Scholarship Gift Tells Others They Belong

Patricia D. Kennedy-Scott ’78 is a trailblazer in the healthcare industry, but she did so quietly and without fanfare. And she likes it that way.

“I’m not one that seeks the limelight,” she said recently. “What I’m really proud of is not necessarily what I did, but how I did it.”

What she did was to help to create the emerging field of healthcare leadership, and how she did it was greatly influenced by her mother, mentors and others along the way who looked beyond her gender and race to see an insightful thinker and a caring heart.

Now retired, Kennedy-Scott is investing in the leaders of tomorrow through scholarships for African-American female students at the Detroit Mercy School of Law, among other places through a combination of estate and other gifts.

When she applied to University of Detroit School of Law fresh from earning her undergraduate degree in English from University of Michigan, Kennedy-Scott was put into a summer program for minority students. That irked her.

“It reminded me of the David and Goliath story from the Bible,” she said. “But not the part everyone thinks about. When David went out to the battlefield, to find out more about Goliath, his brother was not happy to see him and basically told him you don’t belong here, you’re not good enough.”

She shared her feelings about the summer program with her mother, who told her to reframe her thoughts on it. “If someone wants to give you a gift, take it,” her mother said. So, she did.

“David tuned out those negative voices and tuned out the doubt and that’s what I did,” she said.

After graduating from the School of Law, Kennedy-Scott began her career with the Michigan Attorney General’s office, with the Department of Health.

“At the time, healthcare as a discipline in the law was just emerging,” she said. “There was a great demand for people who understood Medicare and Certificates of Need and other things like that. It was a new area, and it was challenging. I was breaking new ground and it was exciting.”

Yet through that excitement, she felt the weight of other people’s assumptions about her, based on their biases.

“The weight was not new to me,” she said. “That is the weight I had carried my whole life, so I had built up muscle mass to be able to handle it.”

She found mentors who helped her grow and before long was recognized as an up-and-comer nationally. Former President Bill Clinton appointed her to serve on the Health Care Reform Review Committee.

After a seven-year stint as vice president of Group Health Services of Puget Sound’s Network Services Division, she went to Cleveland to serve as regional president for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Ohio, where she was responsible for ensuring the delivery of care and health plan services to customers in northeast Ohio, while anticipating and making plans for industry trends. She retired in 2013.

Kennedy-Scott’s career has been noted for her direct and focused, yet caring and approachable leadership style. She serves as a role model and mentor for many people and sets a high standard for community service. She has served on the boards of many institutions, including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cuyahoga Community College and the YWCA, which honored her as a Woman of Excellence in 2005. In 2006, she received the prestigious Athena Award, which honors those who have helped women reach their full leadership potential.

She and her husband established the Patricia D. Kennedy-Scott and Glenn D. Scott Endowed Law Scholarship to benefit female African-American law students. It’s a gift inspired, again, by the story of David.

“I think my gift says to African-American women that they do belong,” Kennedy-Scott said. “I want to invest in you because you are a good investment. I want to help fend off some of the burden and reinforce that, as a group, we belong.”

To learn more about how you can create your own legacy, contact Teri Carroll at (313) 993-1262 and carroltl@udmercy.edu today. There is no obligation.