me was hearing the panel’s thoughts on the foundation of trust when working as a team and serving vulnerable populations,” she said. “Having the opportunity to hear the thoughts and advice of experts in this field was truly inspiring.”

As chair of the health committee for Georgetown’s NAACP chapter and a health care management and policy major, Ruth Morgan (H’27) also helped organize the event. “The speakers did an excellent job of touching on values such as equity and trust — both of which significantly impact the social and medical work that they do outside of the clinical space,” she said.

‘A Unique Classroom Environment’

Lauren Beshaw (C’25), a biological physics major who took the “Health Equity Think Tank” course in spring 2024, was drawn to the class by the “think tank” aspect. “I really liked the idea of collaborative and creative problem-solving to address pressing issues in public health and health equity,” she said. “As a physics major, most of my classes consist of lectures and problem sets, so I was excited to take a class focused on a different way of solving problems.”

Compared to her other classes, “Health Equity Think Tank” was an invigorating change of pace for Beshaw. “We would have half of the class time to make PowerPoint in groups and then we would present the slides on the same day,” she said. “This was so different from the typical way presentation assignments are organized in most classes, and having a short window of time to prepare a presentation was a great way to focus us to think quickly.”

“Professors Floyd and Yearwood did a great job creating a unique classroom environment that was true to the ‘think tank’ part of the course,” Beshaw added.

Learning About New Topics

After reading the class description and finding that it closely aligned with her interests, Julia Strimling (N’26), a nursing major, contacted Yearwood to express her interest in taking the “Health Equity Think Tank” class as a sophomore during the spring 2023 semester.

“I was excited by the opportunity of participating in the class to help me on my journey to be a nurse advocate for all populations,” she said.

The course was an eye-opening experience for Strimling. “I remember our discussions of implicit bias, structural racism, internalized racism, macro aggressions, microaggressions, and the socio-ecological model of health and wellness,” she said. “I learned a lot about these topics that I had never been exposed to before.”

‘A Course That Georgetown Truly Needs’

Gillian Dixon (C’24), a government major with a minor in public health, learned about the “Health Equity Think Tank” course in the fall 2022 semester. “I was scrolling through my emails one night, saw a flyer for the course, and did a double-take because of how interesting it sounded,” she said.

“After every session we had, I would leave the class feeling so much more enlightened and knowledgeable than when I came in,” Dixon said. “Dr. Yearwood and Dean Floyd were an amazing duo to lead this course, and their engaging style enabled even the quietest students to want to pitch in and share crucial insights.”

For her final presentation, Dixon did research on how unethical distribution of healthy food resources in her hometown contributes to poor health outcomes for minority groups. Working on the presentation prompted her to reflect on her own experiences as a young Black woman who had experienced both childhood obesity and severe asthma, conditions that are impacted by lack of access to healthy food.

“Not only was I able to learn more, but I was also able to, and encouraged to, apply my own health experience to the course, which was incredibly valuable to me, and meant so much to me as a minority student who finally felt comfortable in doing so,” Dixon said.

“This is a course I would recommend to all Georgetown students,” Dixon added. “This is a course that Georgetown truly needs, and I hope that it continues to be offered for years to come.”

Kat Zambon
GUMC Communications