06/04/2012 Hispanic Center of Excellence at UTMB. by Hispanic Outlook on Education Magazine

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VOLUME 22 • NUMBER 17

Also available in Digital Format Need of Minority Health Care Workers

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® Editorial Board Publisher – José López-Isa Vice President & Chief Operating Officer – Orlando López-Isa

Ricardo Fernández, President Lehman College Mildred García, President

Editor – Adalyn Hixson Executive & Managing Editor – Suzanne López-Isa News Desk & Copy Editor – Jason Paneque Special Project Editor – Mary Ann Cooper

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DC Congressional Correspondent – Peggy Sands Orchowski

Gustavo A. Mellander, Dean Emeritus George Mason University

Contributing Editors – Carlos D. Conde Michelle Adam Online Contributing Writers – Gustavo A. Mellander

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The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine® is a national magazine published 23 times a year. Dedicated to exploring issues related to Hispanics in higher education,The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine® is published for the members of the higher education community. Editorial decisions are based on the editors’ judgment of the quality of the writing, the timeliness of the article, and the potential interest to the readers of The Hispanic Outlook Magazine®. From time to time,The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine® will publish articles dealing with controversial issues.The views expressed herein are those of the authors and/or those interviewed and might not reflect the official policy of the magazine.The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine® neither agrees nor disagrees with those ideas expressed, and no endorsement of those views should be inferred unless specifically identified as officially endorsed by The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine®.

Article Contributors Frank DiMaria,Thomas G. Dolan, Marilyn Gilroy, Sylvia Mendoza, Miquela Rivera, Jeff Simmons

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elcome to our annual Health Professions Issue, which highlights schools, initiatives and individuals, sometimes prominent, sometimes unsung, that provide health care and health education to the Hispanic community. One medical provider known to many of our readers is former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona. This first-in-family college graduate, a Vietnam vet with two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts, has entered another battle zone, the U.S. Senate race in Arizona. A high school dropout, Carmona earned an AA at Bronx Community College, a BS at the University of California-San Francisco, and wound up with a medical degree – as the top graduate. If Carmona wins in November, he’ll be the 52nd physician to serve in the U.S. Senate over all its years. An AFL-CO report released last month showed that 55 percent of foreign-born workers killed on the job in the U.S. in 2010 were Latino: 134 in California, 115 in Texas and 64 in New York. As scientists internationally ponder how best to fight the global obesity epidemic, and the U.S. tries to improve school lunches, scientists and researchers here are wondering whether airplane seats “are strong enough to protect heavy travelers,” according to a New York Times article by Christine Negroni. She writes that in 2005 the F.A.A. increased average passenger weight, used to calculate plane weight and balance, by 25 pounds for men, to 200 pounds, and by 34 pounds for women, to 179 pounds. Dr. Robert Salzar, Center for Applied Biomechanics, University of Virginia, said that with a heavier person in it, an airplane seat “is not likely to behave as intended. …” And in a study of serious auto accidents, conducted by Dietrich Jehle, professor of emergency medicine, University of Buffalo, he found that overweight drivers “were 67 percent less likely to be wearing seat belts.” ¡Adelante! Suzanne López-Isa Managing Editor

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by Carlos D. Conde

LATINO KALEIDOSCOPE

Yummy-Yum Mexican Food

you know of anyone, unless orphaned or abandoned, who didn’t say their mother’s cooking was second to none? Or that don’t say their ethnic food is the best in the world, if not the most unique? Well, I am Mexican – Tex-Mex, to be exact – and I declare that Mexican food – Tex-Mex, to be exact – is the best and that my dearly departed mother had no equal in the art of ethnic cooking. There’s still some debate by Mexican food connoisseurs on the origins of Mexican food, which has no determined area where the most authentic fare is served since there are so many varieties, save for the standards like tacos, enchiladas, beans and tamales. Mexican cuisine varies by regions as do the native foods in many other countries. There is the northern food of Coahuila, Sonora, and Baja California that influences the type of Mexican food you’ll find in San Antonio, Santa Fe or Los Angeles, which is basically the same but with variants and preparation styles. Some credit Hernán Cortés and his Spanish conquistadors in the 15th century, who teamed with the Aztecs and other Mexican indigenous groups to blend the most palatable of these food origins – but the natives were already cooking up some familiar native dishes with food staples like corn, beans and local spices. Along the way came others, like the French, to amalgamate the tastiest of the culture foods into a hybrid Mexican food menu. What sets apart Mexican food are the hot, spicy condiments, although other country foods might claim the same distinction, which brings up an interesting fable that malignly gave some identity to Mexican food. The iconic Texas folklorist J. Frank Dobie supposedly once said that Mexican food – particularly the Texas variety – is so hot that vultures wouldn’t eat Mexican corpses because they contain so much chili pepper it would give the scavengers heartburn. Mexican food is supposed to be greasy – don’t some call us “greasers” – so here’s a slightly offensive joke meant to be humorous and told to me by a Mexican friend. Know why Mexican men wear mustaches? So the grease from their tacos can stream down their prickly bush. There are thousands of eateries around the world that give testimony to Mexican food and its variants. (Note I didn’t say Mexican cooking, which is another matter.) I even found a faux Mexican eatery in Moscow operated by some Salvadorians. Ever had a margarita made with vodka that comes in all shades of colors? Pancho Villa would turn over in his grave at this sacrilege. Imagine serving a contemporary Pancho Villa type and his macho men pink margaritas – which are to die for, except that in this case you’d be the dead person. No other Latino national fare has been exported as much as Mexican cuisine. Most cultures boast of their transportable dishes, but there aren’t many that can claim a global reach like that of Mexican food. I didn’t sample the Mexican food on a visit to China several years ago, where it is catching on through the Taco Bell chain, which is hardly the real deal in ethnic plates. Anyway, the Chinese prefer Mexican dishes adulterated to suit their palate.

My family and I don’t travel thousands of miles to exotic places to eat tacos, but we do sample any foreign variety of homeboy food when we find it, if only for curiosity and comparative reasons. Mother’s Mexican cooking was simple, with little flourish but, oh, with so much taste, “para chuparte los dedos,” as the Latinos like to say when complimenting good fare. Unequaled were her picadillo, calabazitas and teeming frijoles with cilantro plus all the other condiments to give it that special taste. There was the aroma of flour or corn tortillas cooking on the comal, the Mexican skillet and, of course, on the table a bowl of chili to add some zip to the meal. I can taste those chilaquines (migas), huevos rancheros or machacado con huevo (dried beef jerky) for breakfast and that big plate of pan dulce. Did I say it was to die for? A lot of Mexicans do, with that kind of artery-clogging diet that, all in all, is considered more nutritious than today’s American fast food diet. And to some extent, the artery-cleaning chili peppers can also be the heroes in the diet. It was unpretentious food but, oh, so good, and many of my neighborhood friends hanging out around lunch or dinnertime were obliged to stay and enjoy. Some to this day remember those gatherings at mom’s table. Which is what prompted this essay. The New York Times ran a feature article in its restaurant review section on Mexican food restaurants in the Big Apple. I swear I couldn’t understand it and recognized few of the Mexican dishes they were raving about. I do know that Tex-Mex food differs, for example, from food in Yucatan or Baja California and that much of the authentic Mexican food had been adulterated over the years to satisfy regional tastes. The review is about two Mexican restaurants opened recently in Greenwich Village and the East Village by a 32-year-old pastry cook who “read the classic cookbooks and spent some time in Oaxaca and Yucatan.” “Mr. (Alex) Stupak’s cooking resembles the food of Mexico the way a dream resembles life,” the reviewer gushed. Does it mean it’s that good or that bad? “I couldn’t quite believe how much a spackle of bittersweet mole poblano paste had to offer roasted carrots, or what a lovely job yogurt did of bringing them together.” What! The reviewer also tried “a kind of queso fundido made with lobster and tetilla cheese (that) was buttery and rich ... and I missed the full impact of that menudo or of that marine broth that came with poached oysters. ...” Oysters are Mexican? Forgive them, mother in heaven you be, for they know not what they do. At least when it comes to cooking the real Mexican food.

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Carlos D. Conde, award-winning journalist and commentator, former Washington and foreign news correspondent, was an aide in the Nixon White House and worked on the political campaigns of George Bush Sr. To reply to this column, contact Cdconde@aol.com.

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MAGAZINE® JUNE 04, 2012

CONTENTS U.S. in Dire Need of Minority Health Care Workers

by Mary Ann Cooper

UT’s Hispanic Center of Excellence for Future Doctors by Michelle Adam

Centering on Medical Excellence in Chicago

by Jeff Simmons

The Exemplary Career of Dr. Ciro V. Sumaya

by Frank DiMaria

Page 8 La Cena Boosting the Number of Hispanic Nutrition Majors by Marilyn Gilroy

Is Justice on the Horizon for Direct-Care Workers?

by Thomas G. Dolan

“Serving Those Who Have Served Us”: USC School of Social Work Reaching Military Vets and Families by Sylvia Mendoza

Online Articles Some of the above articles will also be available online; go to our website: www.HispanicOutlook.com.

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DEPARTMENTS Latino Kaleidoscope

by Carlos D. Conde

Yummy-Yum Mexican Food

Uncensored

by Peggy Sands Orchowski

Interesting Reads

Book Review

by Mary Ann Cooper

Teaching Lab Science Courses Online

Hi gh Sc ho ol For um

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Successful High School Graduates Aren’t Just Smart – They’re Healthier,Too! by Mary Ann Cooper

FYI...FYI...FYI...

Hispanics on the Move

Targeting Higher Education Hispanics and Health Professions by Gustavo A. Mellander (Online only)

Priming the Pump...

by Miquela Rivera

Pobrecito Lament Not Helpful to Latino Teens

Back Cover

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Page 22 Cover photo:“Old Red,” The Ashbel Smith Building, courtesy of Mark Navarro (UTMB)

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U.S. in Dire Need of Minority Health Care Workers RANKINGS

by Mary Ann Cooper

ith or without the Supreme Court sanctioning of the Affordable Care Act, the demand for Hispanic and minority-serving public health care professionals is increasing at a dizzying pace. It’s a simple numbers game that shows no signs of reversing itself. A 2004 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, In the Nation’s Compelling Interest: Ensuring Diversity in the Health Care Workforce, warned of significant differences and rising gaps in the racial and ethnic composition of the health care workforce as compared to the U.S. population. Its call to arms was prophetic. Eight years later, the need for additional Hispanic and minority health professionals is more urgent than ever. That makes this year’s list of schools granting the most health professional degrees to Hispanics especially noteworthy. Those on this year’s list are all four-year schools and have Hispanic populations ranging from 2 percent (Harvard) to 96 percent (Florida National College-Main Campus) of their total degree recipients for 2010. The good news for Hispanics: preliminary numbers for the class of 2011 show an increase in the percentage of Hispanic degree earners at all 25 top schools, from Harvard (3 percent) to Florida National College-Main Campus (98 percent). Four years after the IOM released its 2004 report, the American Association of Medical Colleges reported that Hispanics made up approximately 16 percent of the U.S. population, but accounted for less than 6 percent of all physicians. They also noted that African-Americans accounted for a similar proportion of the U.S.’s population, but just over 6 percent of physicians. The explosion of the Hispanic population in the years since this report has outpaced any gains made in percentages of all physicians who are Hispanic. Racial and ethnic minorities are more likely than non-Hispanic Whites to report experiencing poorer quality patient-provider interactions because of this disparity, which is especially evident among the 24 million adults with limited English proficiency. Insurance or the lack of it does contribute significantly to Hispanic and minority health problems, a reality that can be demonstrated by a stunning statistic. A study titled Eight Americas: Investigating Mortality Disparities Across Races, Counties, and Race-Counties in the United States (Murray et al., 2006) concludes that there is a difference of 33 years between the longest-living and shortest-living groups in the U.S. Another study, The Economic Burden of Health Inequalities in the United States, by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, concludes that “the combined costs of health inequalities and premature death in the United States were $1.24 trillion” between 2003 and 2006. Racial and ethnic minorities constitute about one-third of the U.S. population, but make up more than half of the 50 million people who are uninsured. Members of racial and ethnic minority groups are also overrepresented among the 56 million people in America who have inadequate access to a primary care physician. Further, minority children are also less likely than non-Hispanic White children to have a usual source of care. The National Healthcare Quality & Disparities Report in 2010 documented that, with or without insurance, racial and ethnic minorities often receive inferior quality of care and face more obstacles in seeking help,

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including preventive care, acute treatment, or chronic disease management, than do non-Hispanic White patients. Also, minority groups experience rates of preventable hospitalizations that are, in some cases, almost double those of non-Hispanic Whites. African-Americans, for example, have higher hospitalization rates from influenza than other populations. One of the ways to improve health outcomes for Hispanics and minorities is to have the patient more involved and an active participant in his or her own health care. When dealing with a population with language barriers to such participation, the training of health care professionals who can literally and figuratively speak their language is crucial. Diversity in the health care workforce is a key element of patient-centered care. The ability of the health care workforce to close the care gap is largely dependent on health care workers’ ability to communicate with and relate to their patients in their care. Schools like the ones on this year’s top 25 lists are helping to bridge that gap.

Degrees Granted to Mental and Social Health Services and Public Health Professions This year, we have prepared the top 25 lists of schools for two distinct professional areas in health care. We have highlighted these categories in recognition that the burgeoning Hispanic population is going to require a greater number of health care providers with language skills and shared experiences to effectively serve this demographic. Mental and Social Health Services and Allied Professions. This profession encompasses the following fields: Substance Abuse/Addiction Counseling; Psychiatric/Mental Health Services Technician; Clinical/Medical Social Work; Community Health Services/Liaison/ Counseling; Marriage and Family Therapy/Counseling; Clinical Pastoral Counseling/Patient Counseling; Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy; Mental Health Counseling/Counselor; and Genetic Counseling/Counselor. Public Health Professions. This profession encompasses the following fields: General Public Health; Environmental Health; Health/Medical Physics; Occupational Health and Industrial Hygiene; Public Health Education and Promotion; Community Health and Preventive Medicine; Maternal and Child Health; International Public Health/International Health; Health Services Administration; and Behavioral Aspects of Health.

2010 Public Health Degrees Institution Name 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

Monroe College-Main Campus, NY Keiser University-Ft. Lauderdale, FL University of Southern California, CA University of Texas at El Paso, TX University of California-Berkeley, CA University of Florida, FL Florida International University, FL Johns Hopkins University, MD Florida National College-Main Campus, FL University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL Texas A&M Health Science Center, TX Columbia University in the City of New York, NY University of Texas Health Science Cntr at Houston, TX University of California-Los Angeles, CA New Mexico State University-Main Campus, NM University of South Florida-Main Campus, FL Portland State University, OR California State University-Northridge, CA San Diego State University, CA George Washington University, DC Emory University, GA Harvard University, MA CUNY Hunter College, NY University of Illinois at Chicago, IL Tulane University of Louisiana, LA

Grand Total 165 220 200 45 296 223 99 582 25 236 131 311 105 204 46 155 197 72 107 253 290 498 92 175 226

Hispanic Totals All 56 46 38 35 31 30 29 25 24 24 23 23 20 20 16 15 14 13 13 12 12 12 11 11 11

Men Women 4 5 9 5 7 5 3 9 6 7 8 2 5 5 1 7 3 3 3 4 2 4 2 5 2

52 41 29 30 24 25 26 16 18 17 15 21 15 15 15 8 11 10 10 8 10 8 9 6 9

Hispanic Percentage 34% 21% 19% 78% 10% 13% 29% 4% 96% 10% 18% 7% 19% 10% 35% 10% 7% 18% 12% 5% 4% 2% 12% 6% 5%

Source: IPEDS/NCES data 2010 – all degree earners at level 1 - 4 year schools. Where schools have the same number of Hispanics degree earners, rank is determined by higher Hispanic percentage.

