| UM SPH Home > Alumni & Friends > 2011 Honor Roll > Stories of Support | ||
|
Donor Levels |
Stories of SupportMany people have many reasons for supporting the School’s programs, students, and faculty. Their reasons are as varied as their backgrounds. We’d like to share some of those with you. The Ronald M. Davis Preventive Medicine Residency Scholarship, A Legacy of Excellence Continues
On June 14, 2008, outgoing American Medical Association president Ron Davis gave his farewell speech at the association's annual conference. "Our existence, when compared to the history of the earth, is quite fleeting," he told his audience. "So whether we are ill or well, we should not waste any of that time before figuring out how to leave our mark on this planet." Davis had been diagnosed earlier that year with the pancreatic cancer that would end his life just a few months later, at age 52. In his own all-too short life, this dedicated preventive medicine physician and SPH epidemiology professor left a considerable mark on American health care. In Michigan, Davis served as the chief medical officer at the Michigan Department of Public Health from 1991 to 1995. The Michigan legislature recently passed a bill known as the Dr. Ron Davis Law, which bans smoking in workplaces. "There is no doubt he had a huge impact," said Davis' friend and colleague Mathew Boulton, SPH epidemiology professor and associate dean for practice. "He could take really complex issues and simplify them for a general audience. He was a great spokesman." As the first public-health physician to lead the AMA, Davis "did a lot to move public health and medicine closer together," Boulton said. The Ronald M. Davis Preventive Medicine Residency Scholarship was created to support students in the General Preventive Medicine and Public Health Residency at SPH. Davis and Boulton re-instituted the program after an approximate ten-year hiatus in operation. Graduates of the program now fill key public health positions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and serve as local health department medical directors, among other positions. In 2007, the program received "Outstanding Educational Program of the Year" award from the Association for Preventive Teaching and Research. The Davis Scholarship was started with a gift from Boulton and his wife, Chitra. It has received considerable support; in 2009, the Michigan Association of Public Health and Preventive Medicine Physicians voted to donate all members' dues to the Davis Scholarship. It seems likely that the recognition and respect Davis garnered in his lifetime will attract support from nationwide organizations as well. "We'll likely be the beneficiaries of the work [Ron] did to raise the visibility of preventive medicine," said Boulton. In this way, the Davis Scholarship is one of the ways Ron's legacy continues in the world. Innovation - A Lifetime Theme for Donor Askwith
A dedicated wolverine during his student years, the University’s Michigan Difference Campaign Vice-Chair Bert Askwith (AB '31) is as committed as ever to Michigan Mr. Askwith, of Harrison, New York, has contributed significantly to a variety of university programs and projects. One of his most recent investments in the university increased the value of the Askwith Fund for Innovation in Asthma and Allergy Management in the School of Public Health’s Center for Managing Chronic Disease. His daughters, Patti Kenner and Kathy Franklin, also are part of the fund's efforts, and Kathy’s son, Max, who lives with a severe food allergy, is their inspiration to support the center’s efforts to improve patients’ ability to manage their chronic conditions. The Askwith Fund has provided Center Director Noreen Clark, Ph.D., and her colleagues with flexible resources to create and test innovative solutions to asthma and allergy management. Advances made in asthma and allergy then have the capacity to be replicated for other chronic disease conditions. As Michigan researchers share their findings with physicians and patients throughout our communities and throughout the world, the Askwith Fund is playing a role in changing policy and health practices for the most vulnerable populations and patients. “Unless findings from research reach people in need, they have little impact,” says Dr. Clark. “As a result, a dissemination team within the center focuses on getting effective interventions broadly used and findings widely accessible.” Mr. Askwith owns two travel agencies and is president of Campus Coach Lines, which he started as a Michigan student. Giving Where It Makes a Difference - The Campbells Plan Ahead
