- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been provided by The Turrell Fund, supporting Reimagine Childcare.

Investors Bank.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Here when you need us most, now and always.

Summit Health a provider of primary, specialty, and urgent care.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Johnson & Johnson.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

United Airlines.

And by The Adler Aphasia Center.

Promotional support provided by Northjersey.com and Local IQ.

Part of the USA Today Network.

And by CIANJ, and Commerce Magazine.

[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi, I'm Steve Adubato.

Welcome to another compelling, important, and relevant program.

And we kick off with our long time and good friend, Michellene Davis, who has a new title.

She is the President and CEO of National Medical Fellowships.

Good to see you, Michellene.

- Great to be here, Steve.

- Tell everyone what the National Medical Fellowships is all about and why it matters now more than ever.

- Oh my goodness, thank you for the question.

So National Medical Fellowships is actually one of the first diversity organizations in the country's history.

It is an organization that really seeks to forward-progress the number of black and brown physicians in healthcare.

More than that, we are looking to ensure that they're going into health care leadership now.

It's more important than ever because, as we have seen, the structural inequities that lie in this society have really presented unique vulnerabilities for our communities.

And so what we know, what science has told us, what evidence has has presented is the fact that healthcare disparities are actually pushed back as a result of having more black and brown physicians, in particular of those with high cultural competence.

And so that is why NMF is here, in order to ensure that communities are healthy and well long after tomorrow.

- But the National Medical Fellowships, it's a foundation, correct?

- Correct.

- Okay, it provides dollars to whom and for what?

- So National Medical Fellowships has provided over the last 75 years over $40 million to over 32,000 alumni.

So our alumni are individuals who have been in medical school and are from non-traditional backgrounds, meaning those individuals of color who are from underrepresented communities in medicine.

And it is the exact reason and why we actually see so many minority positions right now practicing in medicine and it is the investment that we need for the future.

- The impact of COVID, we've had so many conversations over the years, not only about the inequities that you talked about, but social determinants of health, which still remains a core to who you are and what you do every day.

How has the COVID epidemic, as we tape on the 20th of July, just before we got on the air, we were talking about the Delta variant, who knows?

Here's the question.

To what degree has it impacted, exacerbated, you use whatever word you want to use, the work of your foundation?

- Well, I will tell you it has made it more relevant than ever before.

We already know about the historical inequities that have really created and what wound up being the perfect storm of society in order for COVID-19 to really ravage the most vulnerable communities.

However, one of the things that folks are missing is the fact that of the 3,600 healthcare workers who were wiped out as a result of COVID, in a report released in April of 2021, two-thirds of them were black and brown.

So not only are we not as prominently in the profession as we need in order to push back against healthcare disparities prior to the pandemic, but as a result of the pandemic, we literally have lost an entire generation of healthcare clinicians that we had gained.

It is exactly the reason why I came to National Medical Fellowships.

It is because simply issuing a statement or ensuring that there is a celebration of Juneteenth, while incredibly important, is not enough.

I really had to make certain that I was rolling up my sleeves and pushing forward the needle on health equity.

And that, my friend, is exactly what National Medical Fellowships have been doing quietly for 75 years.

It is time for us to be a hidden figure no more.

- To what degree can the Foundation and the physicians that you are training for today and beyond impact the degree of vaccine resistance that exists right now and moving forward in black and brown communities that is also just as devastating?

- Steve, I love that you asked the question.

It's evidence that, A, you've done your homework and, B, you certainly get it.

You know that the-- - Trying trying to get it!

Trying to get it.

(chuckles) - You get it, my friend.

And, look, most important, you haven't given up on trying to get it right, so incredibly important.

You know that that hesitancy is actually as a result of a variety of things, but chief among them has been the earned, I think it's really important that we acknowledge that, the well-earned level of high distrust of the medical community from communities of color.

That is because of the forced exploitation and experimentation and sterilization of certain groups in society.

Chief among them have been Africans displaced in America and utilized as in the study of adjusters and gynecology.

We know that African women who were enslaved were experimented on time and time again without anesthesia, as Dr. Marion Sims developed the science of obstetrics and gynecology.

And then he went off to his white counterparts and utilized anesthesia and performed these surgeries in their home after they had been perfected on individuals who were intentionally infected oftentimes.

We know about Tuskegee.

We know about Henrietta Lacks.

But most people sometimes forget that many of these issues, many of these abject sterilization efforts were taking place up to and through the 1970s.

So it's really keenly important- - Sponsored by the government.

- Sponsored by the government, my friend, and sanctioned by medicine.

Let us be clear here, right.