2010 Mental and Social Health Services and Allied Profession Institution Name 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

New Mexico Highlands University, NM Mercy College, NY CUNY LaGuardia Community College, NY El Paso Community College, TX West Hills College Coalinga, CA Brandman University Chapman University System, CA Pacific Oaks College, CA CUNY Kingsborough Community College, NY Grays Harbor College, WA Pima Community College, AZ Skagit Valley College, WA Nyack College, NY Alliant International University, CA University of La Verne, CA Nova Southeastern University, FL Old Dominion University, VA Imperial Valley College, CA Miami Dade College, FL Texas A & M University, TX James Madison University, VA San Diego City College, CA California State University-Dominguez Hills, CA University of Pennsylvania, PA Michigan State University, MI Saint Thomas University, FL

Grand Total

Hispanic Totals All

216 92 61 25 45 165 50 130 18 27 17 49 101 18 55 202 8 14 57 258 22 30 68 144 14

104 30 24 22 20 20 18 18 16 16 11 11 11 10 10 9 8 8 8 8 7 7 7 7 6

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Men Women 22 1 4 3 5 1 3 5 1 7 3 1 3 1 1 1 3 1 2 2 4 2 2 0 2

82 29 20 19 15 19 15 13 15 9 8 10 8 9 9 8 5 7 6 6 3 5 5 7 4

Hispanic Percentage 48% 33% 39% 88% 44% 12% 36% 14% 89% 59% 65% 22% 11% 56% 18% 4% 100% 57% 14% 3% 32% 23% 10% 5% 43%

Source: IPEDS/NCES data 2010 – all degree earners at level 1 - 4 year schools. Where schools have the same number of Hispanics degree earners, rank is determined by higher Hispanic percentage. H I S P A N I C

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HEALTH

UT’s Hispanic Center of Excellence for Future Doctors

by Michelle Adam should come as no surprise that one of seven Hispanic Centers of Excellence in the United States is located at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) and its School of Medicine in Galveston, Texas. Here, where the late, famous Mexican-American physician Héctor P. García once attended and where the largest number of Hispanic medical students graduate nationwide, the center is intent on expanding both Hispanic student graduation rates and the number of Hispanic medical faculty in this country. The center, which opened in 1992, closed in 2005 due to federal budget cuts and reopened in 2010, was initially established to increase the recruitment, training and retention of minority faculty. It is similar to six other Hispanic and 14 non-Hispanic centers established nationwide to support the growth of health professions education for underrepresented minorities, through a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Unique to UTMB’s center is the plethora of support and educational services it provides in a state where the majority of the population will soon be Hispanic. Under the leadership of Dr. Norma Pérez, the center provides formal and informal faculty development activities, mentoring, and financial assistance, with the goal of increasing promotion and tenure among Hispanic faculty (currently, more than 17 percent are Hispanic). In addition, it offers a variety of programs for Hispanic medical students, and most recently began an annual lecture series where professors and researchers share their latest findings on the state of Hispanics and their health. “There are so many activities at the center that we are jumping from activity to activity, month after month,” said Pérez, who wrote the original grant to re-establish the center just two years ago. One important program of the center is its Medical Careers Diversity Program, a pre-med experience for undergraduate juniors and seniors interested in medical school. During this five-week program, students are offered review classes for MCATs, as well as enrichment activities. These include admissions and personal statement workshops, scientific article dissection

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The students are from the Latin Medical Student Association: Esteban Lorenzo, Latashia Irving, Vanessa Sánchez, Alejandro Mora, Daniel Alfson, Juan X. López de Alda, Ashkan Zand, Adolfo Grajeda, Nickolas Boutris, and Best Anyama.

and student wellness workshops, clinical rotations and community service learning. “I go across the state to recruit these Hispanic students to come here for five weeks. I recruit from my partner universities,” said Pérez. “We bring in 50 students for this summer enrichment program from Texas, and some come from across the country.” The UTMB center also provides rising sophomore students with a four- to five-week summer program that covers basic science course review and additional academic enrichment activities so students can become more competitive in careers they pursue in the health field. In addition, incom-

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ing medical students are invited to participate in a Prematriculation Reinforcement and Enrichment Program (PREP) for six weeks in the summer. “It helped me see firsthand the challenges I was approaching in medical school. The program was fully funded and they actually gave me a stipend to cover the cost of books and living expenses,” said Humberto Mendoza, a first-year medical student at UTMB. “I had been out of school for two years as a teacher, and going from no school to full-blast medical school was a huge change. The program helped me realize the expectations and everything about medical school. It helped me tremendously.”

Mendoza is part of a sizeable population of Hispanics at UTMB. In 2010, 17.4 percent of students were Hispanic, compared to 7.8 percent African-American. For a medical school, these percentages are substantial – so much so that UTMB’s School of Medicine is ranked top among medical schools in the nation in graduating Hispanic students – excluding medical schools at Historically Black Universities and Puerto Rico. UTMB is made up of the School of Medicine, which houses the Center of Excellence; School of Nursing; School of Health Professions; Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences; Marine Biomedical Institute; and Institute for the Medical Humanities. While there are others like Mendoza attending medical school in Galveston, he is one of a handful of students who come from the Rio Grande border area. “Not many students from

are currently 69 medical students already enrolled in the program in its first year alone. “It’s one of the most sought-after tracks. Most students want to get into it,” said Pérez. “We have so many students interested in becoming culturally competent, bilingual doctors.” Prior to establishing this program, UTMB already had a course called Practice of Medicine (POM) HABLE, which had been created by another professor. Pérez has now incorporated this course as a prerequisite for the bilingual track, and has developed another requirement in the form of an online Clinical Conversation Spanish (CCS) course. “I don’t have enough faculty to teach this currently, so I created an online course. It will be self-paced and needs to be finished in order for students to take other courses,” said Pérez. Through BHT, students must complete five Dr. Norma Pérez, director, Hispanic Center of Excellence

able with the school,” he said. “Dr. Pérez is the one I have had the most contact with – she is a mentor, advisor and coach. She is very supportive, and I can talk to her about my life and coping with the medical school experience.” As Mendoza prepares for his second year of medical school, he’s considering participating in a program that Pérez has established through her center. Just this past year, she launched the Bilingual Health Track (BHT), which provides students with a scholarly concentration emphasizing cultural competency in Hispanic health during their academic years. Through this, students are exposed to culturally tailored clinical experiences, medical knowledge in the Spanish language, and clinical experiences abroad and in the U.S. There

Kyriakos Markides, Annie and John Gnitzinger Distinguished Professor of Aging, director, Division of Sociomedical Sciences, member of Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, UTMB

Karl Eschbach, professor of internal medicine, geriatrics, preventive medicine, and community health, UTMB

the Rio Grande Valley of Texas make it here. Last year, from my university of UT-Brownsville, only two made it here to medical school. There are a total of 230 students in my program, and only 12 from the valley,” he explained. “I have much, much less support than what my peers had. They had pre-med counseling and a review program.” Despite coming from an underserved area, Mendoza has done well in his first year of medical school, thanks in part to the summer program he attended and to the support of the Center of Excellence. “The center does as much as possible to ensure student academic success. They help with tutoring and counseling, and although I’ve not used these services, knowing they are here helps me feel at ease and comfort-

Humberto Mendoza, first-year medical student, UTMB

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credits of electives, with experiences in Latin America or Spain, and are invited to conduct their clinical electives, in a specialty of their choice, in a predominately Spanish-speaking patient population clinic. In the students’ fourth year, they must enroll in the Ambulatory Community Service selective and submit a written report on Hispanic health, with an emphasis on cultural competency. The end goal is for students to become proficient in medical Spanish terminology, to be proficient in history-taking and physical exams in Spanish, and to be culturally competent in Hispanic health. Students seeking financial support for travel to other countries or to present their research at

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national conferences are also offered travel stipends. In addition, the center has a library resource center with materials for Spanish-language acquisition, medical Spanish, and Hispanic health, and is directly involved with Hispanic student organizations such as Frontera de Salud, Latin Medical Student Association, and “Qué Quiere Decir.” Newest on the agenda, and paving the way for more innovation for Hispanic faculty and staff at UTMB, is the center’s Lecture Series, which took place last February. From Feb. 22-28, faculty from the University of Texas and beyond presented research on areas that included: Hispanics in Texas in an era of change, low-income migrants and access to health services, infectious diseases in Mexico, challenges to delivering quality care to Latinos, Latinos and dentistry, and Hispanic health and aging. The lecture series was broadcast via the Internet, and other Centers of Excellence were invited to listen in. “This was part of our faculty development that we finished in February. We wanted to provide a snapshot of how Hispanic health looks across the country. We had local, national and international data provided to us, and we brought in as many people as we could to talk about different topics,” said Pérez. “We had a great response. We even got a call from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in New York saying they would attend next time.” The lecture series began with a kick-off speech by Karl Eschbach, a professor of internal medicine, geriatrics, preventive medicine and community health at UTMB. Closing the event was Kyriakos Markides, an Annie and John Gnitzinger Distinguished Professor of Aging, director of the Division of Sociomedical Sciences and a member of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health at UTMB. Markides spoke about Hispanic health and aging, referring to a longitudinal study, Hispanic Established Population for the Epidemiological Study of the Elderly, which he has been leading for about 20 years. He began his research in the early 1990s, randomly interviewing 3,050 MexicanAmericans who were 65 and older and living in Texas, New Mexico, California and Arizona. Participants were surveyed in their homes about their health, and then every two to three years would receive follow-up visits. About 600 to 700 of the original individuals remain in the study (and are now in their 80s and above), while a new cohort of people 75 and older was added in 2004-05. What Markides discovered through his research, and then shared in the lecture series, was that “the prevalence of diabetes went up from 22 percent in the early 1990s to 36 percent in 2004-

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05.” Although he went into the research knowing that Hispanics tend to have higher rates of diabetes than other groups – and live about two and half years longer on average than other groups (what he calls the “Hispanic Paradox”) – what he soon learned was that there is more diabetes now in older Mexican-Americans than 10 years ago. “The good news is that we are doing a better job at managing the disease, and we are testing better and finding diabetes among MexicanAmericans,” concluded Markides. The irony, he pointed out, is that more Mexican-Americans are living longer with diabetes than before (this gives rise to a larger percentage of living participants within the research having diabetes in 2004-05 than 10 years earlier). Despite the good news of more MexicanAmericans managing their diabetes better, Markides was quick to point out the secondary issues that result from this reality. “This disease brings along with it other concerns, like higher disability rates and cognitive impairments. Our study is providing preliminary data showing that there may be more of an issue with Alzheimer’s [a cognitive impairment], and we need to focus more on this. We know that dementia is high with this population – it could be about 30 to 40 percent that have dementia after their 80s,” said Markides. “The other problem attributed to this population of high life expectancy is that they have diabetes and higher rates of poverty than other groups, and yet they have a lifetime of substandard care. Before 65 years old, this population has the lowest rates of insurance coverage. Without insurance, they don’t have access to medical care to take care of their health in earlier ages.” According to Markides, many believe the reason why Mexican-Americans have higher life expectancy rates than other groups is because they include a substantial population of immigrants who tend to be healthier and of stronger disposition to leave their homes in Mexico to come here. Yet, as this population lives longer than others – and with diabetes, and disabilities and dementia that in later years stem from this – family members and communities remain carrying the burden of their care. “The biggest issue is with providing more access to medical care at an earlier age. And the problems with access to health care fall disproportionately on the Mexican-American populations here and immigrants,” said Markides. “We are speaking with government and policymakers. We are also working with physicians and medical students who are trying to work with the population of Hispanics. We want them to be aware of these health issues that stem from diabetes.” While Markides spoke at the end of the lecture series, his colleague, Karl Eschbach, addressed the topic of “Hispanics in the U.S. and

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Texas in an Era of Change: Current Patterns of Growth, Diversity, Spatial Distribution and Health Status” at the beginning of the event. As an ethnic demographer and a former state demographer of Texas, Eschbach has spent years looking at the Hispanic population of Texas. He came to UTMB to work with Markides on his research regarding the health status of Mexican-Americans. “Half of the Mexican-Americans live within 200 miles of the Mexican border, including places like San Antonio and Los Angeles. My health research looks at this and the fact that within these areas where Mexican-Americans live, they are the majority,” he said. “Then there’s the Hispanic paradox – MexicanAmericans having greater longevity than Anglos, despite lower economic standing (which usually results in lower health and longevity). This is a unique opportunity to look at cultural maintenance and persistence of behaviors in these communities that apparently result in longevity.” Eschbach also noted what he calls the “border paradox.” “If you make a list of the 15 poorest counties in the U.S., every one of them is going to fall into one of three groups: Texas border counties, Indian reservation counties, and those along the Mississippi Delta. Two of these groups – Indian reservations and the Mississippi Delta area – experience among the highest mortality rates in the country. Yet, Texas Border communities have some of the lowest mortality rates. This is striking to me,” he said. Eschbach believes the Mexican-American culture that has been near the border of Mexico for hundreds of years – and the strength of its immigrant populations with more nutrient-dense diets – may be contributing greatly to the Hispanic paradox. In addition, he considers this research essential to the future of Texas and beyond, since Mexican-Americans are expected to become a majority group in Texas within the next five years, and a majority in the entire state by 2030. It is an awareness that he and others like Pérez at UTMB’s Hispanic Center for Excellence are working with as they aim to increase the population of faculty and physicians who truly know how to work with this growing Hispanic population. New leaders for tomorrow are needed as Hispanics, and especially Mexican-Americans, take center stage and move up the social ladder. “This institution chose as one of its missions to make educating Latinos and African-American physicians a priority – before other places did,” concluded Eschbach. “I think programs like those of the center reflect the commitment to recruiting, retaining and graduating Latino and Latina health professionals. It’s a real good development for the university and this state.”

HEALTH/INNOVATIONS/PROGRAMS

Centering on Medical Excellence in Chicago

by Jeff Simmons

uis Rivera has two more years to go before graduating from medical It was a lack of those things that prevented me from pursuing medical school, and already has defined the career track he is set on pursuing: school earlier in my life.” a future practicing family medicine or engaged in a surgical field. At the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC), Rivera majored in Latin “And,” he pointed out recently, “I definitely want to work with an American Latino studies – coursework that connected him more strongly underserved population.” with his community – and minored in biology. He graduated two years ago. It’s Rivera’s way of giving back to a com“I chose the school because of the munity he knows all too well, because the diversity,” he said. “It has a really strong 35-year-old grew up in a largely Hispanic reputation for recruiting a diverse class, and economically disadvantaged neighbornot just racially but ethnically, and one hood on the south side of Chicago. with people of different ages and with dif“I didn’t have people around me who ferent life experiences. A lot of students went to college. I really, literally, didn’t are the first in their family to go to colknow anybody who went to college,” lege.” Rivera said. “I thought about it. The idea What provided Rivera with a strong crossed my mind about pursuing medifoundation, ties and support from his earcine, but it just didn’t seem like something liest days on campus, and guided him that was a possibility for someone from my even further along the education pipeline neighborhood and with my background.” into medical school, was UIC’s Hispanic Neither of his parents attended college. Center of Excellence in Medicine (HCOE). His father, a former welder, retired at an For the last 21 years, HCOE has early age due to health conditions. His strengthened the pipeline of medical mother still packs boxes at a plastic cupschool applicants with a mission to promaking plant on the south side. Rivera, the duce culturally competent physicians and elder of two children, felt his path was set build global partnerships to improve – leave school and start work. health care for Hispanics. “Unfortunately, students with backAs an undergraduate at UIC, Rivera grounds like mine who grew up in the had made an appointment to meet with an inner city didn’t have the best education. admissions counselor at the College of I’m not trying to blame anyone, but a lot of Medicine. That counselor connected him students unfortunately are unprepared in with the HCOE, recommending he explore terms of study skills and not knowing what its breadth of programs. to expect from college,” he said. “My first meeting with them, they When Rivera graduated in 1994, he introduced me to a ton of opportunities Jorge A. Girotti, Ph.D., HCOE director, associate dean, went to work in a grocery store, then startand various seminars, and I became a forCollege of Medicine ed as an electrician’s apprentice, and soon mal member of their Medicina Scholars became an electrician. But something stirred within him, a belief that he Program, which gave me early exposure to topics in medicine and a could put his hands to a more satisfactory use. And so a dozen years after chance to meet physicians and medical students and identify mentorship leaving high school, Rivera returned to a classroom, at the University of opportunities,” he said. “The Hispanic Center of Excellence has done a Illinois-Chicago. great job to make us feel part of a community, and that this is our home.” “I’m a nontraditional student,” Rivera said. “When I went back to The HCOE was established in 1991 through a grant from the U.S. school, it was with the idea of eventually going to medical school. I knew Department of Health and Human Services to overcome the severe shortthe general process, but I didn’t know all the ins and outs of how to apply. age of Hispanic physicians throughout the country. Since that time, the

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nation’s Hispanic population has burgeoned, dramatically increasing the need for culturally competent physicians and an urgency to address severe health disparities that disproportionately affect low-income and Hispanic individuals and families. Similar Centers of Excellence exist elsewhere across the country, established to bolster access and numbers and solidify a stronger student pipeline. But their mission and goals have evolved over time, said UIC College of Medicine Associate Dean Jorge A. Girotti, Ph.D., who serves as the HCOE’s director. “Faculty development was something new,” Girotti said. “We were encouraged to increase the number of Hispanic faculty within the College of Medicine.” So now the HCOE offers faculty development to recruit, train, and retain Hispanic faculty and facilitate faculty and student research in Hispanic health, but it also develops a competitive Hispanic student applicant pool with partner organizations, promotes awareness and raises funds

Hispanic students pursued medical careers or undertook medical research. The HCOE created a summer research fellowship to expose Hispanic medical students to the field of research and, he hoped, inspire them to consider entering the medical profession. “What used to be three or four students doing research in the summer – we now have a steady flow of 15 to 20 students working on a variety of projects at the College of Medicine each summer,” he said. “That’s been quite a gain.” The proof is in the numbers: In 2010, UIC’s College of Medicine had the largest Hispanic incoming class in the country. In 2011, the campus welcomed 46 incoming Hispanic freshmen. The 2011 applicant pool was 7,900 applications, of which 550 were Hispanic. While that may seem small, the figure represents a significant increase over the years, he said. “A big part of what we do is create a support network for students,” Girotti said. “Many of the students come from our undergraduate campus,

Over the years, the HCOE developed five pipeline

programs to prepare and inspire high school,

college and medical

students to pursue careers in medicine and in

health-related research. for scholarships, and forges partnerships with medical schools through college of medicine departments. Girotti has been with UIC’s College of Medicine since 1982, and an associate dean since 1994, and previously was director of the Urban Health Program. He stepped down from the latter role in 2001 to concentrate on the HCOE, leading it since that time. “It was clear in the early 1990s that Latinos were the fastest-growing segment of the Illinois population,” Girotti said. “While all other groups were growing at modest rates, the Latino population was just skyrocketing, particularly the young segment of students in their educational years.” Socioeconomic issues were having a destructive impact on health among the region’s Hispanic population, with many in the Cook County region unable to access appropriate medical services, unable to locate Spanish-speaking physicians and other medical personnel, and unable to afford health insurance. Troubled by these trends, Girotti has focused on building a stronger Hispanic presence in the medical field locally. In the early 1990s, few

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and the majority are from Chicago.” Over the years, the HCOE developed five pipeline programs to prepare and inspire high school, college and medical students to pursue careers in medicine and in health-related research. Medicina Academy, for instance, was the outgrowth of conversations with legislators in the greater Chicago area, which inspired UIC to brainstorm about ways to reach younger Hispanic students and inspire them to attend college to pursue medical studies. The goal, then as now, is to partner with schools that identify potential students. The program, developed in 2009, invests resources at four area high schools, and reaches students aspiring to become physicians. There’s also a component to support parents called Academia de Padres. “Many of these students are first-generation, with parents who don’t have a college education,” he said. “Parents of the students come to the academy every month with their children, and while the kids are in a workshop, they are in a workshop, too. We’re trying to expand their understanding and make them a partner in the process.” Medicina Scholars, launched in 2005, is designed to introduce