Ever since his graduate school days, when David Campbell ’71 responded to a fundraising challenge for a department scholarship at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, he and wife Lynne have been annual donors to the school. “Michigan makes it easy,” noted Campbell. “Health management and policy is the number one program in the country!” Recently however, they made an additional commitment to UM SPH through an estate gift by establishing the David and Lynne Campbell Endowed Professorship in Health Management and Policy. If there were a “giving” gene, the Campbells seem to have it. As the CEO of several hospital systems based in Michigan, New York State, and Pennsylvania, Campbell wisely noted that effective leadership has meant doing what he has asked of his employees. In the area of giving, that has included being sensitive to long-time donors of acquired hospitals and being a donor in partnership with his wife. Campbell has also been on the other end of the giving process as a CEO asking for donations to fund capital projects and programs for hospitals and he understands how important private support can be to keeping up program excellence. Michigan has been a constant in the Campbells’ portfolio of philanthropy, and has now been made permanent by including UM SPH in their will. “We chose this method of supporting HMP as a more significant way of giving than what we could afford annually, and to help train the next generation who will provide the necessary leadership for the health care industry.” Said Campbell who knows what it means to be the one to lead a health system in complicated times and to work with multiple constituents. He and Lynne want the graduates of HMP to have a chance at being trained in the best program in the U.S. Their funding of a professorship ensures on-going academic quality at UM SPH. “Although measuring health care effectiveness has become much more precise, health care administration is not all science, there is ambiguity; good judgment and decision-making will be even more critical, and that kind of artful management needs to come through great teaching and practice. Health management and policy is where I got my start, and it has had a life-long impact. Lynne and I want to encourage that kind of quality training for generations to come,” Campbell notes with a certain intensity in his speech. The Campbells also hope that by going public with their estate plans, they might inspire others. “Giving back and helping to make an impact is important,” they both stress. In the Big Picture
Bloom, who earned his MPH at UM in 1981, began his career in public health, but moved to trading shares on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. At the time, “I literally didn’t know a stock from a bond,” Bloom says. “But I did know statistics, picked up in large part from my public health studies at the University of Michigan. I felt I was able to essentially teach myself what I needed to know.” He went on to become a cofounder of Susquehanna Partners, now one of the largest privately held financial institutions in the world. The young man who didn’t know a stock from a bond would go on to manage and direct billions of dollars in equity, derivatives, hedge funds, and more. Bloom has used his success to give back to the School of Public Health over the years, most recently becoming a crucial donor to the Risk Science Center Fellowship Fund. He strongly supports the role of risk assessment in public health and public policy. Strategic thinking also plays into his reasons for supporting Michigan. “I think in the big picture you should give philanthropically to education because you get more leverage—you get the greatest multiplier effect.” First in Her Class
“As far as I’m concerned she really creates the pulse for the whole department,” said EHS professor emeritus Peter Meier, who met Crawford when she first came to the SPH. “She’s been there the longest, she acts on every committee… I don’t know how many students she’s helped out, and not just academically. She’s always there for them.” Crawford had planned to leave something to the university in her will. But upon reflection, she said, “it’s kind of silly not to see some of this happening while you’re alive.” With the UM President’s Donor Challenge, she saw an opportunity to endow a scholarship to help the students she has worked with every day. She became the first UM staff person to create such a fund, establishing the Susan A. Crawford Scholarship with some inherited money and contributions from friends and colleagues. You Never Stop Learning
