SOPH Town Hall Meeting
By Sean Bowman
The faculty and staff of the UAB School of Public came together today for what the school’s
Dean Max Michael hopes to be the first of many town hall style meetings. It seems as good a
time as any - the school’s role in the University and Birmingham is becoming increasingly
complex as its student demographic shifts, and similar conversations have abounded lately as the
entire university re-evaluates its mission this year. In this introductory meeting, each dean as
well as a liaison from each department presented their role and mission to the others. The SOPH
has always been a tight knit group - the field necessitates collaboration - but through these townhall meetings they hope to improve that, and a free lunch and a conversation about the big
picture of an organization never hurts anyone.
Among the topics discussed was the school’s educational role. The school’s recently established
undergraduate program, with majors in three concentrations (Public Health, Environmental
Health Sciences, and Global Health Studies) as well as a minor, is growing almost exponentially.
It is estimated that there will be over 200 undergraduates by Fall 2015 - a nearly incredible
number considering the absence of an undergraduate program 5 years ago. Space and staff have
always been adequate for graduate programs, but the school is expanding and is exploring new
spaces and new hires, especially in areas that work more closely with undergraduates, such as the
Sparkman Center for Global and the Department of EHS.
Another topic was the school’s role in research and the financial implications thereof. Unlike
other schools of health science that receive large proportions of their income from tuition and
state subsidies, the overwhelming majority of funding for the school of public health comes from
grants and publications. The school recognizes this and is committed to quality, impactful, and,
as Associate Dean of Science David Allison stated, fun research. Among the ongoing initiatives
to facilitate this is Biguan - a Chinese concept similar to the western idea of cloistering.
Researchers can schedule a full week to free themselves of all other commitments, relocate to the
Edge of Chaos and focus themselves on quality grant writing with a retired NIH official, or as
Dr. Allison simply put it “staring at a wall until you get an idea”. Another direction in which the
school wants to progress is the procurement of more F31 grants, or pre-doctoral training grants.
This will allow more government funding for PhD students, and will serve to improve SOPH’s
already competitive PhD programs through financial incentives.
The meeting ended with each department presenting themselves and discussing their current
interests. Health Behavior (the study of the social, psychological, and sometimes physiological
factors behind health and unhealthy behaviors), Environmental Health Sciences (how our
surroundings affect our health outcomes), Health Care Organization and Policy (A more
organization and business-like way of looking at health), Epidemiology (a complex field more or
less concerned with how X causes Y, and what we can do about it) and Biostatistics (training
mathematicians to rigorously analyze all these complex problems) - 5 departments who
obviously do a lot of good in the community and who already collaborate tirelessly to make their
positive mark on human health. Hopefully these meetings will be an impetus for innovation as
they continue to work for the people of this great city and the students of this great university.