Hispanic scholars – freshmen and sophomores – to the medical profession. The three-year curriculum gives Hispanic undergraduates, such as Rivera, and high school students a strong basis to succeed and become competitive for admissions to the medical school. Each year, the program admits about 30 students. “The goal of that program is to keep people focused on their goals from early on, so ideally they don’t get sidetracked by other issues that happen in college,” Girotti said. “We try to provide them with some tools to understand health care issues of Latinos.” About half of those who take part apply to the medical school. The Medical Student Summer Research Program is a 10-week initiative designed to introduce UIC Hispanic medical students to the field of research. The fellowship provides basic skill sets to develop a hypothesis, understand preliminary data and findings, and appreciate the outcomes of research, application in the medical field and relevance in the treatment of patients. Another 10-week program provides experience in health disparities research to third- and fourth-year undergraduate Hispanic students. Though Girotti and his colleagues harbor lofty goals, they also face stubborn and consistent obstacles, primarily that the pre-college education many students receive requires the provision of remedial assistance. The lack of proper academic tools derails or delays their future plans. Under the Latino Health Science Enrichment Program, HCOE partners with UIC’s Latin American Recruitment and Educational Services Program to offer a summer academic enrichment program for Chicago high school students. Program participants engage in courses that enhance skills in science reasoning, mathematics and writing to prepare for the American College Testing exam, take part in college readiness, health science career and leadership skills workshops in mid-June, and participate in an investigative project to develop research skills. “We’ve made strides in developing our own local pool of applicants,” he said. “We are not where we want to be, to be quite honest. We would hope that in any given entering class, at least 80 percent of our Latino students would be from Illinois. Right now, we are approaching 70 percent. We have made progress.” “I’m making sure that our agenda stays on the radar screen constantly,” Girotti said. “But the other component you cannot do without is support from your leadership, and we have been very fortunate that the deans’ support of minority initiatives has never wavered.” A third-generation Mexican-American, Peter Ureste, said the Center of Excellence has offered a lifeline, particularly because he moved far from his closest friends and family to study in Chicago. “Most of my support system was on the West Coast,” he said. “Since nobody in my family is a doctor or completed four years of college, when I would go to them, all they would say is that I needed to study more.” Ureste is the first in his family to graduate from college and attend medical school, an “exciting” benchmark in his family’s history. “I don’t have any memories of my parents reading a newspaper or a book as I grew up. They probably did, but stuff like that influenced my own study habits,” he said. “Going to school was very hard in the beginning. I struggled, and at times I felt like I didn’t belong in school.” When he eventually graduated high school in 1994, he went to Cal State University in San Bernardino, which was relatively close to home. There was an expectation he would attend college, but he struggled and dropped out after a year to study acting. He then became a dialysis technician at a clinic. “I initially started by stocking medical supplies,” he recalled.

After a six-year hiatus, though, he felt he needed to attend, and stick with it this time. He went to school at Portland State University in 2007, and while attending discovered a budding interested in medicine. He graduated with a degree in Community Health. He applied to 15 medical schools, and only was accepted into the University of Illinois-Chicago. But the adjustment was jarring because he didn’t have his closest friends and family with him to provide a support system. “Most of my classmates were 21,” the 36-year-old said. “It was a very difficult transition for me in the beginning because I felt isolated. The Center of Hispanic Excellence was a support system, a safety net. I became very close with advisors, and would seek them out for support, even just to sit and talk.” He took part in HCOE programs, connected with principal investigators and conducted research on the impact of literacy on patient care, he said. “I understand how offering people medicine and treatments is not enough, and there’s a lot of other things that influence health outcomes,” he said. Ureste has volunteered to work with students in several HCOE initiatives, leading lectures on health disparities and talking with students about anatomy, psychology and public health disparities in communities of color. The HCOE sponsored his attendance at national Hispanic Medical Association conferences in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Washington, D.C. “I felt like they were available to me, the people in the center were very approachable,” he said, “and there’s a cultural element because some of them reminded me of my family members. They have been very supportive. Over the years, they’ve been available for encouragement, because sometimes I’ve been discouraged by exams.” Ureste spoke as he neared graduation and had just learned that he matched for a residency in psychiatry – closer to home – at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He said he’s eternally grateful for the HCOE’s role in helping him to succeed in higher education. “UIC is really diverse. I have friends in other medical schools that have minimal diversity,” he said. “I really feel that no one in my family had these opportunities, and I don’t think that would have been possible without people who reached out and acted as a mentor, or reached out to create programs like these.” “I feel really lucky for what I have accomplished so far, and for the people who have helped me. They mean a lot to the students, and not being there would be a great disservice.” Last fall, 45 Hispanics began medical studies at UIC’s College of Medicine, bringing to 203 the number of Hispanics at the school (the highest number ever was reached in 2010, when there were 212 at one time). And this spring, 45 Hispanic students at UIC’s College of Medicine were slated to graduate with an MD degree. “Everybody wants to shoot for a higher number at entry, but the key is – does the school have the resources in place to make sure these students succeed,” Girotti said. “Before the Hispanic Center of Excellence was created, the attrition rate of Latino medical students was 15 percent. Our current attrition rate is 2 to 3 percent. Just about everybody who comes here gets their medical degree. Our goal is to get that to 100 percent.” Despite its success, the HCOE always worries about the certainty of funding. Federal support for Centers of Excellence continued for 15 years, but when the funding stream was severed, UIC was fortunate. State legislators recognized its role and in 2006 restored about $400,000 of the annual $700,000 the HCOE had received.

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The College of Medicine contributed even further funding to prevent the HCOE from reducing its services. And, the following year, even better news surfaced: legislators increased their annual funding to $800,000, a pot of money that has remained steady. “Every year we talk to our legislators and remind them not to forget about us,” Girotti said. “There is a huge money hole in the state, so we are always in fear that the money will not materialize, so that is a huge concern. One of our priorities is to see if we can make the center a part of university funding. The advantage is that you would have more stability, but the disadvantage would be that your funding could fluctuate, depending on how the university’s budget goes.” Isabel Angulo agrees that HCOE’s funding needs to remain strong, because it provides a valuable service. Angulo is the first in her family to go to college. Now 26 years old, she recalled first wanting to work the medical field as a youngster growing up in Chicago’s south side. “It was something I decided when I was about 7 or 8 years old – that I wanted to be a doctor, and that’s what I wanted to pursue when I moved to the United States from Mexico when I was 11 years old,” she said. She pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree in molecular and cellular biology and a minor in chemistry at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, and then felt there was only one choice for her next step: UIC’s College of Medicine in Chicago. “I wanted to be close to home,” she said. “I also felt like they really wanted medical students from diverse backgrounds, and were willing to provide the supports you needed there,” she said. While in college, she served as social chair for the Latino Medical Students Association, devising programming to draw Chicago’s high school students to the campus to learn about health issues and careers. She also visited high schools in the region, and served as a peer mentor. “I wanted to be part of an organization that served the Latino community,” she said. “They helped a lot during my first year in medical school, and so I wanted to help incoming medical students.” “The Hispanic Center of Excellence and Dr. Girotti and all of his staff are a wonderful resource for all current and aspiring medical students,”

she said. “They provide a very needed resource at UIC, and I am very thankful for them. They were like a little family at UIC and always willing to help with anything I needed.” Angulo, interviewed weeks before her spring graduation from the College of Medicine, was preparing to launch her residency at University of Illinois Hospital this summer. Her focus: a combination of internal medicine and pediatrics. “It was one of my top choices,” she said. “I’m very happy because Chicago has been my home for a long time, and my family is here. I am very happy I can stay close with my family and be able to continue my education.” “This has been a wonderful experience,” she said. “UIC provides so many resources and support for other students,” she said. “They really want to provide one of the best medical educations in the country, and train physicians who can serve their communities.” Her family is proud of her drive. “My mom worked hard to get us to move to the United States for more opportunities and to receive an education, because she didn’t really have these opportunities in Mexico,” she said. “Everything I’ve done is because of her. She taught me to go and pursue what you want.” Rivera, too, believes he is indebted to the community from which he came, which is why he strives to give back. He continues to mentor undergraduates who are interested in following in his footsteps, participating in the Medicina Scholars Program. He talks with them about what medical school is like, and offers tips for success that helped him overcome challenges. “It’s really the discipline,” he said. “Most people have the intellectual ability to do well in college but don’t have the discipline. You should study when you know you have to study, and you should have a bigger, overall picture.” Girotti has been a “great mentor,” Rivera said. “He’s somebody to turn to when you have questions, or if you are doubting yourself for a second. He’s someone who can really help put things in perspective and give you reassurance that you are here for a reason, and that you can do it. His support has been tremendous.”

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UNCENSORED

by Peggy Sands Orchowski

DO TENURED PROFESSORS WORK FULL TIME? – It’s a perennial question of citizens involved with large public universities. Do the professors really work full time? I remember that when the new chancellor of the University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) was introduced to the community at a packed luncheon, the first question asked was: “Do the professors at UCSB really work full time?” The issue was raised not too long ago in the Washington Post (April 15, 2012, “Hardworking, or Hardly Working?”). It was pointed out that the typical tenured professor teaches five classes and a two-hour lab a week (for many, it’s five courses a year, to be split over four quarters or three semesters). While expected to have office hours, many professors have TAs to correct student papers. The publication of books and papers is voluntary. “Twenty hours a week, eight months a year,” one professor said of his schedule. It’s not the timesheet of a typical American worker – low skilled or professional. As college costs increase, no wonder stressed-out taxpayers are again questioning professors’ work ethic. Yet everyone agrees that nothing is worth more than an engaged, inspiring teacher. Maybe social media like Twitter and Facebook, capable of broadcasting instant reviews worldwide, will be the only way to expose and shame the unengaged professor.

GREED TAINTS UNIQUE MODEL OF THE U.S. ATHLETE/SCHOLAR – Athletics has a unique place on American campuses compared to other countries. No major European or Latin American university supports a semi-professional soccer team, for instance, whose games are televised and bring in millions of dollars in revenue for its alma mater. The traditional attitude is that it is almost impossible for a highly intellectual scholar to be a world-class athlete as well. American athlete/scholars have been cutting-edge leaders for a new world attitude. But the increasing money in college sports is tainting this unique American model. The increasing costs of major football teams, the mania of the fans, the danger of the sport and the number of sickening scandals are replacing the positive American model. New studies show that increasing numbers of athletes never graduate. Sports and scholarship is an American tradition that needs to be honored as the unique opportunity it is. Exposing and punishing abuse should be encouraged, not resisted.

are taking Chinese and Arabic. Also up on certain campuses: Swahili. According to columnist Joe Nocera, some universities with major basketball programs such as the University of North Carolina require their athletes to take Swahili “because the athletic department’s tutors are strong in that language.”

GERMAN, FRENCH DOWN; CHINESE, ARABIC AND SWAHILI UP – The politics of language says much about a country’s evolving culture. That includes the languages that are taught at local colleges. Recent studies have found that offerings of European languages such as German and French have decreased remarkably on U.S. college campuses the last 10 years, while more and more students

INTEGRITY OF STUDENT VOTING ON CAMPUS IS CHALLENGED – There are two basics about voting in a national election that I think everyone can agree on, even in this time of heated election politics and controversy. One is that only citizens can vote. In fact, in the United States voting is one of the few privileges that is unique to citizenship; immigrants on permanent visas or green cards can do just about everything a citizen can except vote and serve on a jury (some permanent immigrants say they don’t want to become a citizen because they don’t want to be called up to serve on a jury that may have to consider the death penalty). Second is that eligible citizens (over 18 and non-felons) can only vote once in any one election. Both of these basics face challenges this year as national organizations (including Hispanic groups such as LULAC and HACU) are financing big campaigns to encourage students to register and vote on campus. Proof of citizenship is never required and often not even asked by eager student voter registrants; on many campuses, even asking for proof of citizenship is considered highly politically incorrect. Unless challenged, there is really no place in the registration and voting process that citizenship is ever verified. There is also no way in America to crosscheck whether a student voter who casts a physical ballot on a college campus has also cast an absentee mail-ballot in another district or state. Double voting is easy to do with impunity. Our democracy depends on a clean voting system. Voting is an extreme privilege. It also is the ultimate honor system. DOES GOING TO COLLEGE MEAN BECOMING A LIBERAL SECULAR SNOB? – The common image that former presidential candidate Rick Santorum raised, that going to college makes a student a liberal secular snob, is not backed by research. Studies show increasing proportions of college students are not political, often work an off-campus job, and are more religious than noncollege students. They even marry more and divorce less. Margaret (Peggy Sands) Orchowski was a reporter for AP South America and for the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. She earned a doctorate in international educational administration from the University of California-Santa Barbara. She lives in Washington, D.C., where she was an editor at Congressional Quarterly and now is a freelance journalist and columnist covering Congress and higher education.

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The Exemplary Career of Dr. Ciro V. Sumaya HEALTH/LEADERSHIP

by Frank DiMaria

elow the complimentary close of his e-mails, Dr. Ciro V. Sumaya offers a saying that he himself coined: “The health of one is admirable; the health of all, supreme.” Sumaya believes that while a common physician performs an important service when healing an individual who is ill, it is the physician who is equipped with public health skills and principles who can protect the health of the masses. Sumaya has been protecting the health of a large portion of the U.S. population for his entire professional life, from a stint as a general medical officer during the Vietnam War to his time serving under President Bill Clinton at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Currently he is protecting health at the School of Rural Public Health at Texas A&M University System Health Science Center. Born and raised in Brownsville, Texas, Sumaya was always fascinated by books. He spent countless hours reading in the library, especially topics related to history and biographies. Moreover, his parents had a sizable collection of books at his childhood home. He attended public schools and graduated as class valedictorian from Brownsville High School in 1959. “In high school,” he said, “I won the Texas Interscholastic League competition in typing – a skill that has been very useful, and I was elected president of the senior class.” Sumaya attended Texas Southmost College in Brownsville for three semesters before transferring to the University of Texas-Austin in the fall of 1960, where he graduated, in 1962, Phi Beta Kappa and with high honors. After graduation, he entered the University of Texas Medical Branch through an accelerated three-year program, earning his medical degree in 1966. He immediately went into family medicine, taking a rotating internship at Los Angeles County General Hospital, affiliated with the University of Southern California. After completing that internship, he was drafted and served in the U.S. Air Force as a general medical officer at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri for two years, during the Vietnam War. For reasons he does not understand to this day, Sumaya was always interested in becoming a physician. But his health as a child may have played a small role in his choice to practice pediatrics. “I was considered a sickly child and was taken to the physician often because I was pretty thin back then,” he says. His choice to care for children as a physician was cemented during his stint in the Air Force, where he was assigned to the pediatric department of the air base medical unit. “There I met Dr. George Segal, an individual who helped broaden my

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vision of my future professional life. Segal fostered my interest in pediatrics. He had just finished his residency at a children’s hospital, and he steered me into competing for a pediatric residency position at his alma mater, St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” he says. St. Christopher’s, long considered a prestigious institution by the medical community, selected Sumaya for the residency. And it was during that residency that he developed a strong desire to seek more specialized training as a pediatric infectious disease subspecialist. He received that training through a fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at the Tulane University School of Medicine, under the tutelage of Dr. Margaret H.D. Smith. “This fellowship required that I obtain a concurrent public health degree at the Tulane University School of Public Health. I questioned the need for this additional public health degree without realizing how important public health would be later in my professional life,” he says. Sumaya ended up putting that public health degree he questioned to good use, first at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA) and then for the federal government. At UTHSCSA, he established some vital programs – the South Texas Health Research Center, the Area Health Education Center of South Texas and the Medical Treatment Effectiveness Research Center. “My purpose in establishing these three major programs was to develop the infrastructure for a future academic health center, a grouping of schools of medicine, nursing, allied health and public health, among others,” he says. With the establishment of the South Texas Health Research Center, Sumaya brought a research sensibility that intimately linked academic health center resources – in this case, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio – and focused those resources on priority research issues identified by faculty researchers as well as community organizations in the 41 counties that the institution serves.

