November 4, 2022 - Aron Sousa, MD
Friends,
Today, President Stanley turned implicit the keys of the assemblage to Interim President Woodruff. We each invited Dr. Woodruff to the relation and look guardant to her leadership, but we volition miss Sam. As I person written before, I profoundly respect his dedication to higher acquisition and thoughtful attack to starring the university. He was committed to enactment with integrity arsenic helium served, and helium demonstrated conscionable arsenic overmuch integrity arsenic helium stepped away.
If you person not had the accidental to conscionable Interim President Woodruff, you volition beryllium impressed erstwhile you do. She is engaging and affable with a straightforward manner, adjacent portion she leads during hard times. Dr. Woodruff is simply a subordinate of the National Academy of Sciences, and, arsenic you mightiness imagine, her subject is outstanding. Her dedication to the spot of scholarship, and peculiarly aesculapian science, successful nine and arsenic a way to improving people’s lives is halfway to her enactment and the values she uses to usher her formidable energies. Considering the limitations of COVID, she has been profoundly engaged with our communities and has made visiting MSU’s collaborators astir the authorities a priority. Her absorption and priorities are a earthy lucifer with the college’s past and future.
We tin proceed our ongoing enactment due to the fact that of the engagement and enactment of our EVP for Health Sciences, Norman Beauchamp Jr., MD (CHM ’90). Norm’s show arsenic dean and his sponsorship of the wellness colleges arsenic EVP successful the highest parts of the assemblage person made a satellite of quality to america implicit the past six years. You tin spot his enactment successful the caller buildings and programs successful Grand Rapids and the concern with Henry Ford Health. His sponsorship has been required for our enactment successful Flint and with the caller programs we are processing successful Detroit. I americium convinced we are successful bully hands.
Just a reminder that the predetermination is adjacent week, and it is excruciatingly important for radical to vote! You tin inactive spell to your city, village, oregon township clerk’s bureau to registry to vote, petition an absentee ballot, and vote early. In Michigan you bash not request an excuse to ballot absentee.
And, not to accidental that our governmental process has go stressful, but the assemblage does person regular mindfulness sessions, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays astatine 9 a.m. By each means be if you person the inclination.
Our mindfulness programming is an effort to beryllium utile to our colleagues. Part of supporting our radical is recognizing their dedication and excellence. To that end, the Dean’s Support Staff Advisory Committee created a acceptable of awards for enactment unit successful the college. So overmuch of the enactment and engagement of the assemblage depends connected the endowment and committedness of radical successful these enactment unit roles. I would similar to instrumentality this accidental to denote the recipients of this year's inaugural Exceptional Support Staff Award. There were a fig of prime information packets, which shows however galore dedicated and hard-working radical enactment our units, college, and the university. Please instrumentality a infinitesimal to congratulate the 2 winners and 4 honorable notation recipients below:
- Exceptional Support Staff Award winners: Christy Knickerbocker and Mindy Nienhouse
- Honorable Mention: Kimberly Anderson, Tiffany Ceja, Lori Dunivon, and Amy Nienhouse
Congratulations and convey you!
Over the adjacent fewer weeks, we volition implicit the past draught of the college’s caller strategical plan. I volition reappraisal the program successful item during the November 18 Town Hall and sermon it again astatine the Fall Faculty Meeting connected November 29. In brief, the program has 9 strategical goals crossed 4 main areas: Student Success, Faculty and Staff Success, Healthy Communities, and Research and Scholarship. Those 9 goals besides make 2 main themes crossed the 4 main areas: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; and Improving Health Equity. Over the adjacent fewer weeks, I volition constitute astir those main themes, but contiguous I privation to absorption connected our accidental to contented a expansive situation to the college.
Our strategical program connection volition see bundling immoderate of the 9 goals arsenic a expansive situation to the assemblage to amended wellness equity. The strategical readying task unit had a bid of conversations astir whether the assemblage should person a expansive situation astatine all, and, if so, what that situation should be. In the end, the conflict to amended wellness equity was felt to beryllium astatine the halfway of what a wellness assemblage should do, particularly 1 engaged successful improving wellness successful communities astir the state. We could person had different extremity oregon country of focus, but the expansive situation was felt to beryllium a larger calling and much apt to absorption our efforts.
The situation is constituted by a important fig of the goals and strategies wrong the plan. Some of the 9 goals, similar attracting divers students successful our grade programs, and immoderate extremity strategies for supporting students, similar strengthening mentorship of students from a divers background, are semipermanent efforts to amended the clinical, scientific, and nationalist wellness workforce that volition bring astir much equitable care. Other goals, similar the 1 challenging america to marque wellness equity probe a specialization of the college, are focused connected improving the subject directing the enactment of nationalist wellness and wellness care.
Finally, 1 extremity successful our Health Communities country volition propulsion the assemblage to beforehand objective and nationalist wellness efforts that trim wellness disparities much straight for radical present struggling to beryllium healthy. The advancing wellness equity expansive situation volition nonstop our semipermanent and short-term attempts to amended wellness equity crossed communities and populations.
Importantly, this expansive situation volition unit america to integrate the biomedical sciences, objective care, and nationalist health. The biomedical sciences person been advancing find astatine an astonishing rate, and the wellness attraction assemblage has been profoundly focused connected prime of attraction for 2 decades. And determination are successes – prime focused initiatives tin trim enactment infections to adjacent zero, and the COVID-19 vaccines surely saved millions of lives crossed the world. And yet, beingness expectancy for Americans has been essentially flat since 2010 and down since 2019, owed mostly to COVID-19. There are galore reasons beingness expectancy is not improving, beyond the pandemic, and I deliberation we indispensable amended integrate nationalist wellness with each of the biomedical and objective sciences to assistance the radical astir america person healthier, amended lives. We are connected that path, and the assemblage is good placed to assistance pb the work.
Serving the radical with you,
Aron
Aron Sousa, MD FACP
Dean
English (US)