Each Spring, for a few short weeks, UCSF Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs (GEPA) offers first-year-graduate students a unique set of mini-courses focused on an essential topic in the science field. This year, the course focused on literature and scholarship at the intersection of race, racism, and social justice, with a new set of courses set to build on the topic in 2026.
This past spring, Daphne Scott-Henderson MS, BSN, RN-BC, and Berty DC Arreguin, PhD, developed and co-taught “Grad 219: How Health Science Research Institutions Perpetuate Racism and Health Inequities in Black, Latinx, and LGBTQ+ BIPOC Populations,” a course that examined science research institutions in the United States, offering a look into systematic inequities and their impacts.
“This is something that those hard science students don’t get in their regular classes,” said Dr. Scott-Henderson. “We wanted to discuss the historical racism that has historically been present in research and then cover LQBTQ+ research projects.” She says after taking Grad 219, students go back to the lab with a deeper appreciation where cells under a microscope come from and a more critical eye on data sets.
“With us, the students got a sociological perspective and an intersectionality perspective. And I think they appreciated that,” said Dr. Arreguin. “Even though you’re learning about subjects that could be maybe a bit intense, we made the environment a welcoming one.”
In Grad 219, students are tasked with evaluating assigned readings critically before class and to discuss the themes through presentations and group discussions. These types of courses, programs, and initiatives aim to integrate student success into curriculum, enhance the learning and research environment for equitable access, and align students’ personal and professional identities.
The 2025 offering also included a course taught by basic science and social science PhD students. This year, Alexzandria Simon in the History of Health Sciences program and Halle Young of the Medical Anthropology program co-taught “Medicalizing Inequity.” The topics covered included access to abortion, gender affirming care, and pain and perception.
“We gave students who wouldn’t otherwise have access to this material, but whose work touches on medicine, an opportunity to think about how their work might engage in race or might engage equity,” said Young.
Students told the two instructors that they left the course feeling that they would be participating in school very differently after being exposed to these new perspectives.
Young and Simon feel strongly that these courses are invaluable to first-year students.
“We are in a space where we are very lucky to do the work we do. This course opens yourself up to new perspectives and then you realize you have a responsibility not just in the lab, but as a human being,” said Simon.
The next series of the mini-courses is expected to begin next spring, with registration beginning this December. For more information, visit the Grad 219 homepage.