Community Partners Awards 2008
Our 2008 Community Partner Star award winners. Click on the photo to enlarge.
Each year, the school’s leadership chooses up to two organizations and one individual who have shown exceptional dedication to the mission of the school for community Partner Awards. The 2008 recipients of these awards are the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), cultural Wellness center, and Minnesota commissioner of Health, Sanne Magnan.
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
The MPCA has a long history of interaction with the SPH. Over the past 25 years, the state agency has collaborated on studies of how chemicals in the environment affect human health, and it has been the site of SPH student internships. It was under the auspices of the MPCA that the Minnesota Technical Assistance Program (MnTAP) was established in the school. For more than 20 years, MnTaP has served as a primary source for pollution prevention strategies for small businesses in Minnesota and has saved millions of dollars for the state.
Cultural Wellness Center
The school’s partnership with the Cultural Wellness Center (formerly known as the Powderhorn Phillips Cultural Wellness Center) has provided an invaluable connection to the community for several years. Students who intern at the nonprofit have found it to be an eye-opening, life-changing experience. The center also has helped to educate SPH faculty on how to ethically and effectively work with community members on research and do so in a culturally sensitive manner.
Minnesota Department of Health
As head of the Minnesota Department of Health, Sanne Magnan has collaborated with the SPH on a host of issues, from a joint research project to examine taconite miner health on Minnesota’s Iron Range, to improving the quality of the services delivered by public health agencies around the state, to being at the helm when SPH students and MDH staff uncovered the source of a recent foodborne disease outbreak that plagued the nation.
Community Partner Star Award
Community Partner Star awards are presented to individuals who have been nominated by SPH faculty. While these professionals partner with the school in a variety of ways, the goal of each partnership is fundamentally the same: to guide the next generation of public health leaders and advance the cause of public health.
The following individuals, pictured above, received the 2008 Community Partner Star award from the SPH:
Judy Beniak (M.P.H.’82) Don Bishop Jeffrey Budd (Ph.D.’81, M.S.’77) Angeline Carlson Janny Dwyer Brust (M.P.H.’87) Myron Falken (Ph.D.’89) Erica Fishman (M.P.H.’91) Mary Jo Graham Gary Greenfield Perry Hanson (M.H.A.’79) Deborah Hendricks Mary Johnson (M.P.H.’84) Geoff Kaufmann Jerry Lovrien (M.H.A.’84) Gary Olmstead Jason Paltzer (M.P.H.’03) Cheryl Petersen-Kroeber Lisa Pogoff (M.P.H.’85,’82) John Poupart Katherine Raleigh Robert Stevens (M.H.A.’83) Jill Wilson (M.P.H.’92)