We will live stream the Keynote Memorial Lecture on this page on January 21, 2019. The Stream will go live between 9:30-10am.
The Stream can also be accessed externally on Youtube.
We will live stream the Keynote Memorial Lecture on this page on January 21, 2019. The Stream will go live between 9:30-10am.
The Stream can also be accessed externally on Youtube.
To benefit first-generation students, Fred and Judy Wilpon—friends of Cornell who have given significant support and service to the College of Veterinary Medicine and the Baker Institute for Animal Health—have established an Irene and Morris B. Kessler Presidential Scholars Program at Cornell. Set to begin in fall 2019, the Kessler Scholars Program will identify 20 academically talented, community-focused undergraduates each year to participate in a multi-tiered system of support, community, and financial aid, administered by Student and Campus life, through the Dean of Students Office.
The program, named after Judy Wilpon’s parents, is modeled after the Kessler Presidential Scholarship established by the Wilpons at the University of Michigan in 2007.
“The Kessler Presidential Scholarship takes a unique approach to supporting first-generation students with financial aid, guidance services, and a cohort community,” said Cornell President Martha E. Pollack. “I am so impressed with this program and with Fred and Judy Wilpon’s deep personal commitment to making higher education fully accessible for first-generation students.”
The gift advances diversity and inclusion priorities set by Ryan Lombardi, vice president for Student and Campus Life.
“This is the perfect time for such a vision to take deeper root at Cornell,” said Pollack. “As we increase our commitment to first-generation students and their experience, the Kessler Scholars Program offers an incredible opportunity to give a cohort of talented, engagement-minded students the tools and support to help them thrive at this university.”
Judy and Fred Wilpon
The University of Michigan College of Literature, Science and the Arts established its Kessler Presidential Scholars program in the 2008-2009 academic year with a cohort of 15 students. Now the program supports 160 undergraduate students across all four years with an incoming class of 36. There are now 130 Kessler Scholar alumni.
The program has evolved in ten years, said Gail Gibson, director of the Kessler Presidential Scholars program at the University of Michigan. In the early years, it was a traditional scholarship for students who demonstrated financial need. In the past two years, however, the program has grown to include “wrap-around support” and build a cohort community on campus for low-income and first-generation students, all in collaboration with the Wilpons and their vision.
Being a Kessler Scholar defined the college experience for Erica Gonzalez-Paramo, who will graduate in 2019 from the University of Michigan with a B.S. in economics and a minor in business and mathematics.
“From professionalism workshops to study tables, social events, and career planning, they have guided me through the stressful times, something I would not have been able to do [otherwise] as a first-generation student,” she said. “Many of us first-gens come to university hoping and expecting to do well, but soon after setting foot on campus we realize the playing field is not even. What Kessler Scholars has done is provide the resources and support to ‘play the game.’”
Cornell establishing a Kessler Presidential Scholars Program is great news for exceptional students who are the first in their family to go to college, said University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel: “We’re proud that the comprehensive, cohort-based scholarship approach that the Wilpons started here at the University of Michigan is now a national model that is helping first-generation students thrive in college at Cornell and beyond.”
During the past ten years, Cornell has been investing heavily in diversifying its student body, said Vijay Pendakur, dean of students. These advancements are based on the university’s historic commitment to access for “any person … any study” established by co-founder Ezra Cornell.
“As a university, we have to commit to fully supporting and empowering all of the students that we admit, particularly those from marginalized and vulnerable populations,” said Pendakur. “The Kessler Scholars program fits this model seamlessly, as it represents a big step forward in the full inclusion of first-generation students by providing us the resources to support them financially, socially, and educationally to truly thrive in their time at Cornell.”
Kessler Scholars—numbering 20 each year during a four-year pilot phase at Cornell—will advance through their undergraduate years in a supportive community, said Shakima Clency, associate dean and director of First-Generation and Low-Income Student Support.
“Having that cohort will foster a sense of belonging and will make students feel connected to one another and to Cornell,” she said.
The scholars will also complete service projects, experience special trips to connect with unique places and talented people, and receive financial support; the summer savings expectation will be covered for Kessler Scholars.