The state of Texas appropriated $2.2 million for the center, an amount that Sumaya quickly leveraged with an additional $15 million from other sources during the first four years of the center’s existence. Under his leadership, UTHSCSA was awarded one of the first federally funded Medical Treatment Effectiveness Research Centers, that serves as a research, training and dissemination resource to improve medical outcomes and practice costs. This program further augmented research efforts in health system performance and quality, an important research field that was emerging at that time in Texas. The third program that Sumaya implemented during his time at the University of Texas was the Area Health Education Center. This center established the foundation of medical student and residency training sites for primary and specialty care and a master degree nursing program, expanded health career opportunity efforts for school children, and provided a traveling library for use by regional hospitals and health professional students and faculty. “The evolution of what is now called the Regional Academic Health Center of South Texas will further expand not only higher education opportunities in the health field but also bring in corresponding economic and social gains to the region,” he says. Presidential Appointments During the 1990s, Sumaya put the additional public health degree he obtained from Tulane to good use for the federal government. In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed him to the Presidential Task Force on Healthcare Reform. “This was a time of much debate and discussion on the prime need to improve the country’s health care systems,” he says. The debates occurred over the country’s health care reform issues, such as the health professions workforce, health benefits, health service delivery systems and the roles of academic health centers, among others. While serving on the task force, Sumaya provided expertise and knowledge from his background, but he also learned a great deal about his chosen profession. For example, he learned to tackle the complex issues of the health profession workforce, such as the shortage of primary care physicians and other providers, health care accessibility problems brought on by the geographical maldistribution of health professionals (particularly in rural areas and poor communities) and insufficient diversity in the workforce that results in inadequate competencies of that workforce in dealing with diverse populations. Only months after being appointed to the Health Care Reform Task Force, Sumaya was again appointed by President Clinton as administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration. He held this position from 1994 to 1997, reporting directly to the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Donna Shalala. In that post, he again amassed a long list of accomplishments. He developed six priority programs across the agency, targeting significant inadequacies in the health care of underserved and vulnerable people, for example, poor, rural, and inner-city mothers, children, elderly and people suffering from complex health conditions. He spearheaded the development of the Association of Hispanic-Serving Health Professions Schools and the National Hispanic Medical Association, both of which addressed the severe underrepresentation of Hispanics in the health professions and the severe health disparities they suffered. He also secured public-private organizations and networks that not only support but enhance quality health services that were available, accessible and affordable to the poor and vulnerable, such as community and

migrant health centers. And he headed up the creation of the Friends of HRSA, a group of national-level external organizations and institutions essential for the long-term growth and impact of the agency itself. Back to Texas After he’d served under President Clinton, Texas A&M recruited Sumaya as founding dean of its School of Public Health, which included an appointment as the John and Maureen Cox Endowed Chair in Medicine. This was the first school of public health in the country with a stated emphasis on rural areas in Texas and the country, those geographical regions that received insufficient attention. “I found this offer as dean very appealing because it not only was supported by a major land grant university but also because of the mission to teach, do research and develop informed policy using public health approaches, principles and values to help address critical and complex health issues affecting the country as a whole and rural and other underserved communities in particular,” says Sumaya. Those representative health issues included inexorably rising health costs, recalcitrant disparities of health status across American society and dire need for expansion of prevention measures – taking a proactive role in protecting an individual’s health rather than treating the individual after he or she becomes ill. Since its founding, the School of Rural Public Health has grown rapidly, producing master and doctoral student graduates who are currently employed at state and national level health organizations and institutions, expanding research and policy to improve the environment and healthy lifestyles and anticipating the many needs of the growing elderly population. “We are excited with our new three-building complex that houses the school and point with pride to our selection into the top 25 schools of public health in 2005 by U.S. News & World Report, at this early stage of the school’s evolution,” says Sumaya. In 1997, after 11 years as dean of the School of Rural Health, Sumaya stepped down as the school’s dean and assumed academic responsibilities as a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management. In that role, he teaches and performs research affecting the country’s “need for a quality and committed health care workforce – our physicians, nurses, dentists, public health and allied health workers of the future,” he says. He continues to provide committee and consultative services to state and national/federal level organizations. Most notably is his recent service on the Secretarial-appointed Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice in the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Texas governor-appointed Research Board of the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (which monitors oil spills), Board of Trustees of Ascension Health (the largest nonprofit health system in the country), and the President’s Council of Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics Inc. The doctor’s numerous honors include, among others, a distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Texas Medical Branch, the Juan Carlos Finlay Award from the U.S. Public Health Service, and in 2009, inclusion on Hispanic Business magazine’s list of the 100 most influent Hispanics in the U.S.

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La Cena Boosting the Number of Hispanic Nutrition Majors

The

by Marilyn Gilroy need for Hispanic professionals who are trained in dietetics and nutrition science has never been greater. One reason is the alarming rise in obesity among Hispanics. In the case of Hispanic youths, obesity rates have more than doubled in the last decade, according to the HispanicServing Health Professions Schools (HSHPS), a nonprofit organization representing 22 medical schools and three schools of public health. Statistics show Mexican-American children are the most affected and are twice as likely to be obese as their White peers. In addition, studies indicate that more than 60 percent of Hispanic Americans eventually will develop type 2 diabetes, which leads to other health problems such as heart disease and high blood pressure. The issue is receiving attention from policymakers, such as the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators, which recently issued a policy brief calling Hispanic obesity “an American crisis.” As a result, there is an increase in national efforts to educate Hispanics as well as all Americans about diet and nutrition. Goya Foods has joined the movement by supporting first lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign to promote healthier diets and more activity for young people. The company has distributed posters, coupons and cookbooks encouraging healthy eating in conjunction with the USDA’s “Mi Plato” slogan and visuals showing more fruits and vegetables on a plate as part of a balanced meal. The materials are being distributed in 32,000 supermarkets, as well as local churches and schools. Goya also has developed lesson plans about nutrition to be used in fourth through sixth grade in several major cities. Higher education institutions are jumping in to do their part through educational initiatives. “There is a lot of synergy around this topic,” said Dr. Neeta Singh, chair of the nutrition program at University of Incarnate Word (UIW), which has been at the forefront of training dietary specialists who will work in communities to improve the health of Hispanics. UIW is one of four institutions in South Texas that partnered in a USDA-funded grant project to increase the number of underrepresented stu-

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dents who declare nutrition as a major. The three-year project, La Cena (Central Texas Education for Nutrition Advancement), was designed to increase the retention rate of these students and provide opportunities for them to transfer to a university to complete their bachelor’s degree. The other grant collaborators included two community colleges that are HSIs, San Antonio College and Northeast Lakeview College, plus Texas State University.

Susan Kazen, chair, fine/performing arts and kinesiology, Northeast Lakeview College The project set forth both short- and longrange goals. One of the most immediate objectives was to increase Hispanic education levels in the area of nutrition. However, the ultimate goal is to ameliorate the incidence of obesity in the south Texas region by providing more well-trained nutritionists for the area, especially ones who speak Spanish and are sensitive to cultural differences. On both levels, La Cena met or exceeded its goals. Susan Kazen, chair of fine/performing arts and kinesiology of Northeast Lakeview College, and one of the project’s directors, said La Cena was successful because it was the “right program at the right time.” “San Antonio continues to be identified as 0 6 / 0 4 / 2 0 1 2

one of the fattest cities in the nation, and our mayor has made obesity treatment and prevention through nutrition and fitness a top priority,” she said. “So there has been quite a bit of media coverage for the topic over the past few years.” There is no mystery as to what it will take to reduce the adverse effects of poor diet and lack of exercise. Kazen says it is estimated that if everyone just adopted three lifestyle factors (no smoking, daily physical activity, and a healthy diet of at least 50 percent plant-based foods), that 80 percent or more of the chronic disease in the United States could be prevented. That means 80 percent of heart disease, diabetes and hypertension/stroke. “That is an amazing number,” she said. “So there is a real need for more educated professionals in the areas of nutrition and fitness – especially those who can communicate effectively with all sorts of people.” Meeting the Challenges of Recruitment and Retention Originally, La Cena targeted students from high schools with high (44 percent to 98 percent) minority enrollments in the San Antonio area. But Kazen said as they presented at high schools, it became apparent that students were not really ready to commit to a college major. “We were spending time and money on this cohort and not really getting the results we had hoped for,” she said. “Fortunately, we were able to correct in year two of the grant and USDA allowed us to minimize our high school recruitment and redirect those scholarship funds to students already in college.” Recruitment efforts were stepped up toward community college students already enrolled in allied health, the sciences and kinesiology classes. A wealth of informational materials including flyers, brochures and a website were already developed during the first year of the grant. A full-time project manager, Stephanie Lozano Burns, who has a degree in nutrition and is an alumna of Texas State University, was hired. Kazen said Burns was very effective in giving presentations about La Cena because she was organized, knowledgeable and very approachable.

Students immediately felt comfortable with her. “Many students were interested in nutrition, but didn’t know where to go or how to get started,” said Kazen. “So when our flyers and brochures went out and when Stephanie made presentations in science and kinesiology courses, many students became interested.” La Cena organizers also reached out to faculty and staff on campus, relying on “word of mouth” marketing to colleagues in various disciplines. “For example, if a student did a speech about something related to health, nutrition, or fitness, or wrote a paper about one of those topics, the instructor would ask them if they had ever spoken to Stephanie or me, and would give them our contact information,” said Kazen. Money, in the form of scholarships, was a major factor in bringing students to the program. La Cena gave out more than $75,000 in scholarships. “Money is very tight for most community college students, and a scholarship of $500-$750 really impacts their ability to attend college,” she said. Most importantly, the grant included funds to send students to conferences where they could meet professionals in the field, learn more about job opportunities, and meet students from other schools around the state and the nation interested in the same areas of study. “This was an amazing experience for a lot of these students,” said Kazen. “Many community college students have not had the opportunity to travel very much, and have never attended a professional conference. Exposing these students early in their college careers to these opportunities was priceless.” By the summer of 2011, La Cena had surpassed its recruitment goals. Last year, the project had 63 students at Northeast Lakeview and San Antonio Colleges, of which 43 percent were underrepresented in the categories of males and/or Hispanics. However, the retention piece of the project presented additional challenges. One of the reasons is the curriculum. Students who major in nutrition take several courses in biology and chemistry as well as classes in behavioral sciences, food preparation, public health and food management. It is a rigorous course of study and can be daunting for many students. “Curriculum is probably our largest sticking point,” said Kazen. “The nutrition major requires at least four semesters of chemistry, and at least three semesters of biology. Many students are underprepared for math and get stuck in the math cycle, which is a prerequisite for the chemistry/science courses.” Although this problem is not limited to minori-

ties, it has been an obstacle in getting underrepresented and disadvantaged students to persist in math and science-based degree programs. “Nutrition is a science-based program and many of our students are first-generation students who often do not have a strong background in science,” said UIW’s Singh. “That is one of the biggest hurdles for students.” Singh says that Incarnate Word lends support

tions when they get confused, know what they have to do to complete, and will become productive, successful members of the nutrition profession.” La Cena is just beginning to graduate its first students, but there are more than a dozen in the pipeline and other transfers lined up for next year. Those students who persist often land good jobs. “Our graduates work in government and community settings, hospitals and hospices, anywhere

La Cena students from Northeast Lakeview College to students through learning assistance programs and tutoring. La Cena also built in a “mentor’ component in which junior/senior nutrition majors work with community college transfers to help them adjust to the university environment. Kazen says the idea of providing mentors who would encourage students to “hang in there” was sound but needed some additional tweaking as the grant progressed. “We did not anticipate that many of the mentors really didn’t know how to do it in a way that benefited both the mentor and the mentee,” she said. “So we ‘course-corrected,’ reduced the number of mentors we had, but trained them better and got better results.” Those efforts paid off. Although the goal of the grant was to increase the annual retention rate of underrepresented nutrition majors who transferred to Texas State or UIW to 89 percent and 78 percent, respectively, by year three, that goal was met and surpassed. The retention rate for Texas State hit 100 percent; for UIW, 85 percent. It wasn’t only the numbers that delighted Kazen; she was equally gratified by the success of La Cena students. “The feedback we receive from our university partners is that the students who come through our program and transfer are some of the best students now at the universities,” said Kazen. “They know how to study, know how to ask ques0 6 / 0 4 / 2 0 1 2

there are health organizations,” said Singh. “But they also go to corporate wellness centers, sports organizations, and food companies.” In many cases, students are hired as a result of the internship required to complete the program. “We have a good reputation, and when our students go out to fulfill the internship component of the program, 50 percent end up getting hired through that experience,” said Singh. Most nutrition degree programs qualify students to apply for the American Dietetic Association (ADA) program to become a registered dietitian, thus enabling them to work in a clinical setting. Singh says it is a highly competitive and well-regulated program that requires students to complete an additional 1,200 hours of supervised practice and pass the ADA licensing exam. Although the La Cena grant period has ended, the project has left a lasting impact, with several components still in place. Kazen says the La Cena Student Nutrition Organization still meets monthly. Trips to professional conferences have continued, with 14 students traveling to the most recent meeting of the Texas Dietetic Association. The “word of mouth” networking on campus continues. “Almost weekly, we have students coming to the office who are interested in majoring in nutrition, and we continue to work with them on transfer plans,” said Kazen.

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Is Justice on the Horizon for DirectCare Workers?

by Thomas G. Dolan ustice travels slowly, sometimes much too slowly, but when it does move, it does so inexorably. This appears to be the case with the convergence of a number of forces aimed at ending the long-term discrimination against aides who work in the home caring for the disabled and aged. Their duties range from housekeeping and cooking chores to caregiving and companionship, to personal attendance and hygiene, and, with training, may extend to health care tasks such as administering medication, changing bandage, and monitoring medical equipment. Due to its legal history, this occupation is referred to by a variety of different, sometimes overlapping and confusing names. But, for simplicity, here those engaged most often in this activity will be referred to as either direct-care or home-care workers. This article was occasioned by the report of the Washington, D.C.-based National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation’s largest Latino civil rights and advocacy group. The report, dated Feb. 3, 2012, is titled Caring for Caregivers: Latinos in the Direct-Care Workforce. Why is this issue important for the U.S. population in general and Latinos in particular? Catherine Singley, NCLR’s senior policy analyst, drawing on the report, points out that by 2030, persons over the age of 65 are projected to make up 19 percent of the general population, up from 12.4 percent in 2000. In 2050, the population of older Americans is expected to number 88.5 million, more than doubling the 39.6 million older-American population in 2009. With the dramatic growth in the older population and longer potential life expectancy, demand for long-term health and support services will also increase, Singley continues. Already, families responsible for finding appropriate long-term care for elderly relatives find their options limited due to high demand for community and group-living situations; as a result, many turn to direct-care aides. And as Singley points out, the direct-care industry is a major employer of Latinos. Of the nearly 3.4 million direct-care workers in the U.S. (including nursing and psychiatric aides), 15.4 percent, or approximately 52,000 direct-care workers, are Latino. Furthermore, 23 percent of the direct-care workforce is foreign-born, compared to 15.8 percent of the general working population. This figure is not insignificant, since Latinos constitute almost half of foreign-born workers in the U.S. “The vast majority are women, 90 percent, and 20 percent are foreignborn immigrants. And by 2050, Latinos will constitute one in three of American workers,” Singley says. “So since Latinos represent one of the fastest-growing group of workers and direct-care is the fastest-growing occupation, this represents a real growth opportunity for Latinos.”

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Catch-22 – direct-care workers are grossly underpaid, often not attaining even the minimum wage or being paid for overtime. Where does the money go? Much of it to the direct-care services industry, the third parties who provide the home-care workers. This industry has seen consistent growth over the past year, adding 38,000 jobs just this January alone, and is projected to grow by 58 percent over the next decade. “Many of these companies are making record profits,” Singley says, “pocketing twice as much of the Medicare and Medicaid funds they get instead of paying it to the workers, 46 percent of whom live below the poverty line.” Are we looking here at some Third World country, or maybe 19th-century sweatshop America? No, this is the current good-old U.S.A., land of equality. So how did the country get to this state? Why has this segment of the workforce been so cruelly left behind? Here’s a brief summary of the snarled legal history: “The Labor Standard Act, as part of the New Deal, was passed in 1938,” Singley says. “This act established the minimum wage and overtime, but as part of the compromise to get the bill passed, home-care workers were exempted. Why? Because these workers at the time were primarily AfricanAmericans in the South.” So this issue began with racism and, as Singley says, “continues to have racial implications.” But this intolerable situation has gradually attracted more and more parties pressing for a change. These include Latino and African-American organizations, as well as advocates for the disabled and aged, the labor movement, health care providers, and others. This injustice has been presented to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007, which has continued to delay, mainly through extending the period for public hearings, allowing many third-party agencies to complain how extending the law to home-care workers would put a damper on their record profits. But the delay has also allowed the opposition to reach a groundswell of support, which means there is a reasonable hope that the court will relegate this illegal practice to history. Singley says that the best-case scenario is a court decision in August 2012. There is a real hope for change, explains Haeyoung Yoon, staff attorney, National Employment Law Project, New York City, because in 1974 Congress passed an amendment that did, in fact, extend minimum wage, overtime and other benefits to home-care workers. However, in 1975, the U.S. Department of Labor, which had the mandate to define the regulations, Yoon says, “narrowly carved out two exemptions, providing that people who offered only companionship or protection were not covered. This means that as many as 2.5 million home-care workers are excluded from the federal minimum wage and overtime protection under the Fair Labor Standards Act.”

