BMI Weekly News- June 22, 2020
BMI Weekly News
June 22, 2020
Note from Phil to all BMI associates
Our graduate student organization has made many important contributions to the quality of life in our department. About two weeks ago, they established a Social Justice committee, that has initiated several activities related to the Black Lives Matter movement, including inviting tomorrow’s seminar speaker, Dr. Jennifer Gomez, from the WSU from the Department of Psychology and the Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute for Child & Family Development. Dr. Gomez will help us better understand things that prevent equality in academia and help us make changes that can help us make the dream of equality a reality, within our departmental sphere, and in the wider world.
There are many ways social justice connects to our roles as scientists and educators. The role of graduate education is to help students to learn how to think and act independently in a scientific context. This includes learning how to work in the context of complex teams, be they in thesis and dissertation labs, or in the professional workplaces that will follow. It is important to understand the overt and subtle ways that race and perceptions related to race affect decision-making in areas related to our science, and choices that affect how we create and share opportunities for future success.
As an example of an unintentional bias that has for too-long been part of my teaching, a few days ago, a medical student wrote to ask that my upcoming lecture about virus infections that affect skin include photographs of viral skin rashes in patients with all skin colors, particularly Black patients. At that moment, my rash photo collection included two images of black skin, one of which is of the smallpox rash, which is caused by a virus that was eradicated 40 years ago. I went on a hunt for relevant images – it turns out that they are hard to find. A friend at CDC connected me to a friend at the University of Washington, who contacted people in their dermatology department, one of whom provided me some very practical guidance:
“When showing examples of skin conditions use multiple background skin tones. It is very important to avoid always starting with the less pigmented example as the reference point and teaching the appearance in other skin tones as the variations.
When describing skin color use physiology to describe color (less pigmented or more pigmented), you can also use color names to describe the background skin color (pale pink, light tan, light brown, medium brown, dark brown). These are better ways to describe the skin color than the Fitzpatrick scale. Avoid using food terms to describe skin color, e.g. chocolate. It is important to know that biologic descriptors including skin tones has been historically used in racist ways to classify and suppress people.”
The point is that my unconscious bias (or ignorance) had for years led me to short-change medical students on an important subject – the difficulty of diagnosing viral exanthems when the red rash that is readily visible on white skin happens on skin darker than mine.
Over the weeks to come, we will be exploring issues that might seem sociological and irrelevant to us, but actually connect directly to our roles and scientists and educators.
I hope you will all join us in our virtual seminar room tomorrow.
Phil
News
• Congratulations to the new officers of the BMI graduate student organization:
Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology Student Government 2020-2021
∙ President: Nathan Kelley
∙ Vice President: Madison Walton
∙ Graduate Student Representatives
∙ I/M PhD Rep: Madison Walton
∙ I/M MS Rep: Emma Graffice
∙ BMB PhD Rep: Cameron Roberts
∙ BMB MS Rep: Kaitlyn Martin
∙ Seminar Committee Members:
∙ I/M Division Rep: Dustin Farr
∙ BMB Division Rep: Kendal Muzzarelli
∙ Social Committee Members:
∙ Emma Graffice, Jillian Green, and Taylor Vensko
∙ Graduate Program Committee: Taylor Vensko
∙ Social Justice Committee (being developed and participation/joining is ongoing)
• THANK YOU to the outgoing 2019-2020 officers, Kendal Muzzarelli (Pres), Nathan Kelley (V. Pres), Graduate student representatives, Michael Pawlitz (I/M PhD Rep), Taylor Vensko (I/M M.S. Rep), Cameron Roberts (BMB PhD Rep), Kaitlyn Gordon (BMB MS Rep), Social committee members, Raniya Abdel Haq and Taylor Vensko, Seminar committee members, Madison Peterson (IM) and Cameron Roberts (BMB) for your outstanding leadership over the past year – they have done many things that have enriched the lives of everyone associated with the department.
• Congratulations to Emma Graffice for receiving 2020-2021 Master’s Scholarship!
• An article of interest shared by Dr. Tom Holland: Dr. Noel Rose was chair of the Department of Immunology & Microbiology before Dr. Montgomery became chair around 1983. Dr. Rose had the department name changed from Microbiology to Immunology & Microbiology, and he made autoimmunity the focus of the department. Dr. Rose hired Drs. Bob Swanborg, Yi-chi Kong, Roy Sundick, and several other immunologists who made the department an autoimmunity powerhouse for over 20 years. The Father of Autoimmunity: A Profile of Noel Rose
• Lab restart information:
• Warrior Safe Training: https://wayne.edu/coronavirus/warrior-safe-training/
• Campus Daily Screener: https://forms.wayne.edu/covid-19-screening/
• Submit return to campus questions https://forms.wayne.edu/return-to-campus-questions-comments/
• Review and adapt Start-up guidance from OEHS (link )
• Planning for Phase 2 of the restart is underway. It will probably happen before the end of June. Gloves,
hydrogen-peroxide disinfectant, and masks will be distributed to Phase 2 labs in advance.
• Reminder: Do not throw away the disinfectant bottles & sprayers because they are reusable.
• Campus and U.S. Postal Service mail delivery to medical school buildings has resumed. (Central Receiving)
Scott Hall: Central Receiving is back to delivering to labs. If they are unable to deliver your package, they will leave a note on your door that your package is in Conference Room 1140 Scott Hall for your pick-up. This room will be used as a temporary holding location for undeliverable packages. Once your package is delivered to room 1140, Central Receiving will be no longer responsible for your package. The door will be open Monday-Friday between the hours of 8:30am-5:00pm for package pick-up.
Lande: Central Receiving will deliver to your lab and if they are not able to deliver your package it will be returned to Shipping and Receiving for delivery at another time.
• If Parking Structure 4 is still closed, use the adjacent surface lot (Lot #75) for parking. Plans are being made to re-open the parking structure when the surface lot approaches its capacity.
Events
• Please join us Monday, June 22, 2020, 3:00pm to view BMB MS student Raniya Abdel Haq's defense of her thesis, "Investigating the Interaction between the N-terminal Domain and the Transmembrane Domain of ZntA from E.coli." Raniya is a student in Dr., Mitra’s laboratory.
If you are not part of the BMI Department, email awolak@wayne.edu to be added to the meeting.
If you are already part of the BMI Department:
- Log on to Microsoft Teams and click on the Teams tab in the left panel.
- From there, click on the BMI All (BA) team.
- Click on, “Raniya Abdel Haq Master's Thesis Defense” in area where it says that April Wolak scheduled a meeting.
- Click on, "Join Meeting." In the upper right-hand corner.
• BMI Seminar: Speaker, Jennifer Gomez, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute for Child & Family Development, Wayne State University. Title: “Anti-Black Violence & The University: How Institutional Courage Can Pave the Way for True Equality in Academia”. Tuesday, June 23rd, 2020, 11:30am-12:30pm. Discussion with students to follow.
Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82612841714?pwd=TFRyekdSSS9IZGc3OFN0cC9Ib1BlZz09
Meeting ID: 826 1284 1714 Password: 223199
Hosted by: Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology (tvensko@med.wayne.edu)
Links:
• Reopening information:
• Emergency financial support for students – WSU CARES Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund:
• Child Care for Employees and Students:
• Central Receiving Updated Delivery information:
• Academic and Registration Calendar 2019-2020: https://wayne.edu/registrar/registration/calendar19-20
• Academic and Registration Calendar 2020-2021: https://wayne.edu/registrar/registration/calendar20-21/
• Academic and Registration Calendar 2021-2022: https://wayne.edu/registrar/registration/calendar21-22/