Black History Month: Marie Chisholm-Burns, PharmD, PhD, MPH, MBA
Institutional focus on forward progress
Marie Chisholm-Burns, PharmD, PhD, MPH, MBA, executive vice president, provost and distinguished professor at Oregon Health and Sciences University, was honored at the UArizona Women’s Plaza of Honor while a department chair at the UArizona R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy from 2006 to 2012. Marie A. Chisholm-Burns, PharmD, PhD, MPH, MBA, was not the first Black faculty member at the R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy, the oldest of the Health Sciences colleges, but she was the first Black department head. She began leading the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science in 2006 and made a big impression, earning a spot on the UArizona Women’s Plaza of Honor.
One of her biggest supporters, she said, was Ted Tong, PharmD, who met her at the Tucson airport on her recruitment visit. Dr. Tong brought Wilma and Wilbur Wildcat dolls for her then 3-year-old son.
“It was just a tremendous achievement to bring Marie from where she was at, which was the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy,” Dr. Tong said.
During her recruitment visit, Dr. Chisholm-Burns was introduced to other Black people on campus and in the community. Still, she acknowledged there were times she was lonely in Tucson. Coming from Augusta, Georgia, where more than 57% of residents are Black, to Tucson, where 5% of the population is Black, was difficult, she said.
She talked about the bridge her parents, who didn’t graduate high school, and godmother, who served in the New York State Legislature for 30 years, built for her to succeed in college and throughout her career. For her, success in equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) programs means always moving forward.
“Continuous quality improvement – that's something we use in health care all the time. When the George Floyd incident happened, every organization in the world wanted to put out a statement, ‘We support EDI. Let's go out and hire an EDI person. Let's do that.’ And then EDI efforts become like shoes in fashion. I don't want it to fall out of fashion because we still got a lot of work to do,” she said.
Dr. Chisholm-Burns left UArizona in 2012 to join the University of Tennessee Health Science Center as dean of the College of Pharmacy. In July 2022, she became executive vice president, provost and an endowed professor at the Oregon Health and Science University. In December, she was presented with the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Board of Directors’ Distinguished Leadership Award.
“I think about my colleagues and experiences at UArizona very fondly, so fondly that, when I was at UT, I probably visited the University of Arizona at least three times for talks. Every couple of years, I came back to UArizona. If everything lines up, in April I will be visiting for a couple of talks and to meet with new faculty.”
This article originally appeared on UA HEALTH SCIENCES CONNECT.