SPH News Dec. 10, 2007
SPH News is a school-wide electronic newsletter distributed to SPH faculty and staff every other week during the school year. Please send news items to SPHNews@umn.edu.
Note: SPH News will not be distributed on Dec. 24. The next issue of SPH News will go out on Monday, Jan. 7.
From the Dean
This is a busy time of year in general but for those of us in the academic world, these last weeks of the semester can be an especially hectic time. I invite you to take a break from your work to join the All School Winter Reception, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2:15-4:30 p.m. at the neighboring Weisman Museum.
Come celebrate the end of the semester and the impending winter break with SPH faculty, staff, and students. There will be refreshments, live music, and prizes. This year's festivities also include a visit from Aveda massage artists and the SPH Match Game, a friendly competition of school divisions and departments.
RSVPs are encouraged but not required: www.sph.umn.edu/reception/.
I hope this has been a rewarding semester for you all. And I wish you well during the holiday season and new year.
--John R. Finnegan, Jr., Ph.D.
Media News
November 2007 media coverage featured the following SPH faculty and staff:
John Connett
Andrew Flood
Susan Foote
David Jacobs
Robert Kane
Russell Luepker
Pat McGovern
Jeffrey McCullough
Toben Nelson
Dianne Neumark-Sztainer
John Nyman
Michael Osterholm
Elizabeth Wattenberg
Coverage was featured in local media as well as in The New York Times, The Associated Press, Reuters, and The Chronicle for Higher Education. Visit www.sph.umn.edu/news/ to read more about SPH faculty in the news and find links to the complete stories, or e-mail SPHNews@umn.edu to request hard copies of the stories.
Lynn Blewett wrote an editorial, "Ideology fogs up the debate about how to insure kids," for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. It was published on Nov. 21.
• Read it at Pioneer Press online
Faculty News
The SPH Fall Semester Faculty Meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 13, in room 3-100 Mayo. Refreshments will be available beginning at 8:45 a.m. and the meeting begins at 9 a.m. An agenda will be sent in advance of the meeting. A brief meeting of Tenured Faculty (P) for Voting on Promotions/Tenure will be held immediately after the semester faculty meeting. Parking for these meetings will be validated for the Washington Avenue Ramp or East River Road Garage. Bring the ticket to be validated.
Lynn Blewett is the principal investigator of a new national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The State Health Access Reform Evaluation (SHARE) Program is a $7 million grant program funded by RWJF to support evaluations of health policy reform at the state level and to develop an evidence-based resource to inform health reform efforts in the future. In mid-2007, SHARE released a nation-wide call for proposals. SHARE received 62 brief proposals and invited 27 applicants to submit full proposals. These proposals will be reviewed by a panel of experts from across the country and final grantees will be announced in February.
The Educational Policy Committee approved a new incomplete policy. The SPH incomplete grading policy is as follows. All in-class and on-line SPH courses will be held to the following policy regarding the assignment of a grade of "I" (incomplete):
- A grade of "I" (incomplete) will not be permitted except in the case of a documented emergency (e.g., medical).
- If an incomplete is deemed appropriate by the instructor, the student, in consultation with the instructor, will prepare a detailed written agreement specifying the time and manner in which the student will complete the course requirements.
- The written contract will give explicit details for every component of the course which remains to be completed.
- Extension for completion of the work will not exceed one year.
- The written agreement must be submitted to the instructor, major coordinator and the Student Services Center prior to the date by which grades must be entered at the end of the term.
- After a review of transcripts (end of semester), instructors teaching SPH courses will be contacted by the Student Services Center regarding assigned grades of "I" for students.
- If a written agreement exists between the student and instructor, the incomplete will remain on the transcript per the terms of the agreement.
- If a written agreement does not exist and an incomplete was submitted for the student without a written agreement, a grade of "F" or "N" will be officially submitted by the Student Services Center.
- If the student does not comply and meet the deadlines as determined in the written agreement, a grade of "F" or "N" will be officially submitted by the Student Services Center.
• Read the RFP. Questions? Contact Audrey Boyle at boyle032@umn.edu or 6-5624.
