President's Insider - Winter 2017

WINTER 2017

President’s

INSIDER

FROM THE DESK OF CHRISTOPHER B. HOWARD, D.PHIL., PRESIDENT OF ROBERT MORRIS UNIVERSITY

If you look at the seal of Robert Morris University — as we invite people to do each year at Commencement — you find an interesting symbolic mixture. The design includes a quill pen to mark the fact that Robert Morris was one of only two Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution, our nation’s founding documents. The scalloped border has 13 bumps representing each of the original American colonies. All very patriotic. Yet there is also a lion representing England, Morris’s place of birth, and a fleur-de-lis for France, the country that gave the financial backing so the colonies could fight the Revolutionary War against those same English.

That juxtaposition of national and international symbols isn’t merely something we stamp on our diplomas. It’s another example of an important core value of this institution: Global Perspective.

We try to emphasize this value in a variety of ways, from study abroad programs to guest speakers through the Pittsburgh Speakers Series to campus events and curricular focus, because we aim to prepare our students to be competitive not only in the classroom but in the world after they earn their diploma.

Of all the ways that Robert Morris University strives to inculcate this global perspective, none has had a more lasting impact than the Rooney International Visiting Scholars program, named for its creator and benefactor, our Trustee emerita and longtime Robert Morris adjunct professor in communication and writing, Patricia Rooney, and her husband, Dan. This year at Commencement, it will be my great pleasure to recognize the Rooneys’ contribution with honorary doctorates of letters.

Thanks to their tireless work and generous support to create the Rooney Scholars program, every year RMU is able to welcome professors, artists, and experts from around the globe to live on campus and share their knowledge with students and faculty. Forty Rooney Scholars from 19 countries and the Navajo Nation have spent time here: scientists, engineers, political thinkers, educators, filmmakers and storytellers. We’ve seen many flags flying outside Rooney House: India, Russia, China, Chile, Trinidad, Germany, Slovakia, Israel.

And Ireland of course — but would we expect any less from the former residents of the U.S. Ambassador’s house in Dublin?

The flag of South Africa is now flying at Rooney House, and I invite you to turn the page and read about our current Rooney Scholars, Monwai and Moloko Gantsho. They are an impressive couple indeed, from the homeland of my wife, Barbara.

Now they are working with our School of Nursing and Health Sciences, working with our students in the classroom, with faculty members on research and other projects, and with the community at large in their presentations about health care costs and reforms.

I invite you to come to one of their presentations yourself in the next month or two. After all, education is a lifetime endeavor. We learn not only from our own history, but from the perspectives of others from every corner of our world. Thanks to people like Pat and Dan Rooney, our students and alumni will continue to enjoy that global perspective for many years to come.

Sincerely,

Christopher B. Howard, D.Phil.

President’s

INSIDER

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ROONEY SCHOLARS: SHARING GLOBAL PERSPEC

ROONEY SCHOLARS LECTURES FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

THURSDAY, MARCH 23 HEALTH CARE SYSTEMS IN SOUTH AFRICA AND THE UNITED STATES Sewall Center 3 p.m.

TUESDAY, APRIL 11 CAN HEALTH CARE STILL BE AFFORDABLE DURING PANDEMICS? Sewall Center 5:30 p.m.

Students in a recent Monday morning freshman microbiology class got to hear from a distinguished pair of guest speakers from South Africa, thanks to the Rooney International Visiting Scholars program.

Drs. MONWAI AND MOLOKO GANTSHO gave a lecture about the virology of HIV/AIDS, and how the health care system in their country is dealing with a massive epidemic. South Africa has more than 6 million HIV-infected people, nearly one-fifth of the entire global total.

Moloko, a medical advisor and health risk manager for the private health insurance company MMI in Pretoria, specializes in HIV/AIDS management programs with nearly two decades of clinical practice. Her husband, Monwai, is also a physician and a consultant for Afris Health and Technologies, a Johannesburg medical technology company that specializes in radiopharmaceutical cancer treatment; he is the former chief executive of South Africa’s regulator of private health insurers.

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“We are very passionate about sharing knowledge and teaching,” says Moloko, a former senior lecturer at the University of Pretoria Medical School. “Our interaction with students and faculty is the highlight of our stay at Robert Morris.

Hopefully, what we share stays with all of us.”

