Congratulations!
Michigan State University Appoints Dr. Kent Key as Associate Chair for Community-Partnered Departmental Administration
The Community Based Organizations Partners (CBOP) would like to congratulate Dr. Kent D. Key, PHD, Associate Professor at Michigan State University (MSU) College of Human Medicine, on his new appointment as Associate Chair for Community Partnered Institutional Administration in the Inaugural Charles Stewart Mott Department of Public Health.
Dr. Key has been employed at MSU since 2016, initially as the Director of the Office of Community Scholars and Partnerships. He has worked on several community-based research projects as Principal Investigator (PI) and Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI), and he is currently the PI on a National Institute of Health (NIH) funded research project focused on “African American Family Health History”. Additionally, Dr. Key is the Founder and Executive Director of the nationally acclaimed, Flint Public Health Youth Academy. He is also, the Founder of the Community Ethics Review Board, as well as the Flint/Genesee Social Determinants of Health Solutions Lab. For the past two years, he has served as Commissioner and Chairperson of the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Commission for the Genesee County Board of Commissioners.
More recently, Dr. Key recently stepped into the role of Interim Executive Director of the CBOP, after the death of our “beloved servant”, Dr. E Hill De Loney, on May 9, 2024.
In 1990 several community-based organizations began meeting with the representatives of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and Flint Campus along with the Genesee County Health Department to discuss community health needs. The representatives of the community organizations realized that a collective community voice was needed to reinforce the community-identified objectives. This group of combined community and academic representatives formed what became known as “the Broome Team” and met regularly to discuss and strategize regarding issues in the community. Eventually, the community partners felt that they needed a formalized structure, and in 1994 the Community Based Organizations Partners (CBOP) was formed. CBOP began addressing community health issues, providing training to other community organizations, and engaging in research efforts in collaboration with academic partners as well as the Genesee County Health Department. During that year, Dr. De Loney led these efforts and through the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program, was matched to an energetic young man attending Kettering University majoring in engineering, that young man was Kent Key. After being introduced to public health by Dr. De Loney, Kent Key decided to complete a Master of Public Health (MPH) program. Additionally, Dr. De Loney hired him as her
Deputy Executive Director. Mr. Key deciding that there was more to learn and accomplish and went on to complete a doctorate in public health while working at the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR) at the University of Michigan. In 2016, as the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine Flint campus was forming, Dr. Key was recruited to head the Office of Community Scholars and Partnerships, while he continued his duties as the Executive Deputy Director of CBOP, which has become a leading powerhouse nationally in the area Community Engagement in Public Health, particularly but also in Research nationally as well.
Dr. Key has the complete confidence of the CBOP Board of Directors. With his leadership and guidance, CBOP will continue to grow and be a beacon light to “the Beloved Community”, near and far.
Again, thank you for accepting this role, as we move forward. "The Universe in us, calls out to the universe in you, we are one!"
ABOUT
COMMUNITY BASED ORGANIZATION PARTNERS
Community Based Organization Partners is an umbrella organization comprised of CBOs
(Community Based Organizations) whose united task is to educate, train, research and
mobilize underrepresented, underserved, and under-resourced grass root communities to achieve equity in health and social justice priorities.
"There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about."
– Margaret J. Wheatley