The Kessler Scholars Program reflects Cornell’s values, said Marla Love, senior associate dean for Diversity and Equity. “The scholars program is a good fit because it mirrors Cornell’s commitment to providing access to education for students of all backgrounds with diverse pathways to higher education,” she said.
As the program at Cornell matures, the two universities will collaborate toward fulfilling the Wilpons’ vision of a new model for first-generation college education.
“The dream is that ultimately, we would be able to bring programs like this across the country,” said Fred Wilpon, who was a first-generation college student himself. He entered the University of Michigan in the 1950s on a baseball scholarship, but he finished college—and thrived during and after—thanks to the guidance of a knowledgeable mentor and to lasting friendships with fellow students. This combination of support and community, he discovered, is key to the success of academically talented first-generation students. Now the chairman and CEO of the New York Mets, as well as a real estate developer, Wilpon is passionate about helping current students through struggles and triumphs similar to those he faced as the first in his family to attend college.
Fred Van Sickle, vice president for Alumni Affairs and Development, said he is grateful to the Wilpons for sharing their vision with Cornell and making the Kessler Scholars possible here. “Their longtime commitment to the university’s College of Veterinary Medicine has been essential, and we now welcome their innovative support for first-generation undergraduates,” he said. “I look forward to seeing class after class of Kessler Scholars graduate and form a powerful community of alumni with a special connection to Cornell.”
They haven’t even applied to Cornell yet, but the first 20 Kessler Scholars at Cornell, Class of 2023, already have some advice from one of their own, University of Michigan Kessler Scholar Gonzalez-Paramo: “Know that you are deserving of this opportunity,” she said. “Take advantage of all the resources, and do not be afraid to reach out to Kessler Scholars for help. University is overwhelming, but know that you don’t have to face the challenge alone.”
We are at a pivotal moment in health care as we must simultaneously find ways to reduce total health care spending while also delivering greater value and serving more citizens. These often competing pressures and lack of overall progress require new ways of delivering care and engaging health consumers. Success in this dynamic climate starts and ends with our leaders.
The rising costs of health care and size of the industry have attracted new entrants and disruptive forces. We have to drive change and be disruptors ourselves. Health care leaders have to embrace change, use all of their tools, and discover innovative talent across our health systems to stay relevant. Health systems are vulnerable right now—greater demands, fewer resources, regulatory uncertainty, and increased competition—so the pace of change is accelerated.
Change in today’s environment includes embracing technology to improve care delivery, enhance the patient experience, and engage patients in the ways they engage other parts of their lives. And, though it seems counterintuitive in this time of rapid technology innovation and growth, it is even more important to address the human side. Technology alone will not solve issues. Leaders need to help employees and caregivers adopt changes and work differently while staying empathetic to patient needs. Leaders determine who gets hired, what investments are made, and what direction their organization takes. They need to stay committed to improvement and open to new ideas.
Transformations are challenging to any organization, even more so in health care, which is highly regulated and highly specialized. As the industry consolidates, health systems become larger and more complex operationally, making change more difficult. This is not necessarily unique to healthcare—other industries have tackled and solved complex problems. And I’ve seen many organizations introduce solutions from outside the health care industry. For example, Virginia Mason Health System adopted a lean production approach from the auto industry, resulting in significant quality and performance improvement.
Health care often lags behind other industries in adopting new technological approaches, such as interoperability, where health information systems work together across organizational boundaries to provide better delivery. If the banking industry could solve for this globally, why not look to them for best practices?
On the flip side, health care organizations are really good at staying focused on the why of our work. Most people who pursue careers in health care have a passion for serving others. This passion creates purpose and provides motivation to improve. I find that staying focused on aspirations of service and transforming health care, rather than on the company’s financials, often results in improved performance overall, and the company’s needs follow suit.
I’ve worked in consulting and services to health care for 25 years now, and no two days have been the same. Change management requires empathy, patience, humility, and creativity. Networking deeply within the field and broadly across other industries has helped me support truly innovative organizational transitions. Most importantly, change management centers on the human side, especially the caregivers and employees at the center of each change. I’m so grateful that my most recent work at AMN Healthcare is focused on workforce development—identifying and matching talent to organizational needs and mentoring our young and future leaders in the industry.
