Dr. Jill Kalman Returns to Concordia to Keynote Dialogues on the Quad

Dr. Jill Kalman Returns to Concordia to Keynote Dialogues on the Quad

View Zoom recording from the 10-22-20 event here. 

Concordia College is delighted to welcome Executive Director of Lenox Hill Hospital Dr. Jill Kalman back to campus as the keynote speaker for a signature Concordia event: Dialogues on the Quad. Normally held in a packed Sommer Center, the October 22nd Dialogues on the Quad will be conducted via Zoom. Dr. Kalman was last on campus serving as commencement speaker in December 2019, when she memorably charged the graduates to "find your why."

Access to Healthcare will be the topic. Conversation points will include questions such as: Is healthcare a right or a privilege? Is denying healthcare non-humanitarian? How do faith traditions inform the conversation? How are systemic racism and disparities in healthcare access and outcomes linked? Can costs be reduced without sacrificing quality?

Dr. Kalman's keynote, Coronavirus Deepens Inequality, will be a highlight. She will address the fact that COVID-19 widened racial inequities in health, the workforce and education, creating for people of color greater risk of exposure and making plain underlying health conditions and lack of access to quality healthcare and testing. She will also explore whether COVID-19 has given us the chance to revamp access to healthcare. 

Now in its fourth year, Dialogues on the Quad provides a forum for students, staff, and faculty to hear from well-informed guests and campus community members on a variety of meaningful and timely topics, chosen to spark substantive conversations in lively Q & A sessions. President John A. Nunes initiated the annual event, observing that “Concordia is at its best in conversation.”

President Nunes will moderate the discussion. Panelists include Amanda Gallipeau, Health Law Manager for Empire Justice; Tania Hammock, VP of Clinic Operations for the Mental Health Association of Westchester; Dr. Karen Bourgeois, Dean of Concordia’s School of Health Sciences and Nursing; and Concordia College student Ezequiel Ayala-Santos, a Radiologic Technologies major in his junior year.