Hoon provided a paper presented by National Employment Law Project Executive Director Christine Owens and Legal Co-Director Catherine Ruckelshaus (in cooperation with the Center for Community Change) reflecting their comments before the U.S. Department of Labor on March 21, 2012. The home-care advocates at this hearing addressed what has been termed the “companionship exemption.” In brief, what was meant to be excluded were activities such as casual baby-sitting or the neighbor who comes in to play an occasional game of checkers with an elderly person. This report states: “Not only did Congress make clear that the companionship exemption did not include jobs involving substantial household work duties but nowhere in the record did the legislative sponsors suggest that physically demanding personal care services, such as assistance with bathing and toileting, or services relating to medical care (all of which are typically parts of home-care work) should ever be exempt.” The report shows that the 1974 amendments were intended to “include within the coverage of the act all employees whose vocation is domestic service.” Sen. Quentin Burdick stressed that the exemption was not intended to exclude “the professional domestic who does this as a living.” Sen.

lize the workforce by measures such as improving working conditions and offering a pathway to citizenship for immigrants; and to make sure that those who need it have access to affordable and quality home care. Olguin agrees that there are many third-party agencies that exploit direct-care workers by pocketing an unfair cut. But she also says that the various unfair exclusions “also make it difficult for good employers to do the right thing. We need the laws so that employers can provide a supportive work environment.” One of the big problems with the current situation is the high rate of turnover. “One member told us that she took care of an elderly couple around the clock for $35 a day. That’s just one of thousands of stories we hear all of the time.” The National Employment Law Project report points out the obvious: “Long hours can also result in worse care for patients, as caretakers working 60-hour or 70-hour weeks face fatigue and stress in performing what is a demanding job under any circumstances.” The report also states: “Studies have shown turnover rates among home-care workers of between 44 percent and 65 percent. And a 2007 National Home Health Aid Survey found that 35 percent of home health

There is a real hope for change, explains Haeyoung Yoon, staff

attorney, National Employment Law Project, New York City, because in 1974 Congress passed an amendment that did, in fact, extend

minimum wage, overtime and other benefits to home-care workers. Jacob Javits echoed that the coverage was meant to extend “to really those who make it a regular part of their occupation. And Rep. Shirley Chisholm described this workforce as being made up of “the thousands of ladies who have the sole responsibility for taking care of their families and will not be able to adequately support their families.” One of the characteristics of this particular fair employment movement is that not only are various organizations working together, they are also not limiting themselves to any single strategy. They are trying many things, which, though different, are complementary. For instance, the New York City-based National Domestic Workers Alliance, with some 35 affiliates across the country, works on the state level, and, says campaign director Jodeen Olguin-Tayler, worked with the Caring Across Generations campaign and others to get the bill passed in New York state. The bill, after several years of advocacy, was passed in the fall of 2011. “This was a big step forward, for this was the first legislation in New York that specifically provides for paid sick leave and other benefits,” says Olguin-Tayler. She adds that a similar bill has passed the California state assembly and is currently pending in the senate. Olguin says that her organization has five pillars or goals: to increase home-care jobs by two million; to get a number of measures passed, such as minimum wage and right to organize legislation, that would improve the quality of the occupation; to initiate a national training program; to stabi-

aides intended to quit in the next year. The primary causes of high turnover rates are low wages, insufficient hours, and a lack of reimbursement for travel costs. High turnover imposes a significant financial burden to employers in the form of recruitment, retraining, and administrative costs. Additionally, because workers’ annual earning are so low, many workers rely on public benefits programs – a huge financial burden on state budgets. Raising wages modestly could therefore result in an overall costs savings to Medicaid home-care programs and state budgets. “Home-care clients would benefit as well from reduced turnover, increased stability and less burnout in the home-care workforce, and the resulting improvement in the quality of care. Clients may also have an easier time finding workers if working conditions improve and more workers are attracted to and more likely to remain in the home-care field. “Finally, experts estimate that one-third of the victims of labor trafficking are domestic workers (a category that includes companions, nannies and housekeepers). Their vulnerabilities stem both from the isolating conditions under which they work and from their exclusion from core labor protections that cover all other workers. These are matters not only of labor rights, but human rights.”

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“Serving Those Who Have Served Us”: INNOVATIONS/PROGRAMS

USC School of Social Work Reaching Military Vets and Families

by Sylvia Mendoza

hen Army Sergeant Ernie D’Leon arrived home from Vietnam, complete with a Purple Heart for his heroic efforts, he had hoped to ease into civilian life and bury his combat experience. The first question his girlfriend asked, however, was, “Did you kill anyone?” Thinking he would have had time to transition, to feel solid American ground, to have time

Ernie D’Leon, retired Army sergeant, board of directors, American Combat Veterans of War to adjust, the question instead jolted him into a reality he was not prepared for. “I realized I might not be treated as a regular person, that I maybe might even be looked at as a barbarian,” D’Leon says. “In Vietnam, you ceased compassion for life – for your own and for your enemies. That haunts you.” D’Leon was only 20 when he and 70 men were sent on a firefight in Vietnam. The two men on either side of him were instantly killed in that ambush. He earned the Purple Heart and was sent to Fort Ord in California for four months

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before rotating out of the service. After that, he “disappeared” to Tahoe for two years, to try to get his head straight. By day, he was “normal,” masking his pain and trauma. By night, nightmares plagued his sleep, the flashbacks vivid. The transition to civilian life was as difficult for him as it had been for his father. A World War II vet, the senior D’Leon had been on 36 bombing missions and suffered from debilitating nightmares the rest of his life, says D’Leon. It was painful for him to watch his father’s trauma. It was painful to go through himself. “There wasn’t a name for post-traumatic stress back then,” he says. “The government trains me to kill a guy, but it doesn’t help me figure out how to live my life after I do that.” Somehow, D’Leon eventually came back to San Diego where he’d been raised, earned his degree from San Diego State University, became an assistant vice president of a software engineering company, married and had kids. The façade worked for a while. Then, 20 years after returning from Vietnam, everyday “normal” stressors became too much. His personality changed, self-destructive tendencies took root, and then he spiraled and crashed. The long-suppressed stress and nightmares of the war finally brought him to his knees as he lost everything that mattered – his wife, his kids, his job and himself. “I couldn’t take it anymore.” He finally forced himself to talk to a therapist. For the first time, he cried and admitted to survivor’s guilt, dealt with rage and shame and learned to forgive and live with himself. He took up positive activities such as surfing, yoga, therapy, and community service – all which helped him deal with PTSD – post-traumatic stress disorder. According to the RAND Center for Military Health Policy Research, one in five military personnel who have served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – more than 300,000 – suffer from PTSD. It seems that almost all military vets,

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especially those who see combat, can suffer from PTSD or any of a number of ailments that affect overall health and well-being, as they try to transition to civilian life. Even though there are countless organizations, nonprofits and government programs that offer assistance to vets and their families, they are mostly run by volunteers or personnel with no professional training in how to truly reach and help veterans. D’Leon himself is on the board of directors of American Combat Veterans of War (ACVOW), based in San Diego. He works as an outreach group facilitator, and when he can get groups of vets – from all wars – to gather and talk about their experiences, he knows they are on the right track of healing – or at least facing – their demons. He also knows he is not trained as a social worker or therapist. Serving Those Who Serve Us The University of Southern California (USC) School of Social Work started a first-of-its-kind program in the nation – a specialization on military veterans and their families. Based at the USC San Diego Academic Center, the slogan on the Military Social Work’s program brochure states, “Serving Those Who Have Served Us” and “No one comes home from war unchanged.” Dr. José Coll, a Cuban immigrant and Marine vet who served from 1996-2000, is one of the founders of the military social work program and former director of the center. “This is a culture unto itself,” he explained. “Active duty and vets’ needs, and those of their families, are unique. We have to help prepare students to become trained mental health professionals familiar with their unique mental health, physical health and transitional concerns.” When Coll fractured his back and had to retire early, his captain encouraged him to return to school. After earning his Ph.D. in

they will work directly with vets and their families in everyday transition, such as at schools, rehabilitation centers, correction facilities, veterans affairs hospitals, university counseling centers, and mental health centers.

Dr. José Coll, Marine vet, co-founder of USC program, director of Veteran Student Services, St. Leo University social work, he knew he wanted to address military needs. “The school’s mission is an enormous undertaking, but a necessary one,” he says. Coll’s book, A Civilian Counselor’s Primer for Counseling Veterans, focuses on the family system, sub-cultures, brain injuries, new interventions, exposure therapy, substance abuse and homelessness, and more. At Coll’s urging, the center was placed in San Diego, which has a strong military presence. According to an NBC San Diego report, there are approximately 95,000 active duty personnel in the county. Adding families increases the number to 175,000. There are also about 57,000 retired military personnel. Coll helped develop the specific military social work curriculum, which includes training graduate students in courses such as The Military as a Workplace Culture; Managing Trauma and Post-traumatic Stress; and Preventive Care and Health Management in Military and Veteran Settings. Offered electives delve further into issues that may affect a vet and his/her family, including: Disabilities and Family Caregiving; Domestic Violence; Loss, Grief and Bereavement; Diversity; Mental Health Practice with Severe and Persistently Mentally Ill; Substance Abuse and Other Addictive Disorders; the Societal Response to War: Advocacy, Politics and Policy; even Spirituality is covered. Students are also placed in internships where

Veterans and Military Subcultures Traditionally, certain cultures make it difficult for retired vets to seek professional help because of mistrust or stereotypical views of counseling. And mental health concerns carry a stigma. “We have sub-groups, we can’t deny, like Latinos, African-Americans and Asian [-Americans]. Their families play a significant role in their transition home, but it’s not always good.” Some of these families believe that they can offer the mental support needed, but that approach often backfires, Coll explains. The vet pulls away because of their lack of understanding, and the family can become disjointed, which only adds to a vet’s stress. There are also challenges for a person of color in the ranks and with the ranks them-

Isaac Ford, recruiting coordinator, USC School of Social Work, San Diego, and former Marine selves, says Isaac Ford, recruiting coordinator for the USC School of Social Work in San Diego. Ford, who served in the Marines for 25 years and has two sons currently in the military, says, “The higher you go as an officer or senior enlisted, you can’t talk to those above or below you in rank about what you’re going through with PTSD,” Ford says. “Certain things are like a scar-

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let letter. They label you as weak.” Self-imposed expectations often affect a vet’s mental transitioning process, as well. “There are elements of the male mentality and military mentality that give a false impression of Superman capabilities,” says Coll. “They can bear it all, withstand physical pain, but they don’t want to deal with the emotional because it is a sign of weakness and there is still a stigma to getting professional help.” That is why social work training that specifically focuses on the military culture is crucial. “If the clinician understands the culture of being in the military, the client or vet will feel more comfortable and trusting,” explains Coll. Outreach efforts have truly to be far-reaching. In addition to sub-cultures, the “new” veterans that cannot be overlooked are women. Coll points out that one of the first POWs in the Iraq war was a woman. “Women in the military have always played critical support roles, but now that they can see combat missions, they are traumatized, as well. In addition, they are not given the recognition they deserve,” says Coll. “In addition, when they transition, they have to establish a different persona – perhaps as a mother or a daughter – while they still want to maintain their military persona. It changes the dynamics of the family structure.” USC is also placing the Military Social Work students in internships throughout the community, such as at schools and rehabilitation facilities. Families have to be taken care of, too. “For example, there is a lot of loss and grief for kids to deal with,” explains Ford. “Some have lost parents in war, some just miss them being deployed. Either way, they are parentless and often feel alone.” Even though all vets may suffer from the same types of ailments and transitional phases, each war has brought different demons. “Some vets could have been in 20 years and never saw a war,” says Ford. “Those who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan – men or women – could have been in four years and had multiple deployments, back to back. Then, the Vietnam War was a different animal entirely. Each war, each individual’s experiences and background, determine how some bounce back after what they’ve been exposed to. Most of us need to discuss what we have lived.” Spiraling: The Consequences of Ineffective Treatments and Services If vets, active duty and their families don’t get the attention they need by trained professionals,

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they can spiral out of control, says Coll. The RAND Center’s study also showed that if those who suffer from PTSD, depression and traumatic brain injury are not treated, cases of job loss, domestic violence, substance abuse and addictions, suicides and homelessness also increase. “A lot of pathologies come to light after they get out, especially at certain stages of their careers,” says Ford. According to the Center for a New American Security, suicide rates of military vets and active duty personnel from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have increased rapidly. And according to the Veterans Administration, there can be as many as one suicide every 80 minutes. The United States Department of Veteran’s Affairs website shows that the VA’s suicide hotline receives about 10,000 calls a month from current and former service members. Since its launch in 2007, the Veterans Crisis Line has answered more than 500,000 calls and made more than 18,000 life-saving rescues. But there’s more. “Over 50 percent of individuals who committed suicide did not see combat,” says Coll. “There could have been counter-transference from drill sergeants in basic training, or any other number of reasons, even though the military is selective about who gets in.” According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, the departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Veterans Affairs (VA) estimate that more than 67,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. America’s homeless veterans come from all wars – World War II, the Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam War, Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq. Almost half of the homeless are Vietnam veterans, and of these, more than 50 percent are African-American or Hispanic. Then there are some issues that affect veterans across the board. The new buzz phrase for PTSD symptom is “moral injury,” says D’Leon. “The moral injury is the dilemma faced in those first two years of coming back. You had the greatest ideals in the world: honor, bravery, conviction. It’s tough to rationalize, let alone tough to live with, knowing you were a part of something so against all the principles of spirituality.” The transition home can be brutal. Because PTSD has historically had a stigma of weakness or betrayal associated with it, veterans have not wanted to seek professional help. Not much has changed since Vietnam in treating military and their transition home, says D’Leon. “In that

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place between military and civilian life, a warrior falls off the radar. Hunting down those who fall off that radar is essential.” Opening the Military Social Work program has probably come at the right time and aims to reach those men and women. Enrollment has increased since it opened in 2009, going from 47 students to 180 in 2011. An absolute benefit about the program, says Coll, is that 70 percent

vets do not feel like they fit in. They may be sitting in a classroom with other 23-year-olds, but how many have been deployed to Afghanistan three times? How many professors, staff or administrators have been trained to be cognizant of a veteran’s needs, as well as his or her capabilities? “The community at large doesn’t understand where you’ve been as active duty,” says Coll. Not being able to relate could be a frustrating challenge. “You’ll have to face this for the rest of your life – but don’t let it get in your way to success. Think of what you have done. You gave that person sitting next to you the opportunity not to serve.” For some, the best transition might be to start at a community college. Often, however, any transition is unbearable and takes time. “Even if you can sit still, your mind is going a million miles a minute,” says D’Leon. It took him nearly six years to earn his degree at San Diego State University after returning from Vietnam. “It’s hard to focus when you’ve been trained to move at a moment’s notice. You’re aware of every minute thing – shuffling of papers, a pencil that’s dropped, the inflections of your professor’s voice. Sometimes you have to bite your tongue. Sometimes it’s difficult to participate because you’ve been trained not to make mistakes – or else someone can die. That’s the mentality of a combat vet coming back to the classroom.”

of the students have had some formal affiliation with the military. “Some are retired, some are spouses, some are military children. There are captains sitting in a classroom with enlisted men and women. There are vets from different wars. And yet, they are all there with one thing in mind – they have to understand and approach the military culture differently because the military needs us.”

Paying It Forward Coll realizes that a program like USC’s military social work may take years to make a difference, but the difference has begun. His biggest wish is that the Department of Defense would develop a model in which men and women who are recruited are at the same time prepared to start thinking of life after the military. “Everyone has to get out sooner or later, and the dialogue has to be about the transition to school and career. The military has to take ownership of this element of transition.” In the meantime, Coll knows USC is on the right track in addressing the military culture specifically, and transitions to civilian life. “We’re not just lip service,” he says. “By developing a relationship with our vets and their families, we can help them see their ability to deal with what’s been dealt. They have to believe they can be productive members of society.”

Building on Military Leadership Another major component to the social work military program, says Coll, who is now at St. Leo University as director of Veteran Student Services, is to urge vets to use their GI bills and earn their higher education degrees. At St. Leo’s, approximately 5,900 vets are enrolled each year. “They already have leadership skills and discipline training and can think critically,” he said. “With a degree, they can have voice and power and be able to change their lives politically, economically and socially instead of being stigmatized.” This could be easier said than done. Many

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Interesting Reads Between Light and Shadow: A Guatemalan Girl’s Journey Through Adoption By Jacob R. Wheeler In Between Light and Shadow, the author puts a human face on the Guatemalan adoption industry, which affects the lives of the Central American nation’s poorest children. Fourteen-year-old Ellie, abandoned at age 7 and adopted by a middle-class family from Michigan, is at the center of this story. The author chronicles Ellie’s abandonment, adoption and Americanization as well as her search for her birth mother and triumphant return to Guatemala to reunite with her teenage brothers. 2011. 280 pgs. ISBN: 978-0-803-2336-21. $24.95 cloth. University of Nebraska Press, (800) 755-1105. www.unp.unl.edu.

Diseased Relations By Heather McCrea Historically, in the tropical region of Yucatan, Mexico, many diseases and epidemics have flourished due in part to diseases spread by shipping. However, there has been violent resistance by various Mayan groups to state exploitation brought on by elites who tried to impose public health campaigns of improved sanitation and food handling to make clean citizens out of what some perceived as the filthy, the disorderly and the rebellious. The author uses the story of this conflict to discuss socioeconomic change and the role that health care or lack of health care plays in human society. 2010. 288 pgs. ISBN: 978-0-863-4898-2. $27.95 paper. University of New Mexico Press, (800) 249-7737. www.unmpress.com.

Jungle Laboratories By Gabriela Soto Laveaga In the 1940s, chemists discovered that barbasco, a wild yam indigenous to Mexico, could be used to massproduce synthetic steroid hormones as well as the first viable oral contraceptives. Jungle Laboratories reconstructs the story of how rural yam pickers learned the financial value of their crop and took on the international pharmaceutical companies and the Mexican state to change how they were treated by urban Mexicans. 2009. 352 pgs. ISBN: 978-0-8223-4605-0. $24.95 paper. Duke University Press Books, (919) 688-5134. www.dukeupress.edu.

