The Hubie Jones Lecture in Urban Health

The Hubie Jones Lecture in Urban Health is presented by the BU School of Social Work in honor of BUSSW Dean Emeritus Hubie Jones.

The 2025 Hubie Jones Lecture in Urban Health:
Our Moment to Address the “Taint of Race” in Health

Presented by Michael Curry, Esq., President & CEO, the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers

April 17, 2025 | BU Photonics Center & Zoom

Watch the recording:

In this year’s Hubie Jones Lecture, Michael Curry, Esq., president & CEO of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, which represents 50 health centers that serve over one million patients at 285 practice sites across the Commonwealth, discusses the lingering inequities in health — locally and nationally — as well as their origins, the efforts in Massachusetts to address them, and the threats presented by the recent shift in federal policy. The presentation also features an introduction to the Health Equity Compact, a collection of over 85 leaders of color in Massachusetts who are advancing a health equity agenda for the state, as well as the launch of the nation’s first primary care association-based Institute for Health Equity Research, Evaluation & Policy focused on emancipatory research.  

Boston University President Dr. Melissa Gilliam opens the event. Following the lecture, Professor Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, director of the Institute for Equity in Child Opportunity & Healthy Development at BUSSW, joins Curry for a moderated conversation and Q&A with the audience. 

1.5 free CE credits are available to social workers licensed in the U.S. If you wish to receive CE credits, please provide your license number in the registration form. Event attendance and successful completion of a post-event quiz are required to receive credits. 

Speaker: Michael Curry, Esq.

Curry brings over 35 years of experience and results in civil rights advocacy, health reform and health equity. Under his leadership, The Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, which provides clinical, advocacy, workforce, data, legal and compliance support for its members, has thrived. Doubling in size over the last four years with over 100 staff, the organization secured the largest contract in the association’s history at over $300 million to administer the state’s provider loan repayment program, MA Repay, and launched the nation’s first Institute for Health Equity Research, Evaluation & Policy, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization designed to promote and engage in community-driven research, evaluation, and public policy to achieve health equity.

Among his many leadership positions, Curry held several significant roles during the COVID-19 pandemic including co-chair of the legislatively created Health Equity Task Force and serving on the Vaccine Working Group, the Department of Public Health’s Health Equity Advisory Group, the City of Boston’s Health Inequity Task Force, and the City of Brockton’s Social Justice Task Force. The experiences led him to co-launch the Health Equity Compact, a collection of over 85 c-suite leaders of color aimed at driving health equity reform in Massachusetts. He is a graduate of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., New England Law Boston, and the inaugural class of the Executive Leadership Council’s Pipeline to Leadership Program.

Moderator: Prof. Dolores Acevedo-Garcia

Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, PhD is a professor of Human Behavior, Research, & Policy at BUSSW and director of the Institute for Equity in Child Opportunity & Healthy Development (IECOHD). Her research focuses on the social determinants of racial/ethnic inequities in health (e.g. residential segregation, neighborhood inequality, immigrant adaptation); the role of social policies in reducing those inequities (e.g. housing, anti-poverty, immigrant policies); and the well-being of children with special needs. She received her BA in Public Administration from El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City and her MPA-URP and PhD in Public Policy with a concentration in Demography from the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. 

About Hubie Jones

Dean Emeritus Hubie Jones (’57), who served as the School of Social Work dean from 1977 to 1993, helped shape Boston’s civic landscape for over forty-five years, playing an integral role in community organizations throughout Boston and within the city’s African American population.

As associate and executive director at Roxbury Multi-Service Center in 1967, his Task Force on Children Out of School (now Massachusetts Advocacy Center) published the report The Way We Go to School: The Exclusion of Children in Boston, which led to the first-in-the-nation enactment of two landmark laws that focused on special education and bi-lingual education.

In 2010, Jones received the Purpose Prize, a national honor awarded to select individuals over 60 carrying out encore careers and using their skills and experience to make a difference in their communities and the nation.

New Scholarship Fund Introduced in April 2024

The Dean Emeritus Hubie Jones Scholarship Fund was established by BU Board of Trustees member and Professor Emerita Cassandra Clay SSW’79. It honors Dean Emeritus Hubie Jones’ commitment to urban social work and his impact on generations of BU School of Social Work students and the Boston community. This scholarship will support macro practice students with a demonstrated interest in urban social work. Every donation to this fund moves us closer to our endowment goal of $100,000. Together we can help remove financial barriers for future BUSSW students building upon Hubie’s social work legacy.

To donate, click here.

Past Lectures