Equity in Action Series | The Commission Journey: Moving Past the Past

G. Rumay Alexander, EdD, RN, FAAN, noted presenter and consultant, is currently a professor in the School of Nursing, Assistant Dean of Relational Excellence at the Adams School of Dentistry and formerly the Associate Vice -Chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion/ Chief Diversity Officer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the end of 2019, she completed her presidency of the National League for Nursing, the national voice for nursing education which has over 40,000 nurse educators and 1200 schools of nursing. In February of 2021, she became the American Nurses Association’s Scholar-In-Residence and advises the National Commission to Address Racism in Nursing and a year later the Senior Equity Advisor. She is a board member of The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit watchdog organization that serves as a voice for health care consumers and purchasers and the nation’s premier advocate of transparency in health care. Included in her nursing career are appointments to several transformative healthcare initiatives addressing diversity, equity and inclusion including the Commission of Workforce for Hospitals and Health Systems of the American Hospital Association (over 500,000 copies of the report have been distributed nationally and internationally), the Tri-Council of Nursing, and the National Quality Forum’s steering committee which developed the first national voluntary consensus standards for nursing-sensitive care. As the Senior Vice President for Clinical and Professional Services at the Tennessee Hospital Association and their first vice president of color, she designed and executed one of the nation’s first minority health administrators’ program, Agenda 21, which exists to this day. As a result, over 250 minority health care executives are serving and stewarding healthcare in the nation. Her passion for equity of opportunity and penchant for holding courageous dialogues to steward and promoting human flourishing is evident in all her encounters and characteristically describes her as a prophetic and caring leader.