Teaching Lab Science Courses Online by Linda Jeschofnig and Peter Jeschofnig 2011, 176 pages. ISBN: 978-0-470-60704-6. $29.00 paper. John Wiley & Sons. www.Josseybass.com.

here is a consensus in America that encouragement of STEM careers is critical to the United States’ ability to compete in the global marketplace. This encouragement starts at the classroom level. So, the question is – how do we best reach a greater population of students and teach science effectively to students, regardless of location. Today’s college classroom is changing from the nearly exclusive domain of recent high school graduates to now include unemployed workers seeking new career training, single parents and returning veterans who often depend on online courses to complete their studies. Higher education has increasingly been moving online. A 2008 study shows that more than 20 percent of all American college students took at least one online course in 2007 and that the growth of online enrollment is 12.9 percent annually, far above the 1.2 percent annual growth of the higher education student population overall. However, lab science courses have not frequently been part of the mix of online course offerings. All of these new groups as well as 18- to 22-year-olds should not be denied access to lab sciences if their only option is to receive that instruction online. This book seeks to help schools and instructors deliver quality online lab science courses by not only crystallizing the obstacles to teaching lab sciences online, but also presenting plans to overcome those obstacles. One of the major obstacles discussed by the authors is the reluctance of professors to teach online because they feel that computer simulations are not a valid substitute for tactile laboratory experiences. Professors also doubt that students can duplicate a lab experience in a home setting. The authors point out that students can duplicate the lab experience with specially prepared home lab packs to complete their experiments. They claim that online students actually learn as well as brick-and-mortar students and have an increased learning satisfaction because they conduct these lab experience on their own. Teaching Lab Science Courses Online has been created as a practical resource for educators developing and teaching fully online lab science courses. First, it provides guidance for using learning management systems and other Web 2.0 technologies such as video presentations, discussion boards, Google apps, Skype, video/Web conferencing, and social media networking. Moreover, it offers advice on giving students the hands-on “wet laboratory” experience they need to learn science effectively, including the implications of implementing lab experiences such as computer simulations, kitchen labs, and commercially assembled at-home lab kits. Finally, the book reveals how to get administrators and faculty to agree to the concept and execution of teaching science online. It is particularly helpful in providing tips on how to negotiate internal politics and assess the budget implications of online science instruction. Co-author Peter Jeschofnig has Ph.D.s in adult science education and anthropology, is a double Fulbright Scholar and was named Colorado’s Distance Educator of the Year in 2001. Co-author Linda Jeschofnig is the co-founder of Hands-On-Labs Inc. and the Institute for Excellence in Distance Education. Reviewed by Mary Ann Cooper

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HIGH SCHOOL FORUM

Successful High School Graduates Aren’t

Just Smart – They’re Healthier, Too!

by Mary Ann Cooper here are plenty of incentives for earning good grades in high school. Good grades are a gateway to college or career training that will lead to a more secure economic future. But Pamela Herd, associate professor of public affairs, University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison, has released research that shows students who perform well academically in high school enjoy better health throughout their lifespan than students who fare less well academically. In her report, published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Herd explains, “Just as postsecondary schooling serves as a dividing line between the advantaged and disadvantaged on outcomes like income and marital status, it also serves as a dividing line between the healthy and unhealthy. Why are the better educated healthier? Human capital theory posits that education makes one healthier via cognitive (skill improvements) and noncognitive psychological resources (traits such as conscientiousness and a sense of mastery).” Herd employed the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (1957-2005), a 53-year survey of more than 10,000 graduates of Wisconsin’s high school class of 1957 that had UW-Madison researchers interview the class members six times since they graduated, asking questions about work, life, family and now, as the class ages, health, to test the relative strength of measures of cognitive human capital vs. noncognitive psychological human capital in explaining the relationship between education and health outcomes among high school graduates. Herd concludes, “I find little evidence that noncognitive psychological human capital is a significant mediator, but find a relatively significant role for cognitive human capital, as measured by high school academic performance. It is not just higher educational attainment; academic performance is strongly linked to health in later life.” In her research, Herd explains that the better the students’ GPA, the healthier they were throughout their lives. Why? That is an elusive mystery for researchers like Herd. She tested her own hypothesis that the personal trait of being conscientious, which is important for academic success, was the reason why students who achieved higher grades were healthier. And she

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looked for evidence that what she deemed “psychological human capital,” such as being an extrovert or being pleasant and agreeable, could account for better health. As part of her conclusions, Herd posited that the academic skills learned in school are what makes the difference in the health conditions of the students in the survey. Herd concludes, “The findings support the hypothesis that cognitive human capital – which includes skills such as verbal, reading, writing, math, and science – helps explain the link between educational attainment and health outcomes in early to mid late-life. High school academic performance is related to changes in health in mid- to late-life, both through a direct association and by mediating much of the relationship between postsecondary schooling and health. For high school graduates, it is not simply more years of schooling or a degree; academic performance (controlling for childhood IQ) helps determine whether education is beneficial for health.” At first blush, this might seem hard to understand, but the relationship between good health and good grades can be explained in part by the economic and career choices a good education can provide to successful students. As Herd points out, “Occupation is linked to chronic conditions such as heart disease, hypertension, arthritis, ulcers, and chronic back pain. General self-reported health reflects mental well-being and general physical disability, both of which are influenced by occupation. In turn, higher income, gained via better jobs, influences health via decreased material deprivation and reductions in chronic stress.” And it isn’t just economic freedom and more lucrative careers that promote good health in these former students. Better-educated people make healthier food choices, exercise more, and are moderate drinkers. These choices stave off chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. More educated people also are more responsible about sticking to a drug regimen once confronted with a chronic illness, understand what their health advisers are telling them, and make sure they are well informed about their health. If Herd’s hypothesis is valid, the reverse engineering of achieving healthier long-term life

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starts with healthier students who are in a position to regularly attend school and aren’t plagued with chronic conditions that interrupt or discourage learning. According to the Children’s Defense League (CDL), Hispanic students are disadvantaged when it comes to accessing the health care and preventive care that is a contributing factor to being academically successful. The CDL points out that more than three million Latino children (one out of every six) are uninsured. A larger percentage of Latino children are uninsured than those of any other racial/ethnic group. Almost 40 percent (3.1 million children) of all uninsured children in America are Latino, and almost one out of five Latino children is uninsured. And these are children who are being raised in families where one or both of their parents are working. Nine out of 10 uninsured Latino children live in working families. Latino children in working families are 45 percent less likely than White children in working families to have private health coverage. Latino children are two and a half times as likely to be uninsured as White children, and only about one-half as likely to have private insurance. Latino children with disabilities are more than twice as likely as White children with disabilities to lack health coverage. The safety net for working poor is less reliable for Hispanics than for other working poor. Roughly two-thirds of all uninsured Latino children are eligible for CHIP or Medicaid, according to their family income qualifications, yet are not insured. And Hispanic children begin their lives at a health disadvantage. Between 1989 and 2006, the proportion of Latino births that were low birth weight increased by 12.9 percent, and the proportion of pre-term Latino births increased by 9.9 percent. More than one out of every five Latino 2-yearolds is not fully immunized. Hispanic schoolchildren are also less likely to have regular doctor visits for preventive and follow up care. Latino children are 60 percent more likely than White children to have gone more than two years without seeing a health care professional and are two-thirds more likely to have no regular place for health care. Latino children are 50 percent more likely than White

children to have an unmet medical need, 50 percent more likely to have an unmet dental need, and 30 percent more likely to have gone more than two years without seeing a dentist. There are many reasons for the disparity in health care for Hispanic students. The language barrier and a dearth of Hispanic health care workers in some areas can contribute to this problem, but in most cases it’s just a matter of money. Latino children are almost twice as likely as White children to have an unmet medical

need because of cost. One in three Latino babies is born into poverty, and three in 10 Latino children are poor. The number of poor Latino children increased by 1.5 million from 2000 to 2008, to 5.0 million. Poor children are more likely to face barriers to health coverage. While only a small percentage of all children in America are in fair or poor health, Latino children are 50 percent more likely than White children to be in fair or poor health. If, indeed, the higher the high school GPA, the

healthier the individual throughout life, promoting health care for students in high school is essential to close the achievement gap between White and non-White students. And promoting health care for students in high school will turn out more highly educated and healthy non-White as well as White students, which will have the domino effect of producing, in part, more Hispanic health care professionals to encourage Hispanics to become more informed and involved caretakers of their own health. It’s all connected.

Theory into Practice During the last three decades, the prevalence of obesity has tripled among persons aged 6 to 19 years. Multiple chronic disease risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, and high blood glucose levels, are related to obesity. According to a study conducted by National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, Hispanic children in the U.S. are at greater risk for obesity than other ethnic/racial groups. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says schools can play a huge role to help prevent obesity and promote physical activity and healthy eating through policies, practices, and supportive environments and suggests these nine guidelines for schools to battle against obesity and for better student health. Guideline 1. Coordinate Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Policies and Practices Through a School Health Council and School Health Coordinator. Each district should have a school health council to help ensure that schools implement developmentally appropriate and evidencebased health policies and practices. These councils should include representatives from different segments of the school and community, including health and physical education teachers, nutrition service staff members, students, families, school administrators, school nurses and other health care providers, social service professionals, and religious and civic leaders. Guideline 2. Establish School Environments that Support Healthy Eating and Physical Activity. The physical surroundings and psychosocial climate of a school should encourage all students to make healthy eating choices and be physically active. The physical environment includes the entire school building and the area surrounding it; facilities for physical activity, physical education, and food preparation and consumption; availability of food and physical activity options; and conditions such as temperature, air quality, noise, lighting and safety. Guideline 3. Provide a Quality School Meal Program and Ensure that Students Have Only Appealing, Healthy Food and Beverage Choices Offered Outside of the School Meal Program. Many schools provide students with access to foods and beverages in various venues across the school campus, including meals served in the cafeteria as part of the federally reimbursable school meal program and competitive foods (i.e., foods and beverages that are not part of the school meal program). Schools should model and reinforce healthy dietary behaviors by ensuring that only nutritious and appealing foods and beverages are provided in all venues accessible to students. Guideline 4. Implement a Comprehensive Physical Activity Program with Quality Physical Education as the Cornerstone. A substantial percentage of recommended child and adolescent physical activity can be provided through a comprehensive school-based physical activity program. A comprehensive program includes before, during, and after-school physical activity through recess and other physical activity breaks, intramurals and physical activity clubs, interscholastic sports, walk- and bicycle-to-school initiatives, and quality physical education. Guideline 5. Require Health Education from Pre-K Through Grade 12. Health education is integral to the primary mission of schools. In 2002, the Joint Committee on Health Education Terminology defined health education as ‘‘the development, delivery and evaluation of planned, sequential and developmentally appropriate instruction, learning experiences, and other activities designed to protect, promote, and enhance the health literacy, attitudes, skills, and well-being of students, pre-kindergarten through grade 12.” Guideline 6. Provide Students with Health, Mental Health and Social Services to Address Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Related Chronic Disease Prevention. School health, mental health and social services staff members can teach students the skills they need to live a healthy life; identify risky student behaviors and intervene when needed; identify and resolve health care needs that affect educational achievement; provide case management for health and mental health issues; address behavioral and psychological problems; and link students and families to community health resources. Guideline 7. Partner with Families and Community Members in the Development and Implementation of Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Policies, Practices and Programs. Partnerships among schools, families and community members can enhance student learning, promote consistent messages about healthy behaviors, increase resources, and engage, guide and motivate students to eat healthfully and be active. Guideline 8. Provide a School Employee Wellness Program that Includes Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Services for All School Staff Members. Implementing and sustaining an employee wellness program has the potential to improve staff productivity, decrease employee absenteeism, and decrease employee health care costs. Employee wellness programs also can increase employee morale and improve worker retention and recruitment of new employees. Guideline 9. Require the Hiring of Physical Education Teachers, Health Education Teachers and Nutrition Services Staff Members Who Are Certified and Appropriately Prepared to Deliver Quality Instruction, Programs and Practices. Require the hiring of certified physical education teachers to teach physical education in grades K-12. Schools should develop and adopt policies that require certified physical education teachers, rather than teachers who are certified to teach other subject areas, to teach physical education in grades K-12 to ensure that students receive quality instruction.

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The Hispanic Outlook In Higher Education

www.hispanicoutlook.com

Pew Hispanic Center Report Looks at Hispanics and Their Views of Identity WASHINGTON, D.C.

Nearly four decades after the United States government mandated the use of the terms “Hispanic” or “Latino” to categorize Americans who trace their roots to Spanishspeaking countries, a new nationwide survey of Hispanic adults finds that these terms still haven’t been fully embraced by Hispanics themselves. A majority (51 percent) say they most often identify themselves by their family’s country of origin; just 24 percent say they prefer a pan-ethnic label. Moreover, by a ratio of more than 2-to-1 (69 percent vs. 29 percent), survey respondents say that the more than 50 million

Voters to Presidential Candidates: “Don’t Forget Ed!” NEW YORK, N.Y.

A survey released two months ago by the College Board identifies education as the sleeper issue of Campaign 2012. Although education hasn’t traditionally dominated media coverage on the campaign trail, swing state voters clearly believe it should be given more attention. With no party holding a distinct advantage in reflecting voter priorities on education, the issue is up for grabs in swing presidential states and key Senate races. “The message voters are sending to candidates is clear: ‘Don’t Forget Ed,’” said

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Latinos in the U.S. have many different cultures rather than a shared common culture. Respondents do, however, express a strong, shared connection to the Spanish language. More than eight in 10 (82 percent) Latino adults say they speak Spanish, and nearly all (95 percent) say it is important for future generations to continue to do so. According to the new report released by the Pew Hispanic Center, Hispanics are also divided over how much of a common identity they share with other Americans. About half (47 percent) say they consider themselves to be very different from the typical American. And just one in five (21 percent) say they use the term “American” most often to describe their identity. On these two measures, U.S.-born Hispanics (who now make up 48 percent of Hispanic adults in the country) express a stronger sense of affinity

with other Americans and America than do immigrant Hispanics. The survey finds that, regardless of where they were born, large majorities of Latinos say that life in the U.S. is better than in their family’s country of origin. Also, nearly nine in 10 (87 percent) say it is important for immigrant Hispanics to learn English in order to succeed in the U.S. The report explores Latinos’ attitudes about their identity, including race; their language-usage patterns; their core values; and their views about the U.S. and their families’ country of origin. The report, When Labels Don’t Fit: Hispanics and Their Views of Identity, is available on the Pew Hispanic Center’s website, www.pewhispanic.org.

Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board. “People in every region of this country and from all economic backgrounds feel that education is getting short shrift in this campaign. They want the candidates to give more time and attention to their plans for improving educational opportunities in America.” The College Board Swing State Education Survey reveals that education is a top issue for voters in this year’s elections, ranked only behind jobs and the economy and on par with government spending. In addition, 70 percent of independent women in swing states believe that “education is extremely important” in this year’s elections for president and Congress. This call for a renewed focus on education will be heard more fre-

quently thanks to a campaign announced in April by the College Board. “Don’t Forget Ed,” the College Board’s call to elevate education in the presidential campaign, launched in May and will continue through Election Day in November. The national, grass-roots effort will provide students and others concerned about education a vehicle to press for education to be a priority during the political contest of 2012. Citing the fact that three out of four voters believe that postsecondary education is important to achieving success in the workplace, Caperton said, “Voters understand that postsecondary education lies at the heart of the American Dream.”

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The Hispanic Outlook In Higher Education

AAUP Releases Faculty Salary Report WASHINGTON, D.C.

Officially, the Great Recession ended almost three years ago. Unfortunately for many, the improvements in the economics of higher education are barely noticeable. This academic year is the third in a historic low period for full-time faculty salaries, which failed to meet the rate of inflation again this year. Some who work in part-time faculty positions have justifiably criticized the lack of information about their situation, even as they have become the majority within the faculty. Students are facing escalating tuition bills and student loan debt, and wondering what’s driving those increases. And the “Occupy” movement has drawn a new

International Graduate Applications Rise for Seventh Consecutive Year WASHINGTON, D.C.

The number of applications from prospective international students to U.S. graduate schools increased 9 percent in 2012, following an 11 percent gain in 2011 and matching the 9 percent growth seen in 2010, according to a report that has been issued by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS). The initial snapshot of graduate applications for fall 2012 shows a seventh successive year of double-digit growth in applications from China, up 18 percent, compared to a 21 percent increase in 2011. Applications from India increased 2 per-

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June 04, 2012

level of attention to the issue of income inequality, an issue the American Association of University Professors’ (AAUP) annual economic status report has taken up for many years in the context of colleges and universities. In addition to listing average salary by faculty rank and gender at 1,250 colleges and universities, AAUP’s report, A Very Slow Recovery: The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 201112, provides an important perspective on the economic challenges facing higher education. The overall average salary for full-time faculty members rose 1.8 percent from 2010-11, falling well short of the increase in the cost of living during the year. At 2.9 percent, the average salary increase for faculty members who remained employed at the same institution barely kept pace with infla-

tion. And as has been the case for many years, salaries in the private sector generally rose faster than those at public colleges and universities. This year’s analysis debunks the myth that faculty salaries are driving tuition prices upward. • Tuition prices have risen two, three, or four times as fast as full-time faculty salaries • For public colleges and universities, a major factor in tuition increases has been the withdrawal of state and local funding • The rise in tuition prices has coincided with rapid growth in part-time faculty appointments that pay incredibly low wages and usually do not include benefits This year’s report, which also takes another look at the compensation of college and university presidents, is available on AAUP’s website, www.aaup.org.

cent, following an 8 percent increase in 2011. South Korea’s 2 percent gain last year was followed by a decrease of 1 percent this year. This year, in addition to collecting data for all international students, the report also looks at data for 10 specific countries and regions, up from the four countries and regions in previous years. The survey now collects data on seven countries (China, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada, Mexico and Brazil) and three regions (the Middle East, Africa and Europe). China, India, South Korea, Taiwan and Canada are the top five countries of origin for international graduate students in the United States. Altogether, the 10 countries and regions highlighted in the CGS International Graduate Admissions Survey

account for the home countries of about 85 percent of all international graduate students in the United States. Between 2011 and 2012, applications from Mexico grew 17 percent; from Brazil, they increased 14 percent; and Canadian applications rose 9 percent. Taiwan saw a slight decline of 2 percent. At the same time, applications from Africa decreased 5 percent while those from Europe grew 7 percent and the Middle East increased 6 percent. The majority of institutions reported an increase in applications over last year with an average increase of 11 percent at these institutions. About four out of 10 responding institutions reported a decrease, averaging 9 percent. The complete report is available at www.cgsnet.org.

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HI S PAN I C S O N T H E MO VE Salazar New Head of Armstrong Atlantic State University Hispanic Initiative

Ortiz a Featured Speaker in NECC White Fund Lecture Series Carmen Ortiz, first Hispanic and first woman to represent Massachusetts as U.S. attorney, was the featured speaker at Northern Essex Community College’s White Fund Lecture Series in February. During her presentation, “A Morning with U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz: Top Priorities of a Federal Prosecutor,” Ortiz talked about that role and shared her personal journey – with a message for young people about making the right choices at an early age. Nominated by President Barack Obama to her current post, she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in November 2009. Ortiz has a BBA from Adelphi University and a JD from George Washington University Law School.