We owe an entire segment of society an incredible apology that they have yet to truly receive.

And when I say that, I mean not by verbal apology.

I mean an apology that is reflected in the way in which healthcare is literally developed and distributed and presented to them, right.

Have we, in fact, ensured that we haven't just wrung our hands and said, yeah, that's really bad, we haven't actually achieved health equity?

Or are we ensuring that every clinical, administrative, and operational decision go through a racial equity assessment in order to assess whether or not we are reinforcing historical structural inequity, historical structural racism?

And until that happens, we are gonna continue having this.

But what evidence has shown us is the fact that we know black babies live longer when they have black doctors, point blank, period.

This is what the studies have said.

Don't be mad at me.

This is literally what the evidence has portrayed, indicating black women live longer.

We keep talking about maternal mortality.

Woe is us, right?

And because of the fact that we continue down a path where we haven't actually bettered the outcomes of maternal mortality in this state in the last 30 years.

However what we also know is that evidence has shown us that black women tend to live longer when they have black doctors, so why are we not having more investment in ensuring the pipeline of black doctors?

That, my friend, is what NMF actually does.

When you talk about the vaccine hesitancy, it causes me to have to talk about our fantastic partnerships with the Janssen department of J&J- - Johnson and Johnson.

- Yeah, absolutely, and with their new announcement of our partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation, where literally they have given us an opportunity with a $100 million dollar grant to really increase cultural competency in clinical trials, but also to community center the voice, right, of that community that we're going to be treating and working with through ensuring that we are including a curriculum that hastens the pipeline of physicians, researchers, and investigators of color.

This is so incredibly important, my friend, in order to ensure that we are being able to say to the communities who are hesitant that, listen, not only are we taking that into account, but that we've had individuals from your community around the table when we were literally going through the clinical trial and developing the vaccine.

- Yeah, by the way, diversity in those trials, critically important, creating greater public awareness.

Michellene Davis has not lost any of the passion and the conviction she has for the work she's doing everyday.

We are honored to have her as a trustee of our board at the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Hey, Michellene, we'll have many conversations offline and on-air.

Thank you so much, my friend.

- Thank you.

I'm Steve Adubato.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're honored to be joined by Dr. Lynette Fraga who is Chief Executive Officer of an organization called Childcare Aware of America.

Good to see you, doctor.

- Hello.

Nice to be here.

Great to see you as well.

- This is part of our larger Reimagine Childcare initiative, all about public awareness around affordable, accessible quality childcare.

Tell everyone what your organization is as we put the website up.

- Sure, Childcare Aware of America is a national nonprofit membership organization that focuses all of its efforts on ensuring that parents have access to quality, affordable, accessible childcare.

And we do that through policy change, research, data, practice, wanting to ensure that our early care and education providers and our families are all supported in the best interest of making sure children and communities thrive.

- Doctor, how severely has COVID, as we tape on the 20th of July, it will be seen later, how severely has COVID impacted the childcare industry and more importantly, the children in it and the parents of those children?

- So, firstly, thank you again for focusing on this topic.

And the pandemic has severely challenged the childcare system.

Let's be clear, prior to the pandemic the childcare system was definitely fractured, if not at the breaking point.

And through the pandemic, because of the challenges that we've all seen globally, it's really created a crisis.

And we are really at the breaking point at this point.

Early care and education providers, unable to work, programs unable to stay open, the challenges of families having access to care, the expense of ensuring health and safety, all multiplies and exponentially contributes to a real challenge and concerning trends we're seeing even today, as we're continue to stay in the midst truly, in the pandemic.

- What's the broader impact of that for our nation?

- Fewfold.

Firstly, we have been saying since the beginning of the pandemic, "No childcare, no recovery."

If families don't have access to childcare, they can't go back to work.

If children don't have quality programs then they also are suffering in their ability to be able to thrive and with their readiness for school.

So it truly is a significant impact on our communities, on our employers, on our parents, on families, earning potential.

For example, one in five parents have shared that disruptions in childcare, disruptions in in-person schooling, have either decreased their hours significantly or have created the inability for them to actually be able to return to work.

That is severe, not only for the individual parents, but for the families and their ability to be able to support their own households.

It's really a challenge.

- But doctor, the impact has not been felt evenly across the board, it's been felt disproportionately.

And some people may be tired of hearing about it, but we're not tired of talking about it because it's horrific and it's embarrassing.

Talk about it.

- It is disproportionate.

There, again, have been existing disparities, not only for the ability for families to access care.

We're talking about care that is expensive, that many families are unable to access it, for many families.

