Beginnings and Endings: A Retiree’s Reflections on the CDC’s Undergraduate Public Health Scholars Program

Hindsight may or may not be 2020, but beginnings look different from the end of a public health career. A constellation of public health crises has brought attention to strengthening the nation’s public health capacity. Building the pipeline for the workforce we need is more critical than ever.

I was keen to contribute to recognizing the first 10 years of the CDC Undergraduate Public Health Scholars (CUPS) program, even if it meant that the pages of this supplement would runneth over. While other articles on CUPS in this special issue of Pedagogy in Health Promotion will provide descriptive and quantitative assessments of the who, what, where, how, and wherefore, my entry represents the personal reflections of a recent retiree from public health on this gem of a program, and will at least be brief.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic assured that our memories of crowded auditoriums packed with enthusiastic interns would prompt wistful nostalgia, I was a CUPS enthusiast. After experiencing the privilege of addressing such crowded auditoriums packed with eager and feisty new CUP scholars, the value of investing in undergraduate students from across the country at a pivotal time in their personal development became quite real to me. I looked forward to addressing the group, and always experienced provocative and intriguing questions from the couple of hundred young people assembled to be oriented before taking on their summer projects.

CUPS embodies so many key principles of strategic program design and execution. Competition for entry into CUPS among underrepresented college students has meant the summer scholars represent a highly selective cadre with strong interest and substantial potential for future impact in public health disciplines. Competition for institutional awards has provided assurance that host institutions are committed, provide outstanding educational strengths, and participate in a close-knit network of excellence for the scholars and mentors. Program leadership and participating mentors from the CDC benefit from the organizational and administrative contributions of the funded universities.

The CUPS program represents an innovative public–private partnership that incorporates academia and governmental public health and provides scholars with practice-based summer assignments. Through national orientation sessions and individual mentors, CUPS exposes the scholars to policy and program expertise that spans from local to national levels. Project-based learning means scholars develop ownership over their work and benefit from highly participatory summer experiences, while mentors with passion for health equity and diversity and inclusion help scholars navigate both their summer projects and their professional life plans.

The extraordinary vision and leadership of CDC’s Director of the Office of Minority Health and Health Equity, Dr. Leandris Liburd, who serves as the CDC’s senior executive sponsor for the program, has assured that there are strong pedagogical foundations to the program’s design as well as opportunities for meaningful mentor-student relationships and peer-to-peer learning. Dr. Liburd’s life-long commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equity and her reputation as an international leader in health equity programs offers the students a powerful role model and she has also served as a personal mentor to many.

My encounters in the auditorium before, during, and after speaking with the cohort of new scholars never failed to impress me. Students were apparently too young to be intimidated from raising their voice in the setting of a national conference and offered both questions and observations of general value, leading to lively and passionate conversations from the audience’s microphones as well as during the breaks. The energy of the participants was contagious. (This was of course before COVID, when contagion still had positive implications.) I believe the chance to discover public health early in their decision-making, when the major forks in the road still lie ahead, can be catalytic for these young people. Seeing the many disciplines that are compatible with public health careers at this early stage can also help scholars connect their passions with their own talents and skill sets.

The scholars’ experiences can also be catalytic for our nation. The racial, ethnic, gender, and geographic health inequities in our country have deep roots and will not be resolved overnight. Attracting and developing a public health workforce as diverse as the public we serve is essential. This workforce needs diverse skills ranging from data science to health policy and communication, from laboratory studies to field-based interventions. The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the public health crisis of racism underscore how important it is for our nation to attract, develop, and retain a diverse public health workforce that can work in communities as well as local, state, and national levels.

New funding is providing real commitments to the workforce development at local, state, and national levels. The tremendous stress that the public health community and individual workers have encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic means that intensified, sustained investment in a revitalized workforce is critical. The first ten years of CUPS provide an excellent roadmap to undergraduate training to help meet this need.

Starting off as elite scholars who have successfully competed for acceptance into a national program, CUPs alumni gain confidence as well as experience during their summer programs. The formal evaluation summarized in this supplement confirms that many alumni of the program’s first decade have continued to pursue advanced training and careers in public health and health care after their summer experience. I am confident that future leaders in public health were sitting in the audience in each of those crowded auditoriums I remember. From my perch as a recent retiree, I will be cheering them on.

“It is not possible for civilization to flow backward while there is youth in the world” (Helen Keller).