Dr. Saundra H. Glover, born in the Four Holes Community of Orangeburg County, has been at the forefront of the public health practice and health equity initiatives for over 30 years. She is currently a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Department of Health Services Policy and Management in the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina (UofSC).
Dr. Glover served as the Arnold School’s first Associate Dean for Health Disparities and Social Justice. She was the first tenured African American faculty member in the school’s history and the first to be promoted to Full Professor. She directed the School’s Institute for Partnerships to Eliminate Health Disparities with a research portfolio that grew to $35 million under her leadership. With funding from the National Institutes of Health, she established a Center of Excellence in Community Engagement, Partnerships, and Research focused on reducing health disparities in cancer and HIV/AIDS with Claflin University. Dr. Glover also led a multi-year award from the Department of Defense to address health disparities in the military. In October 2021, Glover was appointed as the South Carolina State Director at the U.S. Department of Agriculture by President Joe Biden.
Dr. Glover has worked tirelessly to increase minorities in the biomedical field as an advisor and mentor to students and junior level faculty at the UofSC and in partnership with historically Black colleges and universities across the country. Her passion and commitment to achieving health equity in rural, minority communities remain steadfast as she continues to work to identify and address key social determinants of health that influence health inequities. These issues are personal for Dr. Glover, having lost her only sister at the age of 31 to breast cancer. Along with her work in public health, she and her husband owned a few McDonald’s franchises in the Columbia area. A summa cum laude graduate of the School of Business at South Carolina State University, Dr. Glover received her MBA and Doctorate from the UofSC. Married to the Rev. Samuel B. Glover, she has three children and four grandchildren.
Presented through a partnership between the South Carolina Department of Education and South Carolina ETV.
View the series on KnowItAll.org here. View the Dr. Saundra Glover Activity Sheets here.
Download the SC African American History Calendar here.
View the lesson plans and videos of each of the honorees on the SC African American History Calendar website.