Posted on March - 31 - 2010
Plough Foundation’s $1.3 million grant aids public health program at University of Memphis
The Plough Foundation has again boosted higher education in Memphis, this time with a $1.3 million grant to bolster University of Memphis’ School of Public Health.
The gift follows a $4.5 million Plough grant to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center last week. That money will build a facility to make sterile vaccines inside the school’s new $65 million College of Pharmacy building.
The funds for U of M will allow it to immediately fill six faculty positions in the new School of Public Health and fund them through 2012. The positions will help the school get accreditation from the national Council on Education for Public Health.
“Identifying talented faculty with expertise in public health research and excellence in teaching is essential to the success of the School of Public Health,” said Dr. Lisa Klesges, the director of the school.
That accreditation comes with a $7.7 million price tag. Bobby Prince, U of M associate vice president for development, said the “Campaign for Accreditation” is now at the halfway mark with $3.8 million raised so far.
Prince said the bulk of the accreditation’s price tag is in recruiting and paying professors. By the time the school applies for accreditation in 2012, the program will have a minimum of 24 faculty members.
U of M offered its first public health degree, a Master’s in Public Health, in 2007. It has since organized the School of Public Health, which needs at least two Master’s and three doctoral programs to get accreditation but will likely add more, Klesges said.
Dr. Marian Levy, the director of the Master’s of Public Health program, called Plough’s grant “essential” in light of state funding cutbacks.
She said 45 people have applied for public health courses in the fall. So far, nine have graduated with public health degrees.
– Toby Sells: 529-2742
University of Memphis School of Public Health
Public health: the health of a community
Tennessee ranks 46th in national health status
4th highest rate of adult obesity in U.S.
Web site: memphis.edu/sph
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