Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Convocation: Class of 2020 Graduates at Historic Moment for Public Health

As the world grapples with the greatest public health crisis in more than a century, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health will hold a virtual convocation to recognize the graduating Class of 2020 on Tuesday, May 19.

More than 1,000 graduates will be recognized in a pre-recorded ceremony featuring Ellen J. MacKenzie, dean of the Bloomberg School, the country’s #1-ranked school of public health; convocation speaker Cheryl L. Dorsey, global social innovation leader and president of the nonprofit Echoing Green; and Bloomberg School student and faculty speakers.

In her remarks, Dean MacKenzie will call upon the Bloomberg School Class of 2020 to be ambassadors for public health, noting that despite the urgency around the ongoing pandemic, the current recognition of public health’s value will eventually diminish. “Investments will be made and later chopped back. It’s happened before and it will happen again—unless we all step up,” says Dean MacKenzie. “We need ambassadors who will argue for public health and remind policymakers and the public that this essential field must not be ignored or shortchanged. The cost in lives ended and lives harmed is too much.”

Perhaps no other graduating class will feel the reverberations of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic more than the Bloomberg School’s Class of 2020. Students saw their chosen field thrust onto the global stage as a novel coronavirus upended life as we know it and highlighted the essential role public health plays in the U.S. and the world. The Bloomberg School’s Class of 2020 completed their final months offsite and online with renewed purpose and energy as to the power of public health.

Two years after the School’s founding in 1916, another pandemic gripped the world: the influenza of 1918. In her remarks, Dean MacKenzie will also touch on the School’s contributions to the national response at that time, including that of the School’s founding dean, William Henry Welch, who was on the frontlines of the 1918 pandemic as a member of the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War I. Dean MacKenzie will comment on the many things students and faculty have been doing in recent months to contribute to the global response to the pandemic.

The Bloomberg School Class of 2020 Convocation speaker, Cheryl L. Dorsey, will discuss how things cannot go back to business as usual once the virus is under control. Dorsey, who was born and raised in Baltimore, is president of Echoing Green, a global nonprofit that has supported nearly 900 social entrepreneurs around the world including first lady Michelle Obama, CNN contributor Van Jones, and the founders of Teach For America and One Acre Fund. Dorsey received an Echoing Green Fellowship in 1992 to co-found The Family Van, a mobile health unit launched to address racial health disparities in infant mortality rates in Boston.

The former physician and White House Fellow joined Echoing Green as its president in 2002. She has been recognized for her commitment to social justice as the recipient of several awards including the Pfizer Roerig History of Medicine Award and the Robert Kennedy Distinguished Public Service Award. In her Convocation remarks, Dorsey will call upon Bloomberg School Class of 2020 graduates to embrace fear and courage in order to reimagine a new world that addresses longstanding inequities that have been highlighted by COVID-19.

During Convocation, Dean MacKenzie will honor Dorsey with the Dean’s Medal, the highest recognition the Bloomberg School confers on public health leaders, for her contributions to the social entrepreneurship movement.

The prerecorded Class of 2020 Convocation, taped in late April, will recognize 1,023 graduates from 59 countries, including the U.S. Of these, 119 will receive doctoral degrees and 904 will receive master’s degrees. The final Class of 2020 graduate numbers will be released on May 20.

Media may quote from the comments and pull audio and video from the recording.

WHAT: 2020 Virtual Convocation for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

WHEN: Tuesday, May 19, 3:00 p.m.

WHERE: jhsph.edu/convocation

SOCIAL MEDIA COVERAGE: To follow and participate in social media coverage of the Class of 2020 Virtual Convocation, use the hashtag #JHU2020. Twitter accounts: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health @JohnsHopkinsSPH.

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