PRISM

PRISM: Pride · Respect · Inclusion · Support · Momentum

Join us as we celebrate and ignite discussions regarding diversity in the profession and the inequities in our healthcare system. The ASCLS Diversity Advocacy Council (DAC) invites you to participate in PRISM: Pride · Respect · Inclusion · Support · Momentum, which debuted in January 2021. As leaders and members, we understand that the most uncomfortable conversations can be the most educational, productive, and inspiring. With this in mind, the DAC organized PRISM, a series of virtual activities, including movie nights, book clubs, and conversations with featured guests.

All events will be held virtually via Zoom and are free to attend.

2023-24 PRISM Events

Movie Night: Neurodivergent

Friday, September 22, 3pm ET
Saturday, September 23, 6pm ET

The ASCLS Diversity Advocacy Council (DAC) invites you to attend a viewing party for the movie, Neurodivergent, to watch it together virtually with other ASCLS members.

Neurodivergent is a profoundly personal mixed media experience inside the ADHD mind of director Afton Quast Saler. Follow the filmmaker’s journey as she discovers her ADHD diagnosis during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. From Post-it notes to magnets, keys, pens, rubber bands, and receipts, the unorganized chaos of a junk drawer is the perfect representation of what Afton’s brain feels like every day.

The movie runs 25 minutes. There will be opportunities to chat during the movie, as well as a brief follow-up discussion at the end.

Download the 2023 PRISM Movie Night flyer and help spread the word to colleagues, students, and friends.

Book Club: The Diversity Gap

Join our online bookclub!

The Diversity Gap: Where Good Intentions Meet True Cultural Change

The Diversity Gap is a fearless, groundbreaking guide to help leaders at every level shatter the barriers that are causing diversity efforts to fail.

Combining real-world research with honest first-person experiences, racial justice facilitator Bethaney Wilkinson provides leaders a replicable structure to foster a diverse culture of belonging within your organization.

Check back for more details about dates for book club meetings.

Glenda Price Diversity in Leadership Award Online Fundraiser

January 2024

All proceeds will go towards the Glenda Price Diversity in Leadership Award. Every donation counts! Stay tuned for more details coming soon.

2022-23 PRISM Events

2023 Candid Conversation with Perry Scanlan

Dr. Scanlan was born premature weighing 2lbs 13oz. He was diagnosed with Little’s disease, specifically spastic diplegia, a condition affecting his lower legs and hips. He is chair of the Department of Allied Health Sciences at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. He is a professor with tenure and the program director of the Medical Laboratory Science and Phlebotomy Programs.

2023 Dynamic Discussion

Dynamic Discussion with Thomas Burke

Professionals with disabilities must make choices based on the realities of their own constraints, as well as societal restrictions and even discrimination. Thomas will discuss his personal experience of disability and how it shaped his career arc from a microbiologist to a specialized food safety expert. He will focus on how he used models of disability to form his identity as a person with a disability and take decisive actions that maximized his career goals in the life sciences. Themes will include disability theory, disability within DEI initiatives, and reasonable accommodation.

2022-23 Book Club

Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body

Growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt right; and as she got older, she longed for more stories that allowed disability to be complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling.

Writing about the rhythms and textures of what it means to live in a body that doesn’t fit, Rebekah reflects on everything from the complications of kindness and charity, living both independently and dependently, experiencing intimacy, and how the pervasiveness of ableism in our everyday media directly translates to everyday life.

Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another. By exploring this truth in poignant and lyrical essays, Taussig illustrates the need for more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity. Sitting Pretty challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we set to work to write an entirely different story.

2021-22 PRISM Events

2022 Dynamic Discussion: The ABCs of DEI: Advocacy from the Bench to C-suite with Debra BenAvram

Link to Recording

Join the leaders of the ASCLS Diversity Advocacy Council (DAC) for a discussion with AABB Chief Executive Officer Debra BenAvram, FASAE, CAE.

2021-22 Book Discussions

Demanding More: Why Diversity and Inclusion Don’t Happen and What You Can Do About It, by Sheree Atcheson

2022 Candid Conversations: Scott Aikey

Link to Recording

Kyle Riding, ASCLS Secretary-Treasurer, will interview ASCLS Past President Scott Aikey. Scott is an inspirational leader and openly gay man. During his time in ASCLS and the clinical laboratory profession Scott witnessed a multitude of changes in how members of the LGBTQ+ community were seen and cared for by others. His courage, compassion, and grace towards everyone he encounters has helped pave the way for a more inclusive organization that does not require someone to hide their true selves from their colleagues.

2021 PRISM Events

2021 Book Club Discussions

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson

2021 Health Disparities and Cultural Humility with Dr. Robin L. Eubanks

Dr. Robin L. Eubanks, associate professor at Rutgers University Biomedical and Health Sciences – School of Health Professions in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, an interactive discussion on cultural humility and health disparities.

2021 Candid Conversations: Glenda Price

Cheryl Caskey, past president of ASCLS, interviewed Glenda Price, first African American president of ASCLS. Glenda was considered a very inspiring mentor and leader to many. She was often the first African American or first women (and sometimes both) to hold a variety of leadership positions throughout ASCLS and academia. Some who knew her would say she was a trailblazer who spoke quietly, with honesty and measured words and tones.