Dr. Veronikha Salazar has been hired to lead the new Hispanic Outreach and Retention Office at Armstrong Atlantic State University (Ga.). She will be responsible for providing academic support for Latino students and supporting the Enrollment Services Office and the HOLA Program to facilitate community development and outreach. An accomplished educator, she is a sought-after speaker on a range of issues related to diversity. Salazar has an M.Ed. and Ed.D. in adult education, with emphasis in multicultural education and instructional technology, from the University of Arkansas.

FIU Honors Allende Acclaimed Latin American author Isabel Allende recently received a literary award from the Florida International University (FIU) Creative Writing Program. Allende is the person to receive the Lawrence Sanders Award, given by the Creative Writing Program and the Department of English to recognize fiction writers whose work combines literary excellence with popular appeal. Past recipients are best-selling authors Scott Turow and Pat Conroy. With 19 books that have sold more than 57 million copies in 35 languages, Allende epitomizes the spirit of the award. The Chilean author began her writing career as a journalist and has since collected an array of literary awards from around the world.

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Central Arizona College is a dynamic and multifaceted institution of higher education featuring 10 locations strategically located throughout Pinal County, for educating the diverse population of the region. The college offers more than 70 degree and certificate programs and serves a county that is the second fastest growing county in the U.S and geographically is nearly the size of the State of Connecticut. In addition to three major campuses, the district boasts seven centers to enhance accessibility to the institution. The district is currently in a $99 million expansion project building two complete new campuses. Current center locations include two in Casa Grande - the Casa Grande Center located in the center of downtown, and the Corporate Center located at the Florence Boulevard exit of I-10 - as well as the Coolidge, Florence, Maricopa, SaddleBrooke and San Tan centers.

Presidential Search The Board of Governors seeks an enthusiastic, ethical visionary who possesses many of the following leadership qualifications, characteristics and the ability to: •

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Convey an educational vision, develop consensus among community and college interests, and translate the vision into action. Show a personal employment history as an individual with integrity, ethics, principles and credibility, who is self-confident and respectful of others, and can inspire personal trust and commitment through the empowerment of subordinate leadership. Demonstrate evidence of sensitivity and understanding of the diverse backgrounds, culture, age, academic preparation and socio-economic makeup of the modern community college. Document a pattern of success as an individual who is student centered will support an institutional atmosphere of student success and will lead the faculty and staff as a compassionate student advocate. Articulate and show a record of individual commitment to technology in the support of leading edge and developing technologies. Show accomplishments in economic development activity that will assure a commitment of actively seeking community input assessing business needs and orchestrating a collaborative partnership that is flexible and responds to educational and workforce development needs throughout our diverse communities. Demonstrate accomplishments as an experienced leader with a successful record of educational or fiscal advocacy with governing boards and legislative or congressional delegations. Document a record of commitment to a strategic investment in the human capital of the organization. Articulate and demonstrate a solid business approach and the skills to develop and manage a complex budgetary and resource allocation plan that will ensure the continued long-term fiscal stability of the District. Present a record of successful instruction with an energetic desire to support innovative educational programs and the faculty and staff that makes them successful. Demonstrate effective multidimensional communication skills, verbally and in written form, to a broad range of constituencies, and engage in an effective dialogue respecting the honest opinions and expressions of all participants.

QUALIFICATIONS: EDUCATION: An earned doctorate in Education, Management, or related field from a regionally accredited institution of higher education is required. EXPERIENCE: The ideal candidate will possess significant experience in a senior leadership role in a multi-campus community college setting.

DEADLINE: The applicant is responsible for ensuring that all application materials are delivered to the Office of the Presidential Search by 5:00 p.m. MST, July 9, 2012. The College does not accept fax and electronic application materials for this position.

APPLICATION INFORMATION: The application packet will consist of: letter of interest, current resume, completed Central Arizona College application and unofficial copies of transcripts reflecting the required degree. Applications without required transcripts will not be considered. To access a complete list of desired qualifications and additional application information, go to www.centralaz.edu/presidentsearch or by calling the Office of the Presidential Search at 520-494-5213. Send application materials and nominations for the position to: Presidential Search, Room H106 ATTN: Jim Kimsey Vice President for Human Resources 8470 North Overfield Road Coolidge, AZ 85128 Central Arizona College provides an equal opportunity in employment and educational programs and activities. Discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, national origin, military status or genetic test information is prohibited.

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Faculty Positions in Mechanical Engineering The Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas Tech University is seeking candidates for two tenure-track positions at the Assistant or Associate Professor level. Candidates should have an established research expertise in either nanotechnology or biomedical/bioengineering. We expect that one hire will be in the area of Design, and that the other will be in the area of Dynamics, Controls, and Vibrations. Candidates at the Assistant Professor level must show strong potential for securing external research funding. Candidates at the Associate Professor level must have a record of successfully obtaining such funding. A PhD in Mechanical Engineering or related field is required. Applicants should possess excellent written and oral communication skills, and the ability to work with a diverse body of students and colleagues. Duties will include teaching and developing undergraduate and graduate courses, establishing and maintaining an externally funded research program, and performing service to the department, college, and university. Presently, the ME Department has 29 faculty members and 1,100 undergraduate and 125 graduate students. Texas Tech University, with an enrollment of 32,000 students, comprises 12 academic colleges/schools and is a part of the state-supported Texas Tech University System. The University shares its campus with the TTU Health Sciences Center. Texas Tech University is located in Lubbock, TX, a community of 230,000 people. The cost of living in Lubbock has historically been low compared to national norms. The city hosts frequent musical, theatrical, and sporting events. Many other recreational and cultural opportunities are easily accessible by car. Applications must be submitted on-line at http://jobs.texastech.edu. Candidates with a nanotechnology emphasis should refer to Requisition No. 85579. Candidates with a biomedical or bioengineering emphasis should refer to Requisition No. 85578. The complete application package should consist of 1) a detailed CV, 2) a letter of application that includes teaching and research philosophy, and 3) contact information for at least three references. Applications will be evaluated as they are received; review will continue until the position is filled. Requests for further information should be addressed to Ms. Linda Whitebread via e-mail at linda.whitebread@ttu.edu. Texas Tech University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. We strongly encourage applications from women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and veterans, and we consider the needs of dual-career couples.

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CHANCELLOR

SCHOOL OF MEDICINE The University of California, Davis, School of Medicine is part of a nationally recognized, highly collaborative health system that excels in translating scientific discoveries and new technology into improved patient care and community health. Based in Sacramento, CA, the UC Davis School of Medicine is seeking talented faculty to join an innovative environment infused with team learning, team research and team patient care. Academic positions are available at all levels in clinical and basic science departments with research, teaching, and/or clinical responsibilities in five academic series. To learn more about the exciting opportunities UC Davis has to offer, please visit http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/academicpersonnel/ The University of California is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer with a strong commitment to achieving diversity in its faculty and staff.

University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, California The University of California invites nominations and applications for the position of Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley campus. The current incumbent, Robert J. Birgeneau, will ill step down effective December 31, 2012. 2. Berkeley, The University of California, Berkeley ey, a public land-grant university founded in 1868, is a member of the Universityy of California system and the first of its ten en campuses. Committed to a missionn of teaching, research and public service, ce, world’ss preeminent universities. Its distinguished UC Berkeley is one of the world’ ed full-time faculty totals approximately tely 1500, with 22 Nobel Prize recipients, ts, including nine who are current faculty culty members, 32 MacArthur fellows and nd four Pulitzer Prize winners. Its 14 schools and colleges offer more than 350 350 academic programs supported by a stellar library collection and a system of world-class research museums, fifield eld stations, and performing and fine arts rts centers. With 450,000 living alumni,, it currently enrolls 25,800 undergraduates es men’s who participate in over 1200 student ent organizations and compete in 27 men’ n’s and women’ss intercollegiate sports. rts. It attracts a top echelon of graduate ate students from around the world and with 10,200 graduate students is the he largest producer of Ph.D.’ss in the country. c country . The campus employs 24,000 people ple $2 billion. It is engaged in a landmark and has annual revenues of more than t ark fundraising campaign led by the Chancellor hancellor to raise $3 billion and is on track to reach this goal by the end of 2013. A major source for the discovery aand nd creation of knowledge, UC Berkeley hhas as become a catalyst of economic growth owth and social innovation: the place where ere vitamin E was discovered; a lost Scarlatti carlatti opera found; the flu virus identified; ed; first documented; and the nation’ nation’s the accelerating expansion of the universe u n’s first no-fault divorce law drafted. Inn recognition of broad and deep excellence, ce, world’ss top respected sources have repeatedlyy ranked UC Berkeley among the world’ op programs in fields ranging from engineering gineering and the physical and life sciences es to the social sciences, arts, and humanities. It partners closely with the he Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory atory, which is located near the campus. UC Berkeley is an engine of social mobility m that attracts students of exceptional nal talent from all socioeconomic backgrounds. grounds. The large majority of undergraduate ate students are Californians and 35 percent ercent come from low-income families, with ith more Pell Grant recipients than aallll eight Ivy League universities combined. ed. are first-generation college About one-third of UC Berkeley’ss undergraduates u ge students. Student graduation ratess are over 90 percent.

The William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas is looking for an outstanding colleague, scholar and teacher to join us as an assistant professor in strategic communication, tenure track.

An active research program, teaching experience and professional experience will distinguish applicants. Applicants should have research and teaching expertise in at least one of the following areas: strategic campaigns, principles of strategic communication, message development, health communication (in a mass or new media context), or social media marketing.

Research in issues related to diversity, experience in working with a diverse population, or success in receiving external research grants is preferred but not required.

Special consideration will be given to applicants committed to excellence who can contribute to the University’s innovative, collaborative, and multidisciplinary initiatives to educate leaders, build healthy communities, and make discoveries that will change the world. See http://www.provost.ku.edu/planning/

For a complete position description and to apply, go to https://jobs.ku.edu and search for position #00209697. Direct questions to journalismsearch@ku.edu. Initial review begins September 1, 2012, and will continue until the position is filled. Start date is August 18, 2013. Salary commensurate with experience. EO/AA employer

The Chancellor is the chief executive ive officer of the UC Berkeley campus and nd Vice reports to the President of the University niversity of California. The Executive V ice ce Chancellor. Chancellor and Provost and six Vice Vice Chancellors report to the Chancellor or. Qualified candidates should have ve demonstrated leadership skills in a rigorous academic and research environment e with a strong personal record ord of achievement in teaching, research, rch, and service. Ideal candidates should uld be able to plan for and execute the he continued growth of UC Berkeley as an academically preeminent global leader der providing broad access to students from om all socioeconomic levels. They should hould show an ability to engage the energy gy and vitality of the campus with creativity eativity and innovation, and understand its ethos of public service. They must also demonstrate a collaborative style and nd an ability to work effectively in a complex c environment. They must possesss a clear vision of the future of higherr education, particularly in a public setting, ng, and how this vision can guide thiss particular campus. Qualified candidates es should demonstrate a record of eeffective ffective commitment to progress in equity ity and inclusion. Essential qualifications ions also include the ability to succeed in capacities institutional fundraising and the ca pacities that create effective linkages with ith internal and external constituents and alumni. Reviews of candidate materials will w begin immediately and the position will w remain open until filled. Salary will be commensurate with experience.

The University of California has retained ed Spencer er Stuart, a global executive search firm, m, to assist with this search. ch. Confidential fidential inquiries, nominations, referrals als and resumes umes with cover letter should be sent in confidence confidenc ce to: Jennifer Bol and Kristine Johnson, on, Spencer er Stuart at the following email address: ss: UCBChancellor@spencerstuart.com om UC Berkeley is committed to equity andd inclusion and it is expected that the successful ful candidate will further this commitment. nt. The University is an affirmative action/equal ual opportunity employer employer..

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DEAN, SCHOOL OF DENTISTRY The University of Michigan School of Dentistry (UMSD), one of the nation’s premier dental schools, is seeking applications and nominations for the position of Dean. Established in 1875, the University of Michigan School of Dentistry was the first dental school to provide graduate dental education, among the first to admit women, and the first to establish a four-year dental curriculum. Today, UMSD faculty members are recognized worldwide for the caliber of their scholarship and for the number of leaders in academic dentistry they have trained. The school has approximately 560 outstanding faculty and staff, and 600 students enrolled in degree programs throughout its five departments. The UMSD is recognized internationally for the quality of clinical training and the excellence of its residency programs. In FY2011, the UMSD had an all-funds operating budget of $77.5 million, of which $11.2 million was through research grants from the National Institute for Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), making it the top dental school in the country in NIDCR funding. Awards from other institutes brought the NIH grant total to $15.3 million. The University of Michigan invites both nominations and applications for the position of Dean of the School of Dentistry. Candidates should be committed to scholarship and have the desire, ability, and vision to further the School of Dentistry’s mission in teaching, research, patient care, service, community outreach and major fundraising. Candidates will also need to possess administrative and managerial skills to lead a School of Dentistry in a highly interdisciplinary campus of a research intensive public university. Candidates for this position will have a DDS/DMD and/or an advanced degree (e.g., PhD) in health related science and a sustained record of academic accomplishment appropriate for a tenured appointment at the rank of professor. As the chief academic, administrative and financial officer of the School of Dentistry, the Dean reports directly to the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. Nominations and applications will be reviewed beginning in June 2012. The University’s dedication to excellence is complemented by its commitment to building a culturally diverse academic community. Individuals from underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply. Inquiries, nominations, and applications consisting of a letter, curriculum vitae, and the names and contact information of three references, should be submitted, preferably in electronic form, to: Jacques E. Nör, DDS, PhD, Chair School of Dentistry Dean Search Advisory Committee Donald A Kerr Collegiate Professor of Dentistry University of Michigan 3074 Fleming Administration Building Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1340 dent.dean.search.chair@umich.edu or to Spencer Stuart, which has been retained by the University to assist in the search: Maitreya Rich Spencer Stuart 10900 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 800 Los Angeles, CA 90024 Tel: 310-209-0610 Fax: 310-209-0912 mrich@spencerstuart.com For more information visit our website at http://www.dent.umich.edu/DeanSearch2012 The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.

Wenzhou-Kean University Anticipated Faculty Positions 2012-2013 Kean, a comprehensive New Jersey state University, is seeking faculty for its two-year program in Wenzhou, China, offered temporarily on the campus of and in partnership with Wenzhou University. Wenzhou-Kean University programs comprise four baccalaureate majors: English (writing option), Computer Science, Finance and Accounting (with emphasis on international standards and practices). All instruction is in English for Chinese students of traditional college-entering age (18) who have studied English throughout their primary and secondary education and who have scored high on the Chinese national exam for English-language proficiency. All open faculty positions are full-time, single or multi-year assignments, effective September 1, 2012 at the rank of Lecturer, Assistant or Associate Professor unless otherwise indicated. Multiple positions are available in each area listed below. English (Writing and Language Development) Experienced teachers and active scholars or writers to teach extended-hours first-year composition and related supplemental courses in discipline-specific written and oral academic discourse in Computer Science, Finance, Accounting and professional writing in English. Qualifications: ABD with completion date by September 1, 2013 required for faculty teaching composition. Doctorate in English, Writing, Rhetoric, Composition Studies, ESL/EFL or a related discipline preferred. Terminal degree and/or related qualifications (MBA, CPA, etc.) in Computer Science, Finance and Accounting required for faculty teaching supplemental courses focusing on the literature, terminology and professional discourse of those majors. Doctorate degree preferred. Computer Science Active scholars and dedicated faculty members to teach undergraduate courses (CS0/1/2 in Java, Android and Alice programming) and a General Education course (computer literacy and Microsoft Excel/Access). Qualifications: ABD with completion date by September 1, 2013 required. Doctorate degree preferred. Candidate should demonstrate scholarly capability and an active research agenda in one of several core areas of interest including, but not limited to, human-computer interaction; computer vision; data mining; game design and development; graphics; machine-learning; software assurance; and software engineering. Mathematics (To begin winter session, January 2013) Experienced teachers and active scholars or practitioners of math-intensive professions to teach first-year and second-year math courses for General Education and for discipline-specific requirements in Computer Science, Finance and Accounting. Qualifications: ABD with completion date by September 1, 2013 required. Doctorate degree in Math or a related discipline preferred.

OFFICE OF MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS

Multicultural Affairs - Assistant Director Bachelor’s degree preferably in a liberal arts or social science discipline, master’s preferred. Minimum two years of experience in: developing, implementing and evaluating of intercultural/diversity programs and academic programs to increase diverse student access and retention in higher education; demonstrated experience working with students, faculty, staff, and community members; assist with providing administrative functions for the pre-college preparation and higher education retention programs; design and coordinate cultural programs and activities that foster an inclusive campus. Demonstrated excellent interpersonal, presentation, written and verbal communication skills. Some weekend hours and extended weekday hours are required. For a full description and to apply online, go to www.gvsujobs.org. Grand Valley State University is an affirmative action, equal opportunity institution.

Application, Salary and Benefits Information on All Positions Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until positions are filled. Send letter of interest and resume including names and contact information for three professional references by email to: Wenzhou-Kean University Faculty Search Committee Chairperson, at hrjobs@kean.edu. Official transcripts for all degrees and three current letters of recommendation are required before appointment. Salary is competitive and commensurate with qualifications and experience. A comprehensive benefits package including travel and housing allowances is available. Contingent on Budgetary Approval and Appropriated Funding. Kean University is an EOE/AA Institution

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Marketing Faculty Position The Marketing Unit at Harvard Business School invites applications for a faculty position to start in July 2013. Marketing encompasses understanding consumer behavior, international marketing, business-to-business marketing, product management, new product development and marketing organization and systems. Applicants should have outstanding records in Ph.D. or DBA programs, strong potential and interest to do research at the forefront of their fields, and great enthusiasm for teaching. Position entails teaching in graduate and executive education programs and creative development of appropriate teaching materials. Candidates should submit CV, copies of publications and working papers, and letters of recommendation at: www.hbs.edu/research/faculty-recruiting/. Closing date for applications is July 1, 2012. If there are materials that can only be sent in hard copy, you can send them to: Harvard Business School, Faculty Administration, Attn: Marketing Application, Morgan Hall T25, Soldiers Field Road, Boston, MA 02163. Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply.

