By Beth A. Virnig, Ph.D., M.P.H.
It is hard to believe that 2024 is coming to an end. When I stop to reflect on all that the college, our departments, programs, centers, faculty, staff and students have going on, I understand why time seems to be speeding up. Simply stated, we have been busy. And, with good things!
This year, we have tried extra hard to give everyone real-time updates, and our chairs and associate deans have taken turns writing the leadership message so you have a better sense of the full range of voices leading our college. We have placed our achievements in the context of our four-part mission and underscored how we build on our shared commitment to primary, secondary and tertiary prevention. I cannot summarize everything that is noteworthy but here are a few end-of-year thoughts:
- Our undergraduate programs are no longer limited to juniors and seniors and no longer require a separate application process. We now have 1,830 undergrads in our three majors with 55 faculty members across all eight departments teaching one or more courses for them, and 46 faculty members supervising undergraduate students in clinics, research labs or as mentors on an honors thesis. Our other programs have also grown and continue to expand. This year we added new programs, including an online MPH population health management concentration and a minor in health administration … and there is more coming!
- We have expanded case competitions. These are local, regional and national events where small groups of students come together for two to three days and work on a discipline-specific case. We hosted DataFest and the inaugural One Health case competition. Our MHA students made it to the finals in several competitions and even won the largest and most competitive health administration case competition, which is hosted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham. These are an incredibly valuable learning tool and I hope that this will be an area of future expansion.
- Our record-setting grant production is translating into research teams that are busier than ever. Beyond publications, national presentations and even more grants, our faculty also received the kind of national recognition that follows from this success. This includes Ji-Hyun Lee’s election to the presidency of the American Statistical Association; Linda Cottler’s election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and Rebecca Pearl’s Early Career Award from the American Psychological Association.
- We continue to work every day to protect and promote the health of people in our community and around the world, whether that is responding to the H5N1 avian influenza outbreak, improving maternal nutrition in Rwanda or addressing the health needs of Florida’s outdoor workforce.
Of course, we are not the sort of people who will rest. In the coming year, there will be more grants awarded, innovative research conducted, curriculum updates, and stories about our amazing students and outstanding faculty. We will continue to grow, to expand, to innovate, to create and to have fun while we do it! I am sincerely grateful for everyone who has contributed to the college’s success. This includes our faculty, staff and students, but it also extends to our alumni, donors, friends of the school, our UF colleagues, and university leadership. I wish you all a peaceful holiday season and look forward to an exciting 2025!