Scholarship Honoring Nation’s First Transportation Chief Aims to Pave New Roads for Medically Underrepresented Minority Students
PNWU’s Alan Stephenson Boyd Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Excellence Endowed Scholarship aims to honor the Boyd family’s lifelong commitment to creating a fairer, more just world for all.
Alan Stephenson Boyd’s life was defined by a singular driving question: How can I be of service? That motivating impetus never faded throughout his 98 distinguished years of life, from heroic moments in the cockpit of a C-47 ferrying paratroops into Normandy on D-Day to over a decade of service in the White House, and all along the integrated national network of transportation he was pivotal in creating.
Today, Boyd’s service-driven ambitions are paving new roads and blazing new pathways for the future of the country he loved so deeply. In addition to the revolution of America’s railway networks and mass transit centers, Boyd’s name will now be synonymous with revolutionizing community health.
The Alan Stephenson Boyd Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Excellence Endowed Scholarship, which was established in 2020 with a donation from Alan’s son Mark T. Boyd and Mark’s wife Nancy Lomneth, aims to honor another of Alan Stephenson Boyd’s lifelong commitments: equity for all.
“He valued inclusion, diversity, and equity,” explained Mark. “This scholarship honors his interest in creating a fairer, more just world, while also honoring the Stephenson-family legacy of equity in education, which my father learned from his mother Elizabeth and shared with his sister Jean.”
“So many people loved and admired my father-in-law, and want to support something that he valued,” explained Lomneth. “When we thought about what that was, two answers came to mind: the fair treatment of all people, and the fact that his grandson was training to become a doctor who’d serve those in need. With that, we knew a scholarship promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion at PNWU would be a perfect way to honor him, allowing others to continue supporting his lifelong service.”
“When my parents approached me about the needs at my school, I was so grateful they were willing to look at this area of need,” explained Alan T. Boyd, grandson of Alan S. Boyd and a third-year osteopathic medical student at PNWU. “I’m a little embarrassed to have a scholarship in my name, just to be clear, but I’m so grateful for the work it is doing, and for the fact that my grandpa’s name is attached to it.”
The Boyd’s connected with PNWU’s Office of Development and Dr. Mirna I Ramos-Diaz, PNWU’s Chief Diversity Officer, to begin framing the endowed scholarship, ensuring that all disenfranchised groups could benefit. “We weren’t just targeting racial inequities, but gender and learning disabilities, and really anything leading to underrepresentation in medicine in general,” explained Alan. “I really think my grandpa would be proud of it.”
“My father spent his life seeking opportunities to be of service; to make a positive change,” Mark added. “Today, as so many others continue that same push in their own lives, we hope this scholarship will serve as an example of how our shared work can help to propel us toward true equity. After all, this is about more than just one scholarship for one individual — this is a perpetuating force capable of creating countless ripple effects throughout historically medically underrepresented communities, both in terms of economics and health. The more people who join in to make this ripple, the more powerful the wave of change will be.”