YWCA honors faculty at leadership event

Three Harvard faculty members were recently named among the honorees of YWCA Bostons upcoming womens leadership event. Instructor of Public Health Practice in the Division of Public Health Practice at the Harvard School of Public Health Linda Clayton will be inducted to the Ys prestigious Academy of Women Achievers, while Edwin J. Furshpan, the Robert Henry Pfeiffer Professor of Neurobiology Emeritus, and David D. Potter, research professor of neurobiology, will receive the 2006 Racial Justice Award. The latter award is given annually to individuals who further the Ys goal of fighting for racial justice.

Established in 1995, the YWCA Boston’s Academy of Women Achievers celebrates women who have demonstrated outstanding leadership and achievement in their professional and civic lives. “We now have over 100 members in the Academy of Women Achievers,” said Marti Wilson-Taylor, president of YWCA Boston. “Each of these women is an amazing role model for all the young women and girls in our community, and we are very proud to honor the 2006 inductees for their embodiment of the YWCA’s mission to empower women.”

Clayton is the co-author of “An American Health Dilemma: Race, Medicine and Health Care in the United States, 1900-2000,” a two-volume history of the origins and consequences of racial and ethnic bias in health care.

Furshpan and Potter are being recognized for their pioneering work to encourage women and minorities to enter the life sciences field, according to Wilson-Taylor. “Their innovative contributions to this effort serve as the foundation for many of today’s initiatives to increase minority participation in science and health-related activities,” she said.

Beginning in the early 1960s, the two Harvard professors took an active role in altering the poor representation of minorities at the University by insisting on recruitment goals and leading efforts to reach out to secondary-level minority students. They also instituted minority-mentoring programs, including summer programs for minority undergraduates, recruiting trips, and development of programs in collaboration with historically black institutions.

All three Harvard honorees will be feted at the organization’s 12th annual event on June 6 at the Sheraton Boston.