But it was his gregarious personality that endeared him to people. He was the kind of man who could simultaneously discuss research with a colleague while playing with a great-grandchild, giving short shrift to neither. “When you were with him, you felt like the most important person ever. He made everybody feel that way,” said his granddaughter Bonnie Gardner. Cook continued to do research on hazardous exposures to the end of his life. As a consultant for the Borden Company after retirement, he traveled worldwide for his work. “You never stop learning,” was his motto. His numerous publications include the landmark Occupational Exposure Limits—Worldwide, published in 1987 when he was 87. “His big goal in life was to live in three centuries,” Gardner remembered. Cook died in 1992, at the age of 92. While he didn’t get to put a foot into the 21st century, the impact of his life continues; through the SPH scholarship in his name, through his illustrious contributions to public health, and in the memories of those who knew him. The Modest Perfectionist
“He had very high standards,” said his daughter, Mimi Block. “I can still hear him saying, ‘You aim for the highest, Mimi.’” At the same time, she said with a laugh, “He was very modest, humble even. He’d say: ‘Do as I say, don’t do as I do.’” But Walter Block had a lot to be proud of. The UM nutrition and biochemistry professor made significant contributions to public health during his long career. He was one of the first scientists to study the treatment of arthritis with gold salts, and he participated in the groundbreaking Tecumseh Study in the 1960s, applying exacting research standards to the study of total cholesterol levels. “His contribution to the field of nutrition was significant,” said former SPH Human Nutrition program director Anita Sandretto, who studied with Block in the 1960s. “As a teacher and a scientist, Walter was very thorough, and he set high standards for students.” Block died in 2004 at the age of 92. He was a devoted Michigan football fan, rarely missing a game. He loved his family, his work, the university, and Ann Arbor. “He believed what he was doing was best for mankind,” said Mimi Block. Her father, she said, would be pleased to see a fund in his name helping future generations study human health and nutrition. “I think he would be very proud.” Who Was This Person?
Her friends knew Zimm-Oscar as a prankster who might show up in class wearing a bald head wig, or enlist her girlfriends to dress up as the Supremes for Halloween. “She was extremely friendly, with a very big heart and a great sense of humor,” Adenbaum said. After graduating from UM SPH in 1982, Zimm-Oscar worked at medical centers in Cleveland, Ohio, including as an administrative director at University Hospitals. Very active in the Jewish community, she was named one of the “40 under 40” achievers by the Cleveland Jewish News. Her vibrant life was cut short when she died of breast cancer in 1999 at the age of 42. Widely beloved, Zimm-Oscar is memorialized in a number of school and synagogue scholarships. Adenbaum and two other UM SPH graduates, Cynthia Piltch and Deb Devaux, decided to honor her by creating the Brenda Zimm-Oscar Fund. “What is key to me is [that] by awarding this scholarship, there will always be someone meeting her anew, someone who will hopefully be curious and wonder, ‘Who was this person and what were her achievements?’” said Adenbaum. “Brenda herself was a scholarship recipient, and Brenda was a person who touched everybody she met.” |
Read More Stories...In Net:Works magazine:
|
As an investment manager in the volatile world of international finance, Steven Bloom knows how critical it is to be able to assess risk and make high-stakes decisions. That’s part of the reason he supports the University of Michigan Risk Science Center, which uses risk assessment to address human exposure to potential health hazards.
Sue Crawford first came to the SPH as a secretary, fresh out of Michigan
State University in 1978. “I thought this would just be a temporary job,” she said.
“But I kind of got immersed in the department.” She stayed on, and over the next 30
years became an integral part of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences as
it expanded its mission, added an admissions office, and created the student services
coordinator position for her.
Warren Cook loved life, and life loved him back. He is a revered figure in industrial hygiene (IH)—“one of the creators of the industrial hygiene profession,” in the words of Hank Muranko, a former student. He was the first IH professor at the University of Michigan and a founder of the American Industrial Hygiene Association. “He may have trained more leaders in the field than anyone else,” observed SPH Dean’s Advisory Board member Bill Krebs.
Two words are heard again and again when family and friends remember Walter Block. One is “perfectionist.” The other is “modest.”
Brenda Zimm-Oscar was vivacious and upbeat, with a probing intelligence and generous wit. “An attractive personality, always smiling,” recalled HMP professor Richard Lichtenstein. “She was very bright, very hardworking, one of the best students in class,” said her classmate Ann Adenbaum.