Lipscomb community to celebrate legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. through service, conversation
MLK Day is an opportunity for the Lipscomb community to reflect on his leadership, legacy and service
Kim Chaudoin |
Lipscomb University will commemorate MLK Day 2021 with a combination of service and a gathering of diverse community leaders.
MLK Joint Day of Service • Monday, Jan. 18
In honor of the legacy and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Lipscomb University will once again join with universities across Nashville for the annual MLK Joint Day of Service on Monday, Jan. 18 from 1-3 p.m. CST.
For more than a decade college students from Belmont, Fisk, Lipscomb, Meharry, Nashville State, Tennessee State University, Trevecca and Vanderbilt, as well as other area colleges and universities have joined together in service to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This year students will have the opportunity to volunteer their time for a virtual service project.
To start the day, students will gather virtually for an opening session, beginning at 1 p.m., that will include a welcome video from college and university leaders as well as a keynote featuring Dr. James Hildreth, president of Meharry Medical College and member of FDA COVID-19 Advisory Task Force. The session is free, but students must register here in advance to receive the link to participate.
Students will be able to choose from among four service opportunities. This year’s projects include: a letter writing project with Greater Nashville Regional Council, a creative ideas project with Turnip Green Creative Reuse, a social media posts project with Project Transformation and a cards of encouragement project for Churchwell Magnet Students. Participants must register here in advance for the service project of their choice. After registering, participants will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the service project Zoom room.
The day concludes with a reflection session at 2:30 p.m. at the same Zoom link as the opening session. For more information, click here.
Community Forum: “Keeping Our Community Healthy” • Tuesday, Jan. 19
A special virtual event honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will take place on Tuesday, Jan. 19 at 6:30 p.m. CST. The forum, themed "Keeping Our Community Healthy," will explore health disparities in today’s community. The virtual event is free, but viewers must pre-register here to receive the program link.
Speakers will include:
- Jacky Akbari, founder and national board chair of the nonprofit National Organization for Workforce (NOW) Diversity, a private, public and non-profit collaborative created to provide insight and leadership training to advance workforce diversity initiatives. NOW Diversity presents trailblazing events such as the Healthcare Workforce Diversity Forum. She is currently founder and managing principal of Worthington Advisory.
- Chris Gonzalez, Ph.D., director of Lipscomb’s marriage and family therapy master’s program and the Lipscomb Family Therapy Center. The LFTC provides high quality mental health and relationship care services to the community at a reasonable cost; it is also a training facility for graduate students in Lipscomb's master of marriage and family therapy program.
- Venetra Jones, DDS, is a Mt. Juliet-based practicing dentist who graduated from the School of Dentistry at Nashville’s Meharry Medical College.
- Klarissa Jackson, Ph.D., faculty member at Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina, researches drug metabolism and toxicology to better understand the mechanisms and risk factors of adverse drug reactions and improve drug safety. Jackson received the Ph.D. in pharmacology from Vanderbilt University and previously served on the Lipscomb University faculty as assistant professor.
In today’s atmosphere as the globe fights the COVID-19 pandemic and recent events have laid bare many equity gaps in the nation, health disparities is a particularly relevant topic for the MLK Day observance, said Norma B. Burgess, coordinator of Lipscomb’s MLK event and associate provost of diversity, inclusion and special initiatives.
“We’re excited to present the celebration this year in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. The legacy continues as we think about the work that was done and continues to be done in our society,” she said.
“It is especially relevant this year as the year 2020 brought many challenges to the community economically and physically. The inability to gather with others, business closures and deaths from an unexpected pandemic allowed families to grow closer in some ways but also brought the inability to provide the closeness that families regularly share.”
The MLK forum will allow participants to examine “where we are, where we hope to be and to celebrate the fact that we made progress through some of the events that challenged us,” Burgess said.