For example, for single parents, it could be upwards of 50% of your income in order to pay for care.

Then layer on that, that early childhood educators themselves only make, for example, $12, 12 dollars-ish an hour as a median income nationally.

That is hardly a living wage.

Then you speak into the fact that there is that disproportionately women of color.

40% of the early current education workforce are women of color.

And most of the workforce of course, are women in early care and education.

So we are looking at this issue in terms of disparities and inequities, not only as a workforce but also in terms of access to care.

And there are childcare deserts all over the United States where families don't have access to quality care.

And that's really problematic.

- Excuse me for interrupting, doctor.

- Of course.

- Is it forcing a disproportionate number of women to literally leave the workforce?

- Yes, so what we've seen in 2020 is 2 million women have left the workforce.

And what we're also seeing is that for women who are leaving the workforce, we may not get back to pre pandemic levels until 2024, which is much longer than men returning to work.

So we're really seeing a disproportionate impact on many levels, for women, women of color, for families who have the inability to be able to access care, for the unaffordability of care.

So there really is a significant challenge multifold across the childcare system.

- So I want to ask you about the Biden administration and their policies around childcare, the tax credits, early childhood education, et cetera.

But real quick, compare New Jersey to the rest of the nation as it relates to the childcare environment and situation.

- So in New Jersey, you all are also experiencing challenges in terms of affordability.

It is significantly expensive.

Again, upwards of almost 50% for a single parent, 13% of a household income for a married couple with children, really significant.

- Not to mention our housing costs.

- Not to mention housing cost.

Well for many across the United States and New Jersey is no exception, childcare often exceeds the cost of rent or mortgage for your home.

So it really is a significant part of household income.

And in New Jersey as well, just like in the rest of the United States, there's a real struggle in identifying staff for programs to work at early care and education programs.

So many early care and education providers were not able to keep their jobs through the pandemic.

And many of them are not returning to our early care and education workforce, and staff shortages are also becoming a real problem.

So programs, absent staff, staff are what makes the magic happen in childcare.

And so absent staff were really running into a huge problem in terms of access to quality programs, not withstanding the challenges we already have with the expense associated with childcare.

- Before I let you go, the Biden administration, is the child tax credit?

- Mm hm.

The child tax credit.

- What is it?

And again, what is the impact?

- So firstly the child tax credit, the idea that 50% of children can be pulled out of poverty as a result of the child tax credit and dollars going to families with children to really help with the expense is incredibly beneficial to families.

And as we're looking at additional proposals that are on the table like the American Jobs Plan, which helps to contribute to the facilities and the structures of childcare programs like lead mitigation, for example, is incredibly important and that lives within the American Child's Plan.

And it's really important to, again, as I said before, the magic happens with early care and education providers.

So we have to pay attention to staff.

And that's where the American Families Plan comes in.

Really paying attention to the early childhood workforce and investing in that workforce for years to come.

And there were other congressional bills also out there that can also speak into the investment needed for a sustainable, changed system of childcare.

We can't go back pre pandemic in fact, because it was already fractured.

We want to build a better system as we move forward in service to our children and families so they can thrive.

- Well said, Dr Fraga.

Listen, we thank you for joining us and being part of our public awareness initiative, public education effort around childcare.

Not just in New Jersey, but across the nation.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- We'll be right back after this.

To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- He's back, yes, by popular demand.

It's been a while, but we him.

Dr. Gene Cornacchia is President of Saint Peter's University in beautiful Jersey City.

Good to see you, Gene.

- Good to see you.

Hey, listen.

Taping the program on the 20th of July, who the heck knows what's going to happen moving forward?

What is the game plan at Saint Peter's University, September 1?

- We are back in full operation as of September 1.

In fact, a little bit earlier than that here.

All employees are required to be vaccinated.

All students are required to be vaccinated.

All our facilities will be open.

We're ready to go, we're ready to launch.

- Biggest, I always, I've been asking you about leadership for a decade now.

Biggest leadership lesson you've learned in the last 18 months as we do this program is.

- Expect the unexpected all the time.

- All the time, - All the time.

Some things you can plan for, but so many things you just can't.

Nobody could've planned for this pandemic.

- Yeah.

So, let's get into a couple of areas.

One of the things I keep thinking about is the future of higher education post-COVID.

Meaning, because there are so many disruptions, because it was so hard to plan as you just said, do you think that higher education, particularly non-public higher education, the independent universities and colleges like yours.

Do you think that it's, well, you would know, you know the numbers.

Is it harder to attract students and make the case today?

- You know, it is harder.