The focus today on diversity in leadership is extremely encouraging—and necessary. We need leaders who can build and manage diversity of all types: experience, views, demographic, and career background. We need leaders with diverse approaches and perspectives. We need leaders from other industries to provide fresh solutions. And these leaders need to integrate with the deep expertise of our clinicians and health care operators. The workforce is changing, populations are changing. We need people in leadership positions who can understand and relate to these new dynamics so we can approach and solve problems in new and innovative ways.
This is not just about hiring that one individual who’s got great ideas. It’s about the whole structure of an organization embracing diversity at all levels and in all definitions of the term diversity. Organizations have to commit to diversity for the long term, and public health as a field has to start early in the education system to recruit and develop diverse talent with the skills and training to address our current and future public health needs.
Let’s also think about attracting third- and fourth-career people into health care leadership. Can we promote not only through experience but through skills? Who understands technology but not necessarily health care? These are challenging issues, but given our talent needs, determining solutions to accommodate this type of retraining will be necessary and hopefully transformational.
Perhaps the biggest challenge in health care today is around talent. We have too many job openings and not enough quality candidates. We have serious talent shortages across the industry, especially in clinical positions—nurses, physicians, allied professionals. And the outlook five to ten years from now is more troubling. Training programs are not keeping pace with industry needs. Low unemployment rates don’t favor health care—it’s a complex industry, and time and cost for education can seem daunting to prospective students and young professionals considering a career in health care.
We need to find ways of addressing this and turning these challenges into opportunities. This includes reengineering processes and staffing models to be more efficient, utilizing technology and artificial intelligence to “work smarter,” and focusing on retaining talent. We need to redefine health care and how we meet the needs of the population. Housing and socioeconomic conditions have a big impact on demand for health care, yet we have trouble influencing these social determinants of health. Where are the creative spaces for alleviating social determinants of health while also recruiting new talent into the workforce? The field is adjusting to ideas around treating the whole person, so as we engage multiple partners in addressing total health needs for a single patient, perhaps we can find new talent streams as well.
Diversity—in all definitions of the word—has to become a centerpiece of health care staffing and leadership needs. Recruiting, developing, and retaining diverse workforces is imperative if we are going to continue to serve a growing and changing population.
This story was originally published by the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
Growing up in Lapeer County, Ruthie Freeman says, many people in her hometown never had the opportunity to attend college.
For those who did make it, few headed to schools like the University of Michigan.
What made the difference for Freeman, a U-M alumna and current faculty assistant at the Law School, was her family. Freeman’s parents and older sister attended U-M, and she spent time in Ann Arbor during her high school years.
“So I had a sense of what it was to be able to come here, what you were signing up for,” she said. “I had a very real sense of what the expectations were.”
To help other students in the state see college and U-M as a possibility, Freeman and other faculty and staff recently visited Battle Creek Central High School on the Wolverine Express.
Organized by the Center for Educational Outreach, Wolverine Express trips take faculty, staff, students and alumni to under-resourced high schools across the state to promote higher education by sharing their academic and career journeys.
For Freeman, it was a chance to reach out to students similar to her childhood classmates. “I was really interested in just encouraging people to come to a school like this because they might not have heard that otherwise.”
Wolverine Express trips take place throughout the school year, with upcoming trips scheduled for schools in Dearborn, Detroit and Ypsilanti. Although visits are tailored around schools’ needs, each trip includes sessions where U-M community members give presentations and engage in discussions with students in classrooms.
The center encourages faculty and staff to share their personal stories and recount their educational journeys during these sessions. Presenters also discuss their chosen fields and career, share insights about higher education, and answer students’ questions about college.
CEO Director Kim Lijana said Wolverine Express trips have a threefold mission: to inform, engage and inspire high school students.
Lijana recalled a conversation at Battle Creek Central in which the principal said while students there are thinking about college, they don’t consider U-M an option. “So I really think that us showing up in a school — all from the university — helps with that.”
“The whole goal is to inspire,” Lijana said. “I think sometimes we underestimate the power of all of our stories and what got us to where we are today. To give that to a student is really a gift.”
