Marilyn Willis Wins Chancellor’s Award For Saving LivesMarilyn Willis has devoted her professional life to improving the health of the underserved.
For more than 35 years, Willis, a staff member at the University of Illinios at Chicago School of Public Health, has been a community leader and health professional dedicated to preventing factors such as race, ethnicity and income from being obstacles to successful health outcomes.
“Simply put, Marilyn Willis is saving lives,” wrote Charles Hoehne, assistant director in the Office for the Protection of Research Subjects, in a letter of support for Willis’ CAPE Award.
Since 2003, Willis has been associate director for administration and community relations at the Center for Population Health and Health Disparities.
Funded by an $8 million grant from the National Cancer Institute, the center’s researchers study breast cancer disparities to learn why minority women are more likely to be diagnosed with advanced disease and to die from it when compared with white women.
They examine how a woman’s neighborhood, social network with family and friends, and issues of faith and fear come into play when breast cancer is suspected.
The center depends upon community-based participatory research. Willis has played a crucial role in mentoring and advising faculty on the importance of involving community partners from the beginning of the research process, soliciting community input and reporting research findings back to the community to build mutual trust.
“Marilyn has been the guiding force in developing and sustaining the community partnerships instrumental to the center’s success,” said center director Richard Warnecke, who has worked with Willis on various projects for 30 years.
Her administrative duties at the center include managing research project submissions, annual reports and pre-award processing of new grant proposals.
She also serves on the Social and Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Board.
Marilyn has helped to “build a model research protections program at UIC,” says Hoehne, her IRB colleague.
“She is the conscience reminding us all of our personal and institutional obligations to not only make our institution great, but also to make our community great.”
Willis began her career as an instructor at the Ohio State University School of Nursing, where she volunteered at a health clinic that provided free care.
The volunteer work led to a career as a liaison between academic, health and community organizations.
Willis went on to work for the ECCO Family Health Center Sickle Cell Screening and Education Clinic in Ohio and the Illinois Cancer Center in Chicago before joining UIC in 1993.
At UIC she worked with the International Center for Health Leadership Development and the Maternal and Child Community Health Science Consortium in the School of Public Health.
“I have been fortunate to be involved with programs, as well as people, who are exemplary to work with,” Willis said.
Her activities in the community have included serving on the executive board of the National Black Leadership Initiative on Cancer, the advisory committee of Cook County Hospital Women and Children with HIV Project, and the board of directors of Y-ME National Breast Cancer Information and Support, the Illinois Division of the American Cancer Society and the Heartland Cancer Information Service.
She was “stunned and humbled” when she learned of the CAPE Award, she said.
“I’m a private person. I honestly believe I do good work, but I don’t expect people to pat me on the back.”
The Chancellor’s Academic Professional Excellence Award (CAPE) Award honors outstanding academic professional employees. Winners receive a $1,000 salary increase and a $2,000 cash award. A campus wide committee of current academic professionals selects the winners.
-- Sherry McGinnis Gonzalez for UIC News
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