Celebrating Our Platinum Faculty
Good morning!
On Tuesday of this week I hosted the Fall Faculty Meeting. Whether by tradition or policy, we hold formal faculty meetings at least twice a year, in fall and spring.
There is not a set agenda for these meetings, but I do like to give a general update and overview of the Medical Center’s status overall and in each of its mission areas. In particular, I’ve spent more time discussing our finances in the last few meetings in response to faculty feedback expressed through the Standpoint Survey.
I also want to share a clear understanding of our priorities – both strategic and operational – for the coming year. We have a strategic plan, and we are always working toward goals that will help us become a stronger, more productive and more efficient organization in relation to our missions.
If there is one message I try to get across in these meetings, it’s that I understand how hard our faculty work, despite frustrations large and small. They are accomplished, high-performing individuals who are motivated by a call to serve our patients, our students and our world. Many of them could do this work at more prestigious institutions. But for some reason – loyalty, commitment, deep ties to this place – they choose to stay here.
So I’m always especially moved at the fall meeting when we recognize faculty with 20 years of service. Twenty years is a long time – just about a quarter of a lifetime. But as most of us can attest, it passes in the blink of an eye.
The 14 faculty who we recognized on Tuesday have accumulated a combined 280 years of service! That’s untold numbers of classroom lectures, late-night lab experiments, one-on-one mentoring sessions with students, committee meetings, hours upon hours in the hospitals and clinics, papers written, grants chased and journal articles read. After 20 years, all of that work adds up to a set of accomplishments that, as captured in framed citations presented to the honorees, are truly impressive.
The faculty honored this year for celebrating their platinum anniversary included:
- Felix Adah, Professor of Physical Therapy in the School of Health Related Professions
- Barbara Alexander, Professor of Physiology and Biophysics in the School of Medicine
- Dongmei Cui, Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomical Sciences in the School of Medicine
- Audwin Fletcher, Professor of Nursing in the School of Nursing
- Lisa Haynie, Professor of Nursing in the School of Nursing
- Min Huang, Professor of Physical Therapy in the School of Health Related Professions
- Loretta Jackson-Williams, Professor of Emergency Medicine in the School of Medicine
- Michael Nowicki, Professor of Pediatrics in the School of Medicine
- Phyllis Bishop Nowicki, Professor of Pediatrics in the School of Medicine
- Yi Pang, Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the School of Medicine
- Scott Phillips, Associate Professor of Care Planning and Restorative Sciences in the School of Dentistry
- Gaye Ragland, Assistant Professor of Nursing in the School of Nursing
- Allen Richert, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior in the School of Medicine
- Lorraine Street, Professor of Occupational Therapy in the School of Health Related Professions
I know you join me in congratulating them. And I also want to congratulate our longest-serving faculty member, Dr. John Hall, chair of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, who celebrated his 45th work anniversary last month and was also at the meeting.
I’m grateful for all of our faculty. We are an academic medical center, and the faculty collectively is the engine that drives this place forward. Our young faculty are our future, no doubt; but I particularly appreciate the example our veteran faculty set and the mentorship they provide for the younger generation. Through nearly 65 years now, they have been the rock on which UMMC has been built, and they continue to lead us toward A Healthier Mississippi.
