UMKC Spotlight

Graduate’s gift assists minority lectureship series

When Dr. Michael Weaver (M.D. ’77), enrolled in UMKC’s School of Medicine (SOM) in 1971, there were few minority students on campus. His docent, Dr. Marjorie Sirridge, introduced Weaver to Dr. Reaner Shannon (M.A. ’78, Ph.D. ’83) in hopes she could provide some cultural mentorship.

“At that time, it was nice to be able to talk with Dr. Shannon,” Weaver says of his mentor. “She was very well-grounded and gave me a realistic view of what to expect with my medical education.”

Weaver is just one of many people touched by Shannon’s wisdom and kindness, dispensed throughout her 30-plus years in the minority affairs office at UMKC’s SOM. When Weaver first met Shannon in the 70s, she was already promoting minority recruitment.

Both Shannon and Weaver have substantial achievements to their credit. In 1990, Shannon left the research lab at the SOM to direct the minority affairs office there and was named associate dean in 1998. Weaver was director of emergency services at Saint Luke’s Hospital for 16 years. Currently, he serves as one of three physicians on the Missouri State Board of Health, and is vice president of clinical diversity for Saint Luke’s Health system.

Their two stories intersected again this year when Weaver made a donor challenge grant to the Dr. Reaner and Mr. Henry Shannon Endowed Lectureship on Health Disparities, an annual lecture established by Shannon and her husband through an endowment gift to the SOM. Weaver’s gift was an effective incentive for other alumni and friends. In honor of Shannon’s retirement in March, sixty donors made gifts totaling $38,000.

“In a society ever in need of increasing levels of diversity education, this lectureship is our opportunity to draw attention to the disparities existing in health and health care, as well as to identify ways to seal the gaps,” Dr. Weaver says. “Our students and community need these opportunities.”

The lectureship has brought in such notables as former U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders and Gloria Wilder-Braithwaite, president and CEO of Core Health in Washington, D.C. According to Shannon, Weaver’s contribution will make a difference in the future of the lecture series at the SOM, advancing Shannon’s purpose of attracting top speakers on the topic of inequalities in health care.

“Dr. Weaver and I have a great working relationship,” she says. “He has been there all along, helping my diversity efforts.”