Greetings to the Colorado School of Public Health community! I hope everyone continues to enjoy their summer and has had a chance to recharge. Personally, I spent two weeks in Japan blending physical challenges, like summiting Mt. Fuji at sunrise, with cultural experiences. I had the best tempura and sushi imaginable. I also met the public health leaders at St. Luke’s Graduate School of Public Health – a very impressive school that is currently pursuing their own Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) accreditation. I plan to collaborate with them on their application and look forward to deepening our partnership with them and other public health leaders in Colorado and elsewhere. In this issue, I will summarize key accomplishments from my first year as dean and share thoughts on how I see the next year unfolding.
Reflecting on my first year as dean, one of our most significant achievements was successfully steering the school through its seven-year reaccreditation process without a single criterion to address. I am proud of the way the faculty, staff, and students from three campuses came together to achieve what few schools, including those much more established than us, have ever achieved: seven- As a school, we handily demonstrated what we can do when working together. With this milestone behind us, and the process finalized next month, we are poised to innovate our curriculum and meet new public health challenges head-on.
Our school has grown across education, research, and public health practice. To support this expansion, we restructured the administrative team in the Dean’s office appointing Michelle Kuba as the assistant dean for operations and Travis Leiker as the assistant dean for external relations. Both are outstanding professionals and have boosted the capacity and status of the school. Michelle and her team run schoolwide functions, treating everyone with the utmost consideration. Travis connects regularly with constituents, elevates our visibility, cultivates relationships throughout the state, and is building out our school’s engagement efforts. In a brief time, their efforts made a visible and remarkable impact on the school.
Additionally, other leadership positions have been filled, including Associate Dean for Research, Dana Dabelea, MD, PhD, Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs, Madiha Abdel-Maksoud, MD, PhD, MSPH, Communications and Marketing Director, Christina Abel, and her new communications team, and the department
Chair in Environmental and Occupational Health, Beth Carlton, PhD, MPH. The energy and excitement these new leaders bring will guide our school through challenges with grace and excellence.
Looking ahead, strategic planning is underway, and I have written about our new vision statement: Public Health Elevated. Rising together for a healthier future for all alongside our new mission statement and new core values. The road map for the next five years is set to be unveiled in the fall. Your feedback will be essential as we aim higher and strive to achieve our goals together.
We have also reconstituted our advisory board. We are deeply grateful for the support from those who stood by the school since its inception. We are honored that some have decided to continue their participation on the board and excited to welcome new members who will bring their talents to the school. The first meeting of the new board corresponds with the near finalization of the new strategic plan – perfect timing. Members are listed elsewhere in this issue of the Newsletter.
In terms of philanthropy, we celebrated two new endowments. The Steve Berman, MD Endowed Chair in Global Health will be held by the new director of the Center of Global Health. This generous gift will carry forth the legacy of Steve Berman in the continued growth of the Center that serves people around the globe. The Judson Family completed their gifts to the Frank Judson Distinguished Professorship in Health Policy; the professorship will be held by Glen Mays, PhD, MPH, chair of Health Systems, Management, and Policy. With this endowment, Glen will oversee innovative projects aimed at policy change to improve health of Coloradoans. Scholarship gifts have also increased with new or renewed support from funding partners like CoBank, Pinnacol Assurance, Richard Hoffman, MD, and others--allowing us to recruit the best students and support them on arrival.
To show appreciation to our community, I hosted numerous events including the 15-year celebration with the founding funders of our school: Kaiser Permanente Colorado, Rose Community Foundation, Caring for Colorado Foundation, The Colorado Health Foundation, and the Colorado Trust. This was a great evening of celebration and optimism. My team and I have met with each of the funders following the event and look forward to their renewed engagement with the school as we move forward with our plans. And, this engagement is not just with our founding funders, but with all of you as part of our community—funders, research partners, allies, elected leaders, and others.
These are a few highlights of the past year; there are many more. As we celebrate these accomplishments, we also acknowledge the challenges ahead. Budget constraints and public awareness in public health present real obstacles exacerbated by lingering skepticism and political tensions surrounding COVID response efforts and decades long neglect in funding and support for the public health infrastructure.
Therefore, my guiding principle for the coming year is “Come Together” as a public health community with the school taking a prominent and leading role in this effort. This principle ties directly to our newly established core values of collaboration, equity, trust, belonging, spirit of possibility, and action and impact.
The ColoradoSPH community is committed to coming together. Internally, we are fostering collaboration across departments with a new budget model. We are creating volunteer events for our students and encouraging our faculty, staff, and students to have a greater presence on campus with in-person events. We commit to engaging more deeply with the community and we are committed to producing research and providing a well-trained and prepared public health workforce using methods grounded in theory, evidenced-based, and proven in practice. Importantly, our approaches will transcend ideological and organizational divides and be inclusive of all communities. We invite you all to join us in this effort; together, we can shape history and build a healthier future for everyone.
Thank you all for being part of the school community and your dedication to public health. Looking forward to another year!