Monwai says working with faculty in the School of Nursing and Health Sciences is helping him to frame a book he is writing about the economics of

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CTIVES ON HEALTH CARE health care. “I am of the view that global programs of this nature enrich the hosts and the participants by sharpening the skills necessary for the advancement of knowledge,” he says.

A new South African campaign launched in the fall to persuade people to get tested for HIV/AIDS could be a useful example for America, Monwai says. The aim is to remove social stigma about the disease, he says, because if it is detected early it can be treated effectively like other chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and hypertension.

Both Monwai and Moloko grew up under the daily struggles and trials of institutionalized racism under apartheid. They studied in schools designated for blacks only, and practiced medicine as young doctors in segregated hospitals. But both were also children of teachers, and they credit their parents with instilling a deep respect for education, a sense of self-confidence, and a hope that apartheid would be abandoned, as it was in 1994, culminating in the election of President Nelson Mandela.

“When you study medicine, you cannot segregate disease,” Moloko says. “It’s the same disease whether it’s a black patient or a white patient. My experience after apartheid ended was that it didn’t make any difference if I saw tuberculosis now in a white patient instead of a black patient. I would treat it the same.”

HOLLY HAMPE, a health sciences professor and the director of RMU’s health services administration degree programs, is working with Monwai and Moloko on an article comparing how the United States and South Africa have dealt with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Their focus is on regulations, policies, and costs and methods of treatment. One issue they are exploring is the vastly different cost of HIV medication — a month’s worth of drugs costs $10 in South Africa and $1000 in the United States — and what effects that might have on treatment and outcomes.

Holly recently sat down for an interview with the Gantshos to share with her online health services students; it can be seen online here. Several international health care experts and professionals have visited the school in recent years, and RMU students actively participate in international study agreements with sister universities in Nicaragua and Scotland.

“We’re trying to expand the knowledge of our students so that they can go beyond the university, so they can understand that health care is delivered in many, many ways,” she says. “We are not saying one is better than the other, but they’re different.

And we need to understand these differences so we can make our health care better too.”

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President’s

INSIDER INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS With 541 international students, 10 percent of Robert Morris University's enrollment comes from another country. That statistic is double the national college average, a clear illustration of the global perspective that RMU aims to make a part of the campus learning environment. Here is a closer look at three excellent international students.

JIABI HE, CHINA FRESHMAN SOCIOLOGY MAJOR Jiabi, who also goes by “Jenny,” arrived in the United States this fall for the first time, and is still getting used to some surprises in her new home — including the fact that people eat their vegetables raw here. She already has volunteered with Habitat For Humanity twice since then, helping to dig foundations, cut wood, and install floors.

“Since I don’t have much money or power, volunteering is the only contribution I can make now,” she says.

“I don’t want to be a person who talks every day about how he or she wants to improve the society but doesn’t take any actual actions. Besides, such opportunities are not often offered in China, so I hope make use of them while I am in the USA.”

DANIELA NKAMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO SOPHOMORE BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING MAJOR Daniela wants to be a pediatric surgeon some day. She grew up in Kinshasa, and her parents sent her to the United States as a teenager to live with her older sisters and brother in Wheeling, W.V., where she could finish high school and pursue higher education in the United States. She’s a member of the Global Ambassadors, keeping her active in international events on campus, and she also is a community advisor — also known as an R.A. — in Madison Hall.

“I found out about RMU through my brother, who had previously applied here,” she says. “I toured the campus twice and fell in love with it and the engineering program. I have been here for two years now, and I find that the school size and the sense of family I have found in my friends, staff, and faculty makes me proud and thankful to be part of the Colonial family.”

ROBERT MUELLER, HUNGARY SENIOR MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING MAJOR What first drew Robert to RMU was the chance to study while also playing competitive NCAA Div. I soccer; in Europe, athletes typically have to choose school or the playing field. But now he focuses strictly on school, especially his budding interest in business to pair with his engineering nuts-and-bolts skills. Robert recently started an RMU chapter of Enactus, a nonprofit organization with a focus on entrepreneurship.

“One thing that RMU has helped me realize is that every single person’s interests can be extended to multiple fields,” he says. “I personally have found it is easy here to collaborate between the business, the art, and the engineering departments. The faculty are all helpful to support my dreams personally and to help other students achieve theirs.”

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