 |
||
| UM SPH Home > News & Events > News Releases |
News Release"Today you join a movement to heal the world," Larry Brilliant of Google.org tells UM SPH class of 2008.April 29, 2008 news release from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. The April 24, 2008, graduation ceremony held at stately Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor recognized master's and doctoral degree candidates from the University of Michigan School of Public Health (including those graduating mid-year). Kenneth E. Warner, dean of the school, presided, noting that the day's graduates came to UM SPH from 253 colleges and universities, 19 different countries, and previous positions as diverse as an acupuncturist, a pharmaceutical industry executive, and a park ranger. One Department of Health Management and Policy degree candidate, Mari Embertson, will delay working full-time toward her hospital-management goal. First, she will draw upon many years of training to make a bid for the 2008 U.S. Olympic swim team (more on Embertson in a 2007 Findings story). Faculty honorees recognizedThe faculty recipients of the school’s Excellence in Teaching and Excellence in Research awards were announced at the ceremony. Kathy Welch from UM's Center for Statistical Consultation and Research, who teaches in the Department of Biostatistics, received the teaching award, which was presented by Epidemiology M.P.H. candidate Joseph Holbrook. Goncalo Abecasis, an Associate Professor of Biostatistics, received the research award. It was presented by Senior Associate Dean Martin Philbert, who recounted Abecasis's extraordinary contributions to the field of statistical genetics, including having helped identify genes for asthma, psoriasis, and osteoarthritis. "Our school is blessed to have a wealth of dedicated and highly talented instructors and researchers," commented Dean Warner. "Kathy and Goncalo exemplify the best in both of our most important undertakings." Speaking on behalf of the studentsM.H.S.A. candidate Melanie Gideon spoke to the assembled guests on behalf of the class of 2008. She said that she and fellow graduates have "the responsibility to take care of humanity." That is what they've been preparing for in the past years, despite, perhaps, "a few thousand moments procrastinating on Facebook." "Public health," she concluded, is "stepping outside yourself and opening your heart." Address by Larry BrilliantDean Warner introduced the 2008 graduation speaker, Larry Brilliant, M.D., M.P.H., an alumnus and former faculty member at UM SPH, who is now executive director of Google.org, a $1-billion-plus philanthropic organization. "Larry Brilliant will be the first to tell you that he is an unorthodox blend of 1960s idealism, 1990s entrepreneurship, and 21st-century technological know-how. It seems to me that’s exactly the kind of combination the world needs if we are to find solutions to our most pressing problems. Problems like poverty. Health disparities. Global warming. Those are precisely the issues that Google.org, under Dr. Brilliant’s leadership, has made its top priorities." Brilliant took the stage with a lighthearted comment to students that he was now the only thing standing between them "and a degree that is honored around the world." He urged them to think of public health as expansive, and bemoaned that their generation can't easily do what he did: travel in a bus through Europe, Asia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India: "the normal career path in the Sixties." He recalled his days working for the World Health Organization with other "smallpox warriors," knocking on doors throughout villages in India, looking for hidden cases of smallpox on the path toward eradication of the disease. "Today begins your turn to fight the good fights," he said, noting no scarcity of challenges, such as global warming, emerging epidemics, overpopulation, and inequities of all sorts. "Disparity of wealth makes the world insecure," he cautioned. But funding is available from philanthropic organizations like Google.org to finance good ideas. "You are part of a global conspiracy of the good and great, and you inherit a magnificent tradition. You will find innovative ways to finance an improved and more efficient health care system, re-establishing a decent safety net for the poorest in society. You will use new technologies, whether web 2.0 or 10.0, mobile phones and social networks, and new communication technologies to revolutionize health education." He concluded: "Class of 2008, go out and change the world... go out and make some noise." Full text of Dr. Brilliant's speech and introduction by Dean Warner. (PDF)
Contact: Mary Beth Lewis, Office of Communications |
More photos from 2008 graduation. Photos by Peter Smith. Tips for New Alums. (PDF) |
| ||||||||
Site Menu
back to top