On Jan. 23, a small crowd gathered at 100 Church St. South to celebrate the launch of the Alderfer Scholars Program, named in honor of Clay Alderfer ’62 B.A., ’66 Ph.D., a psychologist and former Yale faculty member who devoted his life to studying intergroup relations with a special emphasis on race relations in the United States.
Alderfer, who taught at Yale from 1968-1992 and who died in 2015, studied the impact of race relations on organizational behavior. He believed a person’s social groups confer “advantages and disadvantages on individuals.” The success of any organization, he believed, is rooted in its recognition of the role race plays in building authentic and thoughtful spaces in which all can work.
Interested in understanding what enables individuals to flourish, Alderfer believed relationships are essential to creativity and growth. One’s relatedness to others is connected to one’s relatedness to the self, he said, and race-related tension presents a potential barrier in expressing and exploring each individual’s full potential. His expertise in organizational psychology led to a lifetime of groundbreaking work that studied intergroup relations and the practice of broadening society’s discussion of race and its effects on systems, including health care systems.
Yale alumni have raised $93,000 to fund the Alderfer Scholars Program, a project that would honor his commitment to racial justice, while also supporting his unyielding desire for scholarly research.
The Alderfer Scholars Program is an extracurricular educational program in health care equity based at the university’s Equity Research and Innovation Center (ERIC). Now in its inaugural year, the program will be offered annually to Yale undergraduate and graduate level students from any major or school who are working to combat inequity in the delivery of healthcare. Students look at healthcare through the lens of the historical and contemporary race relations affecting healthcare outcomes.
ERIC has two overarching goals — narrowing health and healthcare equity gaps by building and disseminating data from evidence-based research models, and supporting the research infrastructure of Yale faculty and community-based organizations.
Marcella Nunez-Smith is ERIC’s director and associate professor in Yale’s Schools of Medicine, Public Health, and Management. For her, examining intergroup relations within healthcare is essential to understanding race in the U.S. Health and health care practices are “a perfect microcosm from which we can gain a greater understanding around issues of equity,” she said.
“Race is at the heart of America’s pluralistic struggle,” said Nunez-Smith, “Everyone at Yale should look deeply into race relations research because it has wide-reaching ramifications on society.”
David Berg, a clinical professor at the School of Medicine and co-director along with Nunez-Smith, said, “The Alderfer Scholars Program is special because it engages students at every level, providing research guidance and career mentorship.”
Scholars are integrated into established research project teams at ERIC, while also being encouraged to carve out time to research their own questions in the field.
Mary Miller, one of six inaugural Alderfer Scholars, feels empowered by the mentorship the program provides. “What surprised me about ERIC wasn’t the rigor — that’s why I came — it was the mentorship piece. At a place like Yale, it was refreshing to be able to say I was unsure about something. Even in that uncertainty about a subject, I was encouraged because I remained curious.” She is a senior at Yale College majoring in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration. Miller’s research at ERIC focuses on how migration experiences influence health.
Hijab Khan, an Alderfer Scholar seeking a master’s degree in public health, studies chronic disease epidemiology, and is interested in health disparities in immigrant and refugee populations, specifically how one’s environment impacts health.
“The program offers us a nonhierarchical approach to leadership, as we are always being asked our opinions,” she said. “We are valued not just for our technical skills but also for our experiences and perspectives.”
For Nunez-Smith, the program is an exhaustive research training ground, the kind in which young researchers can come and find their way — the kind of space Alderfer would have been proud to see.
“The Alderfer Scholars Program is not a place in which a student’s trajectory is pre-determined by some set of criteria they have to meet to remain in the program,” she said. “We create the space and provide the rigor, but our students decide what pushes them so they might remain curious and innovative in the field. ERIC makes the space for each person to develop research in their own way because we want equity soldiers to emerge from our program. That’s the best way to honor Clay Alderfer.”