As we celebrate the excitement of a new academic year, we turn our spotlight onto the Health Sciences LEAP program. We spoke with Nora Wood, Ph.D. (she/her), Director and Professor of Health Sciences LEAP and Erica Rojas, M.P.A. (she/her/ella), Health Sciences LEAP Instructor to know more about this wonderful pathway program and how folks can get involved.
Erica Rojas: I am a first-generation college graduate. My family immigrated to the United States in the late 1990s. We made a quick stop in California and then the Olympics brought us to Salt Lake City, and we have been here since then. I have family in other states but my mom and my sister are still here in Utah. I went to the University of Utah for my undergraduate in Political Science and in Latin American Studies. I took a break and went back to get my Master's in Public Administration, took another break, and I'm now doing my doctoral degree in Education, Leadership, & Policy. I'm a doctoral candidate, which means I am done with qualifying exams. And prior to this in terms of professional life, I have been at the University of Utah for 12 years now in different administrative and student-facing capacities. Outside of school and professional life, I have a four-year-old who keeps me very busy!
Nora Wood: I have been an educator most of my career. I was an English teacher because my undergraduate degree was in English. We then started our family, and I earned my master’s degree in Political Science at the University of Utah. While raising my family, I went on to earn my Ph.D., also in Political Science, and have been teaching here for a number of years. While I was a Ph.D. candidate, I taught Political Science here at the U, at Salt Lake Community College, and at Westminster. Once I earned my Ph.D., I secured a full-time position with LEAP and have been teaching in the LEAP program for over ten years now. When Dr. Carolyn Bliss, the former Director of LEAP, retired she asked me to take over her position as Director of Health Sciences LEAP, and I have been doing that for 5 years.
Nora Wood: In coordination with Dr. Rodriguez’s vision, this year we have doubled the number of students moving into the program. We usually had about 20 to 25 students, but this year we have 41. The students enter the program as sophomores. The class has a Community Engaged Learning designation, and this means we help the students find a volunteer opportunity with a community partner. This helps them start on the path of accumulating needed volunteer hours. We also expose them to a number of different health care professions. Spring semester we help them find a lab here on campus in which to volunteer. During their junior year, they work in this lab and are paid for that work through Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. They end their junior year presenting their research at the Undergraduate Research Symposium, and upon submitting an abstract of their research, they will graduate as a University of Utah Research Scholar. Their senior year consists of helping them with personal statements, graduate entrance exams, and letters of recommendation.
My vision for the program is to continue at about this level. Of course, we want them to become health care professionals, but first and foremost, we want these underserved, first generation, and marginalized students to graduate. That is our biggest goal. Now, if they choose to go on to graduate programs in health care, that is absolutely wonderful.
We also want to create a sense of community that will continue until graduation. We want them to know that there are professors and advisors on campus who really care about them, and we want them to make new and lasting friendships with fellow students.
Erica Rojas: I would tend to echo what Dr. Wood said. In addition to that, I envision our students seeing themselves as part of this community and see themselves as belonging––that they belong in higher education, they belong in the health system, and we instill in them the sense that they can do whatever they set their mind to and that we continue to provide the type of opportunities that they need in order to be successful in whatever field they choose to follow. So that is my vision, which echoes what Dr. Wood said, that we continue to provide those learning opportunities that are going to set them onto that path for them to achieve their academic, professional, and personal goals.
Erica Rojas: Part of it is definitely that, in some ways, I am a product of the LEAP program. I was not in Health Sciences LEAP, but I was in LEAP when I was an undergraduate student. Being first-generation, not knowing what a syllabus looked like and what was the purpose of it – it was my very first class in college, and it was so transformational and really gave me those tools, truly, to be successful and helped me figure out higher education. So, when this opportunity came up––I believe in the mission of LEAP. HS LEAP was another facet but still under the big umbrella of helping students from marginalized backgrounds, first-generation college students, to make it through graduation and on to their careers in health science, so that was one of the draws. Definitely, the great camaraderie that I have seen in the LEAP program, working with Dr. Wood, knowing that I would have a mentor––I had been in the classroom as a student for many, many years, but as an instructor, I have had not as much experience, and Dr. Wood has been really kind in showing me the ropes. And that was really important for me to feel that I was going to have a mentor to help me throughout.
Nora Wood: Several years ago, when I was finishing my Ph.D., I attended a meeting of academic advisors. At that point, I was in charge of all of the academic advisors for the College of Social and Behavioral Science, as well as the academic advisor for Political Science. At that meeting Dr. Bliss did a presentation on the LEAP Program and I thought, “This is just what I want to being doing.” LEAP professors are career-line, which means we teach a lot and to be honest, I love to teach. When people ask me why I do what I do, I always go back to Joseph Campbell, who was a great cultural philosopher, who argued that in order to live a meaningful life, we should follow our bliss. We should engage in a career that we love. Teaching is where I am meant to be. I love to see the light bulb go off in a student’s eyes. I love to make freshmen and sophomores uncomfortable so they can start to think for themselves. So, when I heard about the opportunity to teach full-time in a program here at the University of Utah that really valued teaching, with small classrooms, and building relationships with students, I thought, "This is the place for me.”
Erica Rojas: I think it benefits them in many ways. One is that community building, that sense that they are welcome into a community and building this community right. They're with peers and instructors that are going to be with them for the next two or three years. And it sets them onto a different path on a different trajectory. I think for many of our students, right, many of the things that we do in our science leap, such as helping them find places to volunteer, finding a lab to do research, and I don't think that many of our students have pictured themselves or imagined themselves doing research in our lab, right? Or what that looks like. So, LEAP really helps them get those tools to be successful in accumulating those experiences that then they can leverage to go into graduate school into the professional world. I think it's that the building of skills, of knowledge, of experiences, of community and also that, I hope that they know that you know, they have cheerleaders who are rooting for them and who believe in their potential into now and to truly trust that they are going to make sure that they're going to accomplish their goals.
