“I’ve always been interested in emotional resilience and the study of happiness,” Rose said. “The project was initially a meditation and mindfulness group, run by psych residents for medical students.”

Rose developed a 10-week class, splitting up sessions between cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness meditation to relieve anxiety.

“We had students do everything from visualizations, to writing down their dreams and goals and to writing letters of gratitude to the people who had a huge impact on their lives,” Rose explained.

Through her experiences with Joy Initiative, Rose received a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration minority fellowship grant through the American Psychiatry Association, which allowed the project to change direction.

“We learned that minority medical students really needed a voice,” said Alyse Ley, director of the Residency Education Program, who oversees the Joy Initiative. “So we began holding focus dinners last year, which was funded by the fellowship. … And those dinners act as an open forum and opportunity for students to voice comments and concerns, ask questions and implement change.”

Funding for the dinners has also come from MSU’s Office of Student Services, College of Osteopathic Medicine and the Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives, Ley said. Dinners are organized by Rose and the MSU Department of Psychiatry.

The dinners now include high profile speakers, such as Dr. Bill Anderson, an osteopathic physician who was a brother-in-law of Martin Luther King Jr. and a supporter of the civil rights movement, Ley said.

All medical students are welcome at the focus dinners, not just minorities, and second-year medical student James Dodge said the dinners can be a chance for students outside of minority groups to get a new perspective.

“I feel like a lot of my classmates who are white or don’t identify as minorities may not understand the day-to-day issues that people of color face,” said Dodge, who is also white. “Just to hear and be part of that discussion is really informative.”

Dodge is a member of a diversity committee with the Joy Initiative, which was formed with the intent of advising the deans and recognizing policies that would be beneficial to medical students of various genders, races and sexualities. While the dinners can be informative, Dodge said they also provide a chance to reach out to peers and university leaders.

“You can really feel a lot of solidarity form in our discussions,” Dodge said. “And from what I could tell, the administration was really listening, and they do end up trying to make policy changes to accommodate the people who need it.”