School News
James Boen, SPH Professor Emeritus of Biostatistics and long-time associate dean for Academic Affairs, passed away Thursday, Dec. 6. He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Dorothy, and their son Dean, daughter Susan, grandchildren and extended family. A service will be held at the Cremation Society Chapel, 7110 France Av S., in Edina at 1 p.m., Dec. 17, with visitation at noon and a reception following. Memorials may go to support the Boen Scholarship Fund in the SPH. "Jim was a very special man for so many reasons. He was my predecessor in the job of Associate Dean for 14 years until he stepped down in 1998," said Dean John Finnegan. "He was gracious and generous in breaking me in to the job and in sharing his deep knowledge of the University, the SPH and its faculty which he joined in 1964. He had a wickedly dry sense of humor, a bluntly realistic outlook on life, and a huge, generous heart."
Vyonne Savelkoul, a former SPH employee, passed away on Sunday, Nov. 25, at Catholic Eldercare Nursing Home. "Vony" began her long and varied work career as a secretary in the U. S. government's foreign aid program in Ethiopia, Japan, Israel, and Nepal. She left foreign service to enter the convent, working as a nun in the foreign missions in Nepal and India. She left the convent and the foreign missions to return to the United States. She worked for 23 years in the Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) program, retiring in 1996 as an associate administrator.
• View the online guestbook for Vyonne
SPH Events & Courses
The SPH All-School Winter Reception will be held Thursday, Dec. 13, from 2:15 to 4:30 p.m. "Be Sweet to Yourself" and attend the reception at the Weisman Art Museum. Register at www.sph.umn.edu/reception/ by Thursday, Dec. 6. Questions? Contact Nichole Marthaler at mart1047@umn.edu or 6-9303.
• View the poster!
Dana Goldman will present "The Cost of Quality Improvement" on Dec. 13, 12:30 to 2 p.m., in A110 Mayo. The relationship between quality and costs in hospitals is important yet not well understood. Goldman, who holds the RAND Chair in Health Economics at UCLA, will shed some light. The seminar is free and open to the public. Questions? Call 4-6151.
Yue Cui, a Ph.D. candidate in Biostatistics, will discuss, "Smoothing Analysis of Variance for General Designs and Partitioning Degrees of Freedom in Hierarchical and Other Richly-parameterized Models," at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 18 in room A434 Mayo. Refreshments will be served prior to the presentation.
Planning is underway at the School to celebrate National Public Health Week (NPHW), April 7-11, in a grand way. Please mark your calendars for two inaugural events. To kickoff NPHW, the SPH will host its first research day event on Monday, April 7. Students will present juried posters, and presentations will feature the work of students, faculty, and our community partners. The first all-school Alumni Reunion will take place Thursday, April 10. Keynoting this evening event will be Richard Carmona, former U.S. Surgeon General. Proceeds from ticket and raffle sales will go directly to funding student scholarships through the SPH alumni scholarship fund.
Save the date for the National Public Health Week Film Festival. This marks the fourth year of this popular series scheduled to be held April 7-11. During that week the NPHW PSA contest, "It's Global," will also be featured for a second year. Stay tuned for details.
CPHEO Announcements
Upcoming CPHEO Courses
Respiratory Illness in Animal Feeding Operation Workers—90 minute presentation – will be held on Tuesday Dec. 18 from 9 to 10:30 a.m. at Rice Memorial Hospital. Dr. Steven Kirkhorn will present on the health effects of workers in confined animal feeding operations. To register, please contact Carol Gerlach at 320-564-5015 or carol.gerlach@mnwest.edu
Evacuation Coordination Train the Trainer will be held on Thursday, Jan. 17. For more information and registration visit http://cpheo.sph.umn.edu/niehs
A public health emergency training on isolation and quarantine examines the concepts and history of isolation and quarantine, and explains when and how these restrictions are used in a public health context.
• Learn more online
• View a detailed course listing
• Register online
Other Events
A research symposium on Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology will be held Friday, Jan. 18, at the University of Minnesota's Rochester campus. The purpose is to facilitate further collaborations in: (1) Data mining methods for clinical and laboratory data (2) Computational methods for rational drug design. This symposium will bring together teams of scientists and administrators from the Twin Cities and Rochester campuses, the Hormel Institute, the Mayo Clinic, and IBM.
Register online. Deadline is Jan. 9, 2008.
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