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NURSING FACULTY POSITIONS Dover Business College, a growing multi campus institution with locations in Clifton and Dover, New Jersey, seeks full- and part-time faculty to teach various nursing specialty courses in its Practical Nurse program. Positions available for the upcoming Summer and Fall terms. Day, evening, and weekend classes available. Candidate must possess a BSN (MSN preferred) and a valid, unencumbered New Jersey Registered Nurse license. Three yearsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; clinical experience in one of the following specialties also required: Medical-Surgical, Psychiatry, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Pediatrics, or any critical care setting. Prior teaching experience is a plus.

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Hispanic Outlook....

Interested candidates should email LMA@dover.edu so that detailed instructions for the online application process can be sent.

Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s An App For That!

Dover Business College is an Affirmative

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Action/Equal Opportunity Employer

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Introducing Our New Early Childhood Education Degree Coordinator, RN-BSN Program

The Nursing Division of Dominican College in Rockland County, 20 miles north of NYC, invites applications for the position of Coordinator of the RN-BSN Program commencing in the Fall 2012.

We are seeking a dynamic leader for a program that educates 20 - 30 RN students per year. The Coordinator will supervise and assume responsibility for implementing curriculum that is congruent with the philosophy and curriculum of the Department of Nursing; collaborate in preparing accreditation reports; screen, evaluate and advise potential program candidates; and maintain records of admitted students. The Coordinator is responsible for ongoing advisement and monitoring of students and the program; for recruiting, selecting and assigning program faculty; and for overseeing clinical placements. This position also requires the teaching of 18 credits per academic year. Dominican College is a private institution with approximately 2,000 students and 400 faculty and staff. Committed to building its programs upon a strong liberal arts foundation, the College offers an array of undergraduate and graduate degree opportunities in the liberal arts and sciences, business, and the professions.

Requirements: Master’s degree in Nursing; a terminal degree or ABD preferred. Licensed nurse in the State of New York (New Jersey as well preferred). Three years experience teaching in an accredited nursing program at the college level. Three years clinical and/or nursing practice experience as an educator in an accredited nursing program. Qualified applicants are requested to forward their cover letter, curriculum vitae and three letters of reference to humanresources@dc.edu

Application deadline is Friday June 15th

At Monroe, We Get You. You should expect an excellent education from your college, but that’s just the beginning. Your college should provide career guidance if you’re uncertain. Your college should examine the job market and offer degree programs in growing industries. And, your college should provide internships that give you on-the-job experience, and professors who are active in the industries they teach about. For over 75 years, Monroe College has been providing students with all that, and more. Today, over 7,000 students attend Monroe College in Associate, Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programs. If you decide to join them, you too will receive an excellent education. But you’ll also grow as an individual, find the direction you need, and gain the real world experience that will help you succeed.

Master’s, Bachelor’s and Associate Degree Programs: Accounting Baking & Pastry Business Management Criminal Justice Culinary Arts Early Childhood Education Health Services Administration

Hospitality Management Information Technology Medical Administration Medical Assisting Public Health Registered Nurse

www.monroecollege.edu

1.800.55.MONROE Bronx 2 5 0 1 J e ro m e Av e n u e New Rochelle 4 3 4 M a i n S t re e t

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AA/EOE

Be a change agent for health !T THE 5NIVERSITY OF 3OUTH &LORIDA #OLLEGE OF 0UBLIC (EALTH

WE RE PASSIONATE ABOUT TRANSFORMING HEALTH &ROM THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT RIGHT DOWN TO THE CELLULAR LEVEL WE BELIEVE THE TREATMENT OF DISEASE CAN BE TRANSFORMED BY VIEWING IT IN THE FULL SPECTRUM OF HEALTH 7E BELIEVE THAT COMMUNITIES CAN BE TRANSFORMED INTO HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE SETTINGS !ND WE BELIEVE PUBLIC HEALTH PROVIDES THE LEADERSHIP OF THE FUTURE THROUGH LEARNING RESEARCH SERVICE AND ADVOCACY

&EEL THE PASSION -AKE A DIFFERENCE #HANGE THE WORLD

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OMMUNITY AND AND FAMILY AMILY HEEALTH ALTH, ENVIRONMENTAL NVIRONMENTAL & OC CUPATIONAL HEEALTH ALTH, EPIDEMIOLOGY PIDEMIOLOGY & BIOSTATISTICS IOSTATISTICS COMMUNITY CCUPATIONAL GLLOBAL OBAL HEEALTH ALTH, HEEALTH ALTH PO OLICY LICY & MA ANAGEMENT NAGEMENT, PU UBLIC BLIC HEEALTH ALTH PR RACTICE ACTICE

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ADVERTISING INDEX POSITIONS

NEW YORK

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INSTITUTIONAL

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CONFERENCES

National Council of La Raza

NEW JERSEY

Dover Business College

Kean University

*To see all our â&#x20AC;&#x153;Employment and other Opportunities,â&#x20AC;? including all Web Postings, visit our website at www.HispanicOutlook.com

06/04/2012

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P.O. Box 68 Paramus, NJ 07652-0068 CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

P ri min g the Pump. ..

POBRECITO LAMENT NOT HELPFUL TO LATINO TEENS

Miquela Rivera, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist with years of clinical, early childhood and consultative experience. She lives in Albuquerque, N.M.

obrecito. A common word in many Hispanic families, it used to mean P“Your “poor thing,” describing a pitiful person in a lamentable situation. son has been suspended, Mrs. Flores,” the principal

announced on the phone. “He was fighting with another student at noon. He has to stay home for three days.” “Pobrecito, mi’jito,” lamented the boy’s mother as she hung up and turned to her neighbor, visiting over coffee. “This boy at school bothers him, and my son has a hard time controlling himself when he gets angry. And that principal doesn’t like my son, either.” Switch scenes to another Latino family, another time, another place. “Where’s Judy, Mom? We’re checking if she wants to go with us to the mall.” “She’s at work, Linda. She is putting in extra hours so she can earn as much as she can before she goes back to school.” “Pobrecita, having to work,” Linda replied as she turned and headed out the door. Pobrecito. Pobrecita. Why do Latinos often insist on feeling sorry for someone who must face natural and logical consequences for their behavior or put in the work to achieve success? We should support corrective behavior or endorse honest effort instead. It will help prepare Hispanic teens for higher education and beyond. “Pobrecito, mi’jito has a hard time reading, and then he’s shy, too” should instead be “I need to find someone to help him learn to read better.” “Pobrecita mi’jita lost her job because she was out too late with her boyfriend” should be “My daughter is learning the hard way that she has to pay attention to her responsibilities, not just her social life.” Hispanic youth deserve adults to hold them accountable and support them as they make decisions. Though pobrecito may be a heartfelt, compassionate attempt to lessen a situation, Latino youngsters should not be let off the hook too easily, yet we should not be excessively punitive with them, either.

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Increasing independence should be granted as increased responsibility is shown. If a Latino teen makes a bad decision, he should live by its consequence. And if he does well, he deserves to enjoy the benefits success brings. The pobrecito lament actually disempowers the Hispanic adolescent. If a teen does not have to take responsibility for his actions and live with the consequences (especially if he is living with externally imposed consequences like incarceration while the perception at home may be that he is a victim), then he also has no power to make things happen positively, either. Left to the power of fate, life thereafter “just happens” to the adolescent; the teen doesn’t steer his life as he sees fit. With that mindset, why bother with school? Or saving money? Or going to work at a less-than-fun job? Pobrecitos are always victims, so any of those attempts to direct one’s own life would not work anyway. Excusing someone’s untoward behavior may alleviate bad feelings temporarily, but not in the long run. When a youngster is taken off the hook too easily by the parent, he doesn’t have to feel the pain of a bad decision, nor is he allowed to feel the joy of a good one, either. Unwittingly, Latino parents who ingratiate their children to excess may find their children rebelling more against limits or rules, perpetuating the cycle of unproductive, unacceptable behavior. One Hispanic woman bemoaned her aggressive, alcoholic son’s condition. She bailed him out of jail, repaired his wrecked automobiles, paid his bills and got him out of innumerable scrapes. “I just don’t know what else to do with him, pobrecito,” she lamented. She was going to pobrecito him all the way to the penitentiary. Those who don’t know how to set or respect limits are forced to do so in an extreme setting like a prison. Add the social forces of attitude, the economy and many other pressures that prime Latino youth in the wrong direction, and we end up with a disproportionate number of incarcerated Latinos. With such a cycle, all of us can end up being pobrecitos. Must we?

This article appeared online only in the 06/04/12 Issue

TARGETING HIGHER EDUCATION

Hispanics and Health Professions

by Gustavo A. Mellander ack in the 1980s, there was a lot of hullabaloo about the Decade of the Hispanics. Time magazine had a cover story extolling the new era. Other media forces piped up to trumpet that a new day was aborning. Opportunities would flourish, and Hispanics would finally arrive: educationally, politically and financially. The joyful prognostications were based on sheer population growth. That, of course, is hardly a reason “to arrive.” It can actually be a deterrent. Quality of education for any group early on is far more important. Well, the decade came and went, and Hispanics had many successes, but they hardly had their “decade.” Today, midway through the fateful year of 2012, Hispanics are the largest minority group in America’s schools – more than one in five students overall. They face monumental challenges. What are some of them? Hispanic students are more likely to attend our lowest-performing schools, more likely to populate the largest classes, and more likely to drop out at higher rates. Fewer than half participate in early childhood education programs. Many muddle along in their elementary years, but only about half graduate on time from high school. Of the few who make it to college, many often find themselves underprepared for its rigors. Many drop out their very first year. They are caught in a national trend. In just a single generation, America has fallen from first to ninth in college completion rates for all students. It is not just a Hispanic situation; it is an American problem. It has to be addressed and solved because if we allow the trend to continue, it won’t just be one community that falls behind – all will fall behind. Is college that important? Absolutely. An example: Unemployment rates for Americans who never went to college are almost double what they are for those who attended. When most new jobs being created require some higher education, when other countries are out-educating us today to outcompete us tomorrow – college is important. Making sure that America offers everybody, regardless of race, a worldclass education is more than a moral obligation. It is an economic imperative if we are to succeed in the 21st century and beyond. Improving educational outcomes for the Hispanic community is critical. As President Obama has stated, every student should “receive a complete and competitive education from cradle to career.” His administration launched the “Race to the Top” program to encourage states to transform their schools from the bottom up for all children. It is similar to and builds upon initiatives launched by presidents Johnson, Clinton and the two Bushes. They all succeeded in part and failed in part. Or maybe they really didn’t fail; the problems simply kept shifting, kept growing. Further, some entrenched, fundamental issues can’t be fully resolved in a few years. Presently, 48 states and D.C. have agreed to raise standards, improve curricula, and turn around struggling schools. Steps are underway to recruit and train more outstanding teachers, including bilingual teachers.

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Secretary of Education Arne Duncan challenged the states to identify and turn around the nation’s 5,000 worst schools, many of which are the ones that produce the most Hispanic dropouts. Educating our children – all of them – so they can graduate ready for college, ready for a career, is essential. Many are saying these improvements are not possible, that the reforms won’t work, that problems in our education system are too entrenched. I know change is hard. Change takes time. Fixing what is broken in our education system will not be easy. We won’t see results overnight. It may take years, even decades, for all these changes to be implemented. But that’s no reason not to get started. That’s no reason not to strive for these changes. That’s a reason for us, in fact, to start making them right now. Both political parties should unite and support an identical education agenda. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education for Hispanics Let’s focus on a single segment that must be revitalized if America is to regain its worldwide competitiveness. We return to education. It was boldly addressed by President George H. W. Bush and supported by both parties in Congress. Referred to as STEM education, it is a key element for the United States to regain its leadership role. As President Obama said, we must “craft the industries of tomorrow and the jobs they will create, we must continue to invest in educating the scientists, technologists and engineers who will develop these breakthroughs.” Twenty-first century jobs require more advanced skills and knowledge than ever before; a high school degree is not enough. Georgetown University predicts that 62 percent of jobs in 2030 will require education beyond high school. Obama has continued White House support for the so-called “hard sciences.” Professions in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are critical and must be nurtured. Many wonderful opportunities lie ahead for those who major in those fields. Enriched higher education funding and student aid has been approved by both the Bush and the Obama administrations to support those goals. The opportunities are there. The 10 highest-paying college majors and

fastest-growing occupations are STEM-related. Unfortunately, Hispanics significantly trail other groups when it comes to STEM majors and graduates. More must be encouraged to pursue those specialties. It will not be easy to recapture our worldwide leadership role. Today the United States languishes in the middle of the achievement bundle in mathematics and science education and careers worldwide. Our students finish 21st among the 30 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in science literacy. An ambitious plan to recruit and train 100,000 new STEM teachers by 2020 has been launched. The goal is to ensure that all students have qualified STEM-trained teachers in the classroom. Research and development are not frills but essential elements for any turnaround scenario. More than $1 billion for Hispanic-Serving Institutions for STEM-focused initiatives over the next 10 years has been planned. The National Science Foundation will fund innovative efforts to “design, develop, implement and test new teacher-training programs.” To bring undergraduates from historically underrepresented groups such as Hispanics into STEM fields, there is a plan to double funding to $26 million for overarching, comprehensive science and technology workforce programs. These programs will be developed in conjunction with a governmentwide effort to improve the impact of federal investments in math and science education by ensuring that all programs supporting K-12 and undergraduate education adhere to consistent standards of effectiveness. All these funds have not been approved and reductions are always possible, but bipartisan leadership is clear. Washington has developed a road map. I suggest that Hispanic professionals in education and elsewhere support STEM education as a worthy goal, one that will facilitate significant careers for Hispanics. Health Professions Quality STEM education beginning in grade school will also serve as a portal for Hispanic youngsters to prepare for health professions. It is easier to come to those disciplines early in life than later on. Most Hispanics attend local community colleges. The schools are low-cost and invariably student-friendly. They are more flexible in accommodating to student realities. Students find they can work full or part time while studying. They provide the only real opportunity for many Hispanics to receive an excellent education. Some transfer to four-year colleges after they graduate. There many notice less diversity among the student body and faculty. That is one of the reasons many Hispanics choose to study at HispanicServing Institutions. Those institutions have student bodies that are at least 25 percent Hispanic. Their commitment to Hispanic students is well known. But Hispanics have succeeded in all types of institutions. It is pleasant to report that since 1990 the percentage of Hispanic students going directly to college from high school has increased by nearly 70 percent, even though financial support is a challenge for most young Hispanics. The biggest reason why Hispanics don’t go to college is financial. Yet there is more assistance available now than ever before. Public, private and institutional resources exist. A plethora of federal, state and private companies and organizations sponsor supportive programs. Several very prestigious – and expensive – universities identify superior students with excellent study habits and fully fund their college years. It is yet another indication why it is important to help and encourage more Hispanics to bloom early. Hispanic students interested in nursing should explore Hispanic Nurses Association grants and scholarships, the March of Dimes Scholarship program, the Scholarship for Disadvantaged Students program. I always encourage Hispanics to aim for the top, in this case to train as medical doctors. Nursing is a wonderful profession; being a medical doc-

tor is as well – however, the pay is better. The Department of Health and Human Services Bureau of Health Professions provides generous support to students and institutions that provide degree programs targeting minorities seeking health care professions. The Scholarship Fund Institute, in conjunction with the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, maintains an updated list of grants. It specifically addresses issues related to an undereducated group. It includes grants for students to return to college, for those in mid-college career, and for those students completing two-year degrees as an incentive to continue on to a four-year program. Corporate support exists as well. Corporations such as Xerox and AT&T recognize the benefits of supporting the advanced education of minority students. Their support of students provides them a resource pool of highly educated candidates. Hispanic-Serving Colleges and Universities In 2002, the federal government, under President Bush, disbursed $15 million to Hispanic-Serving Institutions for a variety of start-up programs. Later, Democrats and Republicans in Congress approved another $70 million to support existing grant programs. Hispanic-Serving Institutions are concentrated in California, Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, New York and New Jersey. One of them, the National Hispanic University in California, offers the Silicon Valley Scholarship. It is an example of support targeting Hispanic students pursuing a particular career path. In this instance, Hispanics enrolled in engineering or computer science programs with a GPA of at least 2.5 are eligible. The Jose Marti Challenge Grant is offered by Florida’s Department of Education. It is awarded to financially underprivileged Latino students to pursue a four-year undergraduate degree. Applications are due before high school graduation, and the student must be academically superior. Bottom Line According to the U.S. Department of Education, the more obstacles, both financial and social, that an undergraduate-level student faces, the less likely he or she is to ever earn a four-year college degree. To alleviate the financial obstacle, Hispanic students are eligible for a large number of grants targeted to their specific needs. Specific assistance is available for those in STEM programs, too. I encourage students and those who want to help them to contact the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI): www.chci.org/scholarships. CHCI is committed. It provides financial assistance to increase graduation rates among Latino students. Scholarships are given to students who have a history of performing public service-oriented activities in their communities and who demonstrate a desire to continue their civic engagement in the future. There is no GPA or academic major requirement. Students with excellent leadership potential are encouraged to apply. It’s not easy, but many paths exist for ambitious Hispanic students. Those of us who have been down those paths should advise them of the many opportunities and help them along. Dr. Mellander was a university dean for 15 years and a college president for 20.

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