In fact, pre-pandemic, we were already under some stressors, right?

I mean, there was this whole question about the value of higher education, and, you know, et cetera.

So, but now, more and more families, financially vulnerable, this is going to continue for a long time, this is not over yet for them.

They have the impacts of health, poor health as a result of the pandemic that's going to linger for a long time.

So it's put enormous additional stress on families and young people.

So I think we all have concluded that the future of higher ed generally is going to be one of increased stress and suffering for lots of schools and institutions, independent institutions as well will suffer.

I think it's, it's, you know, it's, it behooves us to make our case stronger than ever before.

- Saint Peter's University, and again, you and I have had so many conversations over the years on the air and off about the commitment to minority students, underserved students.

It sounds like such a cliche, but it's true.

But disproportionally affected by COVID, but disproportionately affected by COVID as it relates to their opportunities in higher education.

Fair?

- Fair, yes, very fair.

- And therefore, what has to be done to try, no, forget about rectifying it, to improve that terrible, those inequities.

- Yeah, I mean, there's just so much here, really, to unpack, but I would say one thing that would go a long way would be to increase student financial aid, particularly double the Pell.

That's a movement that's having- - Double the Pell.

Pell grants are federal grants.

- Federal grants, right.

So, yeah.

So, what we're trying to do is, I'm co-chair of a national task force for the Jesuit institutions to get Congress to double Pell to $13,000 maximum for students.

So, what that would do would be allows students from the lower socioeconomic groups, right, the ones we just talked about, to have an opportunity to achieve the education of their choice.

'Cause that's the advantage to Pell.

They can take that money wherever they want to go to find the school, the institution that best serves their individual needs.

- What's the appetite in Congress for that?

- You know, I think it's growing.

It's going to be a heavy lift, and we may not get it all done in one year.

You know, we may, we may get a gradual increase over the next few years.

But, you know, I do think people are starting to see, you know, we're in a moment, we're discussing nationally the question of equality, right, among the races, especially, but equality, justice issues.

And this is a key question of equity and justice.

- Yeah.

Let me ask you a question about education itself.

I mean, you're a political scientist by background.

You've taught, you teach, you love teaching.

I've been on your campus to do guest lectures.

I happen to teach at another university, and I've done it both in person and remotely.

In terms of learning, do you believe that remote learning, as it's currently structured, works to the degree it needs to work?

Teaches to the degree it needs to teach?

- I think that.

- I know it's a loaded question, Gene, but I, you know.

- You know, I would say that it can serve some students' purposes well, but probably not the vast majority.

For example, in our own experience, we find many graduate students can prosper with remote learning for certainly a heavy combination of in-class and remote.

But undergraduates, particularly the groups that we serve, that we were talking about, the underserved, the vulnerable, they need that one-on-one hands on, you know, hands-on kind of instruction, the interaction in class.

When I was teaching, I remember some of the most fruitful discussions I had with students were before class started, after class started.

Going to my next class with them walking alongside, or to my office.

Those are the interactions that just cannot happen virtually.

- Yeah, real quick.

Not too long ago, the governor announced 28, Governor Murphy announced $28.5 million going to nearly three dozen schools, et cetera, et cetera.

These are, a lot of these are independent universities and colleges.

Saint Peter's university got 500 grand, 500,000.

- I'm very grateful for it.

- Well, you gave the right answer.

- I'm very grateful.

(group laughs) - Thanks.

- Not that I'm greedy, but thank you Governor.

- Is there any but on that, Dr. Cornacchia?

Is there any but?

- No, no, no, I do think we're grateful, we're grateful.

- Okay.

Just to be clear.

By the way, you should check out steveadubato.org and listen to the other university and college presidents offer their perspective on public funding of universities and colleges.

Hey Gene, listen.

- You didn't ask me that question, though.

(Gene laughs) - Oh, oh, what other people got.

- I'm going to lay off that one.

Eugene Cornacchia is the, Dr. Eugene Cornacchia is the president of Saint Peter's University in beautiful Jersey city, New Jersey.

Gene, as always, it's been a pleasure.

It will not be this long again before we have you on talking about a whole range of issues.

And we wish you and the family at Saint Peter's University all the best.

- Thank you, Steve.

- I'm Steve Adubato, thank you so much for watching, and we'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by The Turrell Fund, supporting Reimagine Childcare.

Investors Bank.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Summit Health The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Johnson & Johnson.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

United Airlines.

And by The Adler Aphasia Center.

Promotional support provided by Northjersey.com and Local IQ.

Part of the USA Today Network.

And by CIANJ, and Commerce Magazine.

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