Ian Fielding, assistant professor of classical studies, LSA, works with students during a recent Wolverine Express trip at Battle Creek Central High School. From left are students Audrey Cook, Breydon Reichenberger and Hannah Cummings. (Photo by Peter Matthews, Michigan Photography)
During the trip last month, U-M faculty and staff sat down with staff members and administrators from Battle Creek Public Schools.
While U-M learned more about the demographics and priorities of the district, faculty and staff gave the K-12 district personnel insight into the skills students need to succeed in higher education.
They advised students should possess help-seeking behaviors and time-management skills, as well as know how to self-assess one’s progress and areas for improvement.
“The other thing I’ve been saying a lot to parents this year and to students is build your village,” LSA Academic Adviser Liese Hull said. “You want to make sure that you are not alone.”
In one interactive classroom breakout session, Outreach Coordinator Jenna Munson guided students in several science experiments about minerals. As students created carbon dioxide off mineral surfaces and tested elements’ hardness, Munson discussed larger environmental issues the experiments represented, such as ocean acidification.
Munson uses Wolverine Express in part to recruit students for LSA’s Earth Camp, a weeklong experience designed to excite and educate students about earth science by getting them outdoors.
On Wolverine Express visits, she educates students about majoring in earth sciences and the wealth of careers in that sector. During the Battle Creek trip, she told her class about her own path to becoming a geologist.
“Don’t think that you have to know what you’re going to do right now,” Munson advised the students. “I can only say if you’re driven and you do something that excites you, you will find a job in it that you’re passionate about.”
Keegan Beznoska, a Battle Creek Central senior, said Munson’s presentation inspired an interest in minerals.
He noted the importance of U-M visiting schools like his.
“I feel like trips like this will definitely help influence kids to work towards that job field or make them want to come to Michigan because they see opportunities,” he said.
LSA Outreach Coordinator Jenna Munson guides students through an interactive science activity. From left are Keegan Beznoska, Jeiny Tavarez and Cung Bawi. (Photo by Peter Matthews, Michigan Photography)
U-M Business Systems Analyst Ryan Henyard went on the Battle Creek trip, adding one more school visit to his years of service to the program.
Henyard’s first Wolverine Express trip was to the former Highland Park High School, located a bus ride away from Henyard’s own childhood neighborhood.
Going back, he saw how few resources the school possessed, and students did not have access to a lot of information about college. At the time, Henyard said the city of Highland Park had even removed all the streetlights because of unresolved debt.
“I have a vivid memory of leaving the school, and the entire place being dark,” Henyard said.
His experiences on Wolverine Express eventually inspired him to pursue a master’s degree in higher education from the School of Education, with a focus on student access and success.
He said the trips give faculty and staff a chance to put a face and name to future students in Michigan.
“I think for faculty and staff, it really helps us get an idea about what the future of our campus is going to look like and the problems that they’re going to be trying to solve,” Henyard said.
For Jane Prophet, associate dean for research and professor of art and design at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design, the Battle Creek trip served as her first time on the Wolverine Express. She said the trips give students an opportunity to meet and interact with real professors instead of relying on stereotypes about those working in academia.
The purpose of the trip especially resonated with Prophet, a first-generation college student.
“I’m really aware that if you’re first gen, you don’t necessarily have a model for what it means to go to a university,” Prophet said. “You don’t have all those conversations at home that make it real in some way.”
Like Prophet, the Battle Creek trip marked Freeman’s first Wolverine Express trip. She spent her class time discussing her experiences at the Law School and the kinds of activities students could do if they pursue that career pathway.
Along with presenting student opportunities they might not have heard about, Freeman said participating on the trip gave her the chance to meet fellow colleagues.
Freeman said she would recommend for other faculty and staff across the university to participate on Wolverine Express.
“Connecting with a prospective student who doesn’t realize it, and being able to say, ‘You know what, I could picture you on campus, you should absolutely apply,’ is really powerful,” Freeman said.
This story was originally published by The University Record.
University of Michigan faculty, staff and students took part in a week-long DEI Summit including a community assembly and a multitude of central and unit events across campus.