At their annual conference in November, GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBT Equality (formerly Gay and Lesbian Medical Association) presented the LGBT Health Policy & Practice program at The George Washington University with a 2019 Achievement Award. In presenting the award to founding director and Div. 44 member Stephen Forssell, PhD, at the ceremony in New Orleans, fellow Div. 44 member and GLMA president-elect Nick Grant, PhD, commented that: “this interdisciplinary graduate level certificate program has an applied focus aimed at expanding the capacity of practitioners to offer improved and highly effective services to LGBT people, improving health outcomes and closing health disparities.”
In his acceptance remarks, Forssell stated “The mission of the program from the very beginning has been to achieve real and actual progress. We used to talk about our program as ‘a do tank and not a think tank’. Research is … important but we are about putting that research into … action”.
The GLMA Achievement Award was created in 1990 “to recognize outstanding contributions to the community.” Other past organizational recipients include the Institute of Medicine, The Fenway Institute, Callen-Lorde Community Health Center and the National Center for Transgender Equality. Past individual honorees include HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Attorney General Janet Reno, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, Bishop Gene Robinson and Div. 44's own Charles Silverstein. Coinciding with the GLMA award, the LGBT Health Policy and Practice program was designated as a Gainful Employment academic program by the U.S. Department of Education, making program students eligible for federally guaranteed student loans effective in the fall of 2019.