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The first event in the Brooklyn College Presidential Lecture Series featured internationally recognized pancreatic cancer surgeon, researcher, and health care pioneer Selwyn M. Vickers, M.D., FACS—the president and CEO of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, who assumed his new role on September 19, 2022.
Held during Black History Month, this public lecture was both timely and informative, as Vickers discussed health care as a social justice issue, as well as career opportunities for students, with President Anderson.
“Discussing the challenges that many face regarding health care with such a prestigious, devoted, and accomplished pioneer as Dr. Vickers allows us to share valuable insight about real societal issues with our campus community,” said Anderson. “Health care disparities affect many members of our extended Brooklyn College family. As a regional anchor institution, we are pleased to open up this event to the public as we know it will be a powerful and productive discussion.”
This event was presented in partnership with the New York Jobs CEO Council.
Selwyn M. Vickers, M.D., FACS, is the president and CEO of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He assumed the role on September 19, 2022.
Vickers is an internationally recognized pancreatic cancer surgeon, pancreatic cancer researcher, and pioneer in health disparities research. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars. He has served on the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Board of Trustees and the Johns Hopkins University Board of Trustees. Additionally, he has served as president of the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract and the Southern Surgical Association. Vickers is the immediate past president of the American Surgical Association. Vickers continues to see patients. In 1994, he joined the faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) as an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery, where he was later appointed to professor and the John H. Blue Chair of General Surgery. In 2006, Vickers left UAB to become the Jay Phillips Professor and chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Minnesota Medical School.
While at Minnesota, the lab of Vickers and Ashok Saluja, Ph.D., was instrumental in the development of an injectable cancer drug, Minnelide, which is licensed and entered phase II trials for the treatment of pancreatic and gastrointestinal cancer in 2019. He is a patent holder and has a limited financial interest in Minneamrita Therapeutics, LLC, the pharmaceutical company licensed to develop the drug.
In 2013, Vickers became senior vice president of medicine and dean of the UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine, one of the largest public academic medical centers in the United States. In his role as dean, Vickers led the medical school’s main campus in Birmingham as well as its regional campuses in Montgomery, Huntsville, and Tuscaloosa.
On January 1, 2022, Vickers assumed the roles of CEO of the UAB Health System and CEO of the UAB/Ascension St. Vincent’s Alliance, while retaining his role as dean of the UAB Heersink School of Medicine. The $5.8 billion, 11-hospital UAB Health System is anchored by UAB Hospital, the eighth-largest hospital and the fourth-largest public hospital in the United States, with 1,207 beds. The UAB Health System also includes UAB Hospital-Highlands, UAB Callahan Eye Hospital, and has management relationships with Medical West, Baptist Health Montgomery, Russell Medical, John Paul Jones, Whitfield Regional, Northwest Regional Health, and Regional Medical Center of Central Alabama hospitals. The system also has affiliate relationships with Infirmary Health in Mobile and Northeast Regional Hospital in Anniston. The system also includes Cooper Green Mercy Health Services and the UAB Health System/Ascension St. Vincent’s Alliance. In addition to serving as CEO, Vickers served as chair of the Alliance Joint Leadership Committee and the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation Board.
Born in Demopolis, Alabama, Vickers grew up in Tuscaloosa and Huntsville. He earned baccalaureate and medical degrees and completed his surgical training (including a chief residency and surgical oncology fellowship) at the Johns Hopkins University. Vickers completed two postgraduate research fellowships with the National Institutes of Health and international surgical training at John Radcliffe Hospital of Oxford University, England.
Vickers and his wife, Janice, who is also from Alabama, have been married since 1988. They have four children.
Since 2016, Michelle J. Anderson has been the 10th president of Brooklyn College. Under her leadership, the campus established the Brooklyn College Cancer Center, obtained AACSB accreditation for the Murray Koppelman School of Business, initiated the “We Stand Against Hate” program, diversified the faculty and college leadership, opened the Immigrant Student Success Office, launched the Healthcare Career, enriched the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, earned top rankings for the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, and opened the state-of-the-art Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts and the Don Buchwald Theater.
As president, Anderson prioritizes mentoring across the campus. She launched the Tow Mentoring Initiative, which allows students to engage in transformative research opportunities with faculty mentors, and which has become a signature campus program. At the same time, under her leadership, the campus Alumni Affairs and Career Services offices have coordinated efforts to develop alumni mentors to help students enter the work world.
Anderson has stewarded Brooklyn College through the COVID-19 pandemic, working hard to protect the health and safety of the community. In development, she focused on student support, raising funds for emergency grants, completion grants, internship stipends, mental health resources, the food pantry, and other critical student services.
Anderson has led Brooklyn College through a time of excellent recognition, including:
Anderson holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she earned the Chancellor’s Award for outstanding academic achievement. She earned a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was notes editor of the Yale Law Journal. Following law school, she clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for Judge William A. Norris. Anderson has been dean of the CUNY School of Law, professor at Villanova University School of Law, and a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center and Yale Law School.
Anderson is a leading scholar on the law of rape and sexual assault. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including the New York City Bar Association’s Diversity and Inclusion Champion Award. She has also been honored by the Feminist Press with the Susan Rosenberg Zalk Award and by the Center for Women in Government and Civil Society with a Public Service Leadership Award. In 2017, Brooklyn Legal Services gave her a Champion of Justice Award.