Nora Wood: I think Erica just touched on everything we really try to do. When someone asks me your question, I always think of the success stories of our students and some of them are just remarkable. I would like to share one with you:
I had a student who was just admitted to the College of Pharmacy here at the University of Utah. She is first-generation and comes from the Navajo reservation. When she was a sophomore, a doctor came to speak to the class. He went around the room and asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I will never forget her answer. She sat on the front row and answered, “I’m going to be a pharmacist.” He looked at her and said, “Oh, how interesting.” She replied, “Yes, I will be a pharmacist. I’m going back to the reservation, and I will be a pharmacist for my people.” She was adamant. She worked very hard and did everything right. At our closing dinner last spring, she was there with three or four of her aunts who came to support her. They were so proud of her because she was graduating from college. Now, she had not been admitted to pharmacy yet, but those women came up to me and said, “We are her aunties and we have made sure that she is graduating, and she will be a pharmacist.” Sure enough, she is in the College of Pharmacy and continues to say that she wants to be the pharmacist that her people can trust. She will tell you about a number of family members who died of COVID because they were afraid of the vaccine. They didn’t trust the white doctors and pharmacists. She knows that once she graduates, she can make a difference because she will be trusted.
That is just one success story, and I could go on and on. The program is providing opportunities for these students that they might not have otherwise.
Erica Rojas: Can I add one more thing? I hear myself saying "help" a lot, and help is with this experience and help to gain those skills. But we truly believe in the students that they have that wealth of knowledge and that they have that potential and capacity to make it on their own. And like Dr. Wood said, it's not like we are the ones who are fully responsible for their graduation. Absolutely not. But we're here to guide, to provide resources, to demystify what higher education, and to an extent what the health field is. And so, I hope that our students feel like their voices are being elevated and that they're not being dismissed. And I think that that is the other thing is that a lot of our students in the K-12 system have felt dismissed of their lived experiences, of their cultures. And so, when you had a doctor coming into the classroom and saying like, "Oh, yeah, you think you're going to be a pharmacist? Sure, sure." That is very dismissive. And we're there to say, "You are going to be a pharmacist. If that is what you want to do. It's not going to be easy, but you can do it because you have that potential to do so, and we're here to help you along the way."
Nora Wood: My first piece of advice would be, it doesn't matter if you change your mind, and you decide you don't want to be a health care professional. Stay with the program because of those things Erica just talked about. Stay with the program, and we will do everything we can to help facilitate your graduation. A lot of times, students enter the Health Science LEAP program, and later learn, after taking a few of the prerequisites, that they really don’t want to be a doctor or a nurse. At this point Erica and I can sit down with them and say, I know and that is fine. However, if you stick with the program, we can provide a number of opportunities, like community engagement and research that will benefit you no matter the profession you choose.
Erica Rojas: Not to sound cliche, but take that leap of faith and trust the process. So, it's very much in line with what Dr. Wood says, stick with the program, trust that process, trust the program in that we are there to see you succeed in it and guide you through this process. There are going to be times of discomfort, and that is okay because there's growth; you're going through many milestones of growth. And so that would be my advice, to stay with the program and trust the process. And again, whatever their personal, professional, academic goals, they will achieve those, but stick to it. It's not going to be easy, and that is okay; that is part of that.
Nora Wood: For me, it is because we have a real rich diversity of students entering into HS LEAP and continuing with the program. The reason I do what I do is I feel like I am just one little cog in trying to make this country––I'd like to say world, but I'm working on the country right now––a more equitable place for young people to grow up in. Ten years ago, I would have said, “We have a Black president, we can do these wonderful things.” Right now, however, I am fearful for the future. Just look at current race relations, marginalized people, people who don't look like we do, who don't speak like we do, who have different customs than we do, or who have a different sexual orientation. I hope I'm just one little piece of providing a kinder, more equitable place, a more equitable country for these students to grow up in.
Erica Rojas: For me, some of what Dr. Wood mentioned as well. And I think for me, too, it's that I deeply believe in the power of education, believe that education is a right, not a privilege, and everyone should have that access, and not only the access but feel that they are supported. I touched a little bit on the experiences that individuals from marginalized backgrounds have in the K-12 classroom, and our experiences and our voices matter. I hope that me being in the classroom, in front of the classroom, that in some ways also inspires students to say, I can also become a factor in the future, I can also go on for my Ph.D., I can also do all these amazing things that I've been told that I cannot accomplish, but wait a minute, I'm seeing someone who looks different, who looks like me, or who has an accent like me in the classroom––maybe I can start my journey in exploring a different path for myself.
Nora Wood: We are working very hard, and Guillermo is working very hard so that upper campus, the Health Sciences campus, has a better understanding of what the HS LEAP program is. We have several PIs working with our students in their labs, and in the future, because of the expansion of the program, we are going to need even more. We are also looking for more PIs to present their research to our students. We want to be better known throughout the university.
Erica Rojas: Our students are the future of health care. They are going to be changing how things are done with so many lived experiences from the communities they are coming from. Health Sciences LEAP is the future of health.
If you would like to get more information about Health Sciences LEAP and how you can get your department, division, or academic unit involved in supporting this pathway program, please reach out to Guillermo Cuevas, UHEDI Programs Manager at guillermo.cuevas@hsc.utah.edu
26 South 2000 East, 5750B HSEB Salt Lake City, Utah 84112