UIC MHA NEWSLETTER
An official publication of the University of Illinois Chicago Master of Healthcare Administration program
Congratulations Graduates!
2024 has been a busy year so far. I first want to congratulate our residential and executive MHA graduates. You all demonstrated resilience and leadership and finished strong with your capstone projects. I am very proud of you all!
The summer is an exciting time for our current MHA students starting their preceptorships Our students are working with healthcare leaders across Chicagoland I am very grateful for our preceptors who give their time and energy to give back and mentor our students
We are hosting a UIC MHA Mock Interview event in late July that I am very excited about Faculty, alumni, Advisory Board members, and Alumni Council members are all volunteering to serve as interviewers for our students The event will help our students learn key skills to help launch and advance their careers
Looking forward to a great summer and the upcoming academic year!
Adam
Adam Andersen, DPT, MBA UIC MHA Program Director
STUDENT NEWS
We are proud to announce that we inducted graduating students, eight residential and two executive to the AUPHA Upsilon Phi Delta (UPD) Honor Society this spring. The UPD is open to individuals who meet the national and local standards of AUPHA and are accepted and initiated into membership of our collegiate chapter. We cannot wait to see what this impressive group does in their careers.
AFHA made 150 cards this Spring to distribute to the children at the
Congratulations
Prakruti Patel, President
Mathilde Hanchard, VP of Operations
Ruben Sauer, VP of Part-time Student Affairs
John Slubowski, VP of Membership and Finance
Rachael Tuttle, VP of Community Relations
Jamie Youngberg, VP of Social Programming
On their appointment to the 2024-2025 Association of Future Healthcare Administrators (AFHA) Executive Board!
We are confident and excited for your leadership in the upcoming Academic Year!
STUDENT EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
SAVE THE DATE(S)
July 24, 2024: Mock Interview Event open to all current UIC MHA students from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM, includes 20-minute mock interviews and feedback with UIC MHA alumni, adjunct faculty, preceptors, and UI Health leaders. Along with a reception with food and drink in the 7th floor student lounge. RSVP.
August 23, 2024: New Student Orientation for all degrees matriculating into the UIC School of Public Health programs. Contact your Academic Advisor for more details.
November 12, 2024: ACHE CHEF Networking Event: Paving the Way for Leadership & Innovation, 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM, UIC STUDENT CENTER WEST. Open to all health care/professions degree-seeking students and early careerists.
(LefttoRight)GuyMorris, BrunaAleixo, LucianaSandoval Camacho,RukshanaGupta,SharonCao, andMakenzieKeisler (notpicturedGrahamHaleandDanielMihna)
ShelleyAranas
SvetlanaSadovskaya
Ronald McDonald House in Chicago.
We added 37 new graduates to our prestigious alumni this Spring This brings our total graduates to over 480 members throughout the US and the world, averaging 25 graduates a year As we approach the twentieth year of the program (first class matriculated in 2005) We would love to hear from our alumni on how we should plan this celebration
It was standing room only at the 2024 UIC Alumni Event during ACHE Congress. We were delighted to see all of you.
The UIC Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) Alumni Council continues to meet and represent our alumni network. We appreciate all their efforts and availability to participate in school and program functions. Thank you for a great year!
After a vigorous search, we are proud to announce that we will have four new faculty joining us this August.
WELCOME NEW HPA FACULTY!
Justin Markowski earned his PhD from the department of Health Policy and Management in the School of Medicine at Yale University His research focuses on evaluating and improving the healthcare safety net, oriented toward identifying actionable, responsive policy solutions to the current challenges faced by care delivery organizations and the communities they serve
Dr Aryn Phillips is a health services researcher interested in alcohol use and misuse, particularly among adults with chronic conditions, and how to better harness the health care delivery system to reduce alcohol-related harms This work draws from the fields of management and organizational behavior, health policy and administration, and alcohol and cardiovascular disease epidemiology. She earned her PhD from UC Berkeley followed by a post-doc at Northwestern University and she joins us from the University of Maryland
Nathaniel Tran is a researcher studying the effects of public policies on marginalized populations, including LGBTQ+ people and communities of color He will earn his PhD in the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University where he's also affiliated with the LGBTQ+ Policy Lab, and the Center for Research on Inequality and Health
Zhuoer Lin earned his PhD this spring from the Department of Health Policy and Management at Yale University. His research aims to understand the life course social determinants of cognitive aging and how public policy may intervene to address the racial/ethnic, sociodemographic, and geographic disparities in cognitive health and to assess the consequences of cognitive aging on health decision-making, behaviors, and well-being He is also interested in studying the health impacts of long-term care and social security programs for older adults, especially those with cognitive impairment or dementia (e.g., ADRD).
COMMUNITY PARTNERS Alumni Council Member Spotlight
This Spring semester, our second-year and graduating AFHA student leader (Sharon Cao) and our rising AFHA Leadership (Prakruti Patel & Mathilde Hanchard) connected with Rebeca Covarrubias, an inaugural member of the UIC MHA Alumni Council, to discuss her journey to healthcare, from her time in the program and how that time shaped her experiences in the workplace, Erie Family Health Center
Erie has been a community partner of the MHA Program since our inception Dr Lee Francis, President & CEO of Erie, was an inaugural member of the MHA Advisory Board in 2005 and graduated from UIC Medical College with an MD in 1988 and the School of Public Health with his MPH in 2000 In this tradition, Rebeca started with Erie as an Administrative Intern in 2017 after conferring her MHA degree and has continued to grow in her career at this Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), which was recently recognized by the US Department of Health and Human Services recently as a “Health Center Quality Leader” for providing the highest quality care to an ever-increasing number of patients
Rebeca discussed what it means to work at an FQHC, federally funded through Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which has operated for over sixty years and was born from the civil rights movement, among other points of interest Read the entire interview here
Capstone, networking, seminars, leadership development, conferences guides you to make decisions and implement change in organization and careers!
