Mercy Hospital School of Nursing, which opened 108 years ago in Charlotte, will close after current students graduate in 2016.

Officials of Carolinas HealthCare System, which has two other nursing schools in Charlotte and Concord, said the decision has nothing to do with the quality of Mercys program but was the result of an assessment of what is best for the system.

This was not easy, said Dr. Mary Hall, senior vice president for medical education and chief academic officer. The school has been around for a long time. Theyve had a high-quality school.

Hall notified faculty members, students and alumni of the school on Sept. 12. She said officials at Carolinas HealthCare have been reviewing nursing programs for the past year or two.

The decision comes as the system looks for ways to trim costs. Earlier this month, Carolinas HealthCare CEO Michael Tarwater announced the elimination of more than 100 management positions as part of a goal to cut $110 million in expenses from next years budget. He said the cuts are necessary, in part, because of declining reimbursements from federal programs and the refusal by both Carolinas to expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act.

Carolinas HealthCare came to own the Mercy nursing school in 1995, when it purchased Mercy Hospital and Mercy Hospital South (now Carolinas Medical Center-Mercy and Carolinas Medical Center-Pineville, respectively) from the Sisters of Mercy, based in Belmont. The school has graduated almost 3,000 nurses over the years. The last class of 30 was enrolled in August.

The Mercy school, near Interstate 77 and West Arrowood Road, has 19 faculty members, including 17 registered nurses. Hall said shell encourage them to remain as long as the school has students.

Carolinas HealthCare also operates nursing schools at Carolinas College of Health Sciences on the campus of Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte and at Cabarrus College of Health Sciences, which it acquired with the purchase of CMC-NorthEast (formerly NorthEast Medical Center) in Concord in 2007.

Hall said those two schools produce a total of about 200 graduates a year, more than enough to supply nurses needed for Carolinas HealthCare facilities. We didnt hire all of the nurses that graduated, she said. They definitely go other places, too.

Mercy is one of two remaining North Carolina nursing schools that issue diplomas instead of college degrees. The other diploma program is at Watts School of Nursing in Durham.

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Charlottes century-old Mercy nursing school to close

Want to name a waterfall at Harvard Medical School after yourself? No problem, just pony up $2 million.

While the going rate for a Harvard Graduate School is apparently $350 million, you dont have to write that big of a check to get your name on your own piece of Harvard property.

According to the Harvard Medical School website, there are dozens of naming opportunities for generous alumni, provided that you hand over the cash, of course.

To endow the Harry Potter Professor of Medicine requires only a $4 million donation, with only half that needed for the librarian equivalent.

And the cheapest naming opportunity available costs only $10,000: your very own chair in the Joseph B. Martin Amphitheater.

But if theater seats and professors are too small potatoes for you, dont worry, you can name a handful of buildings too.

While the Medical Schools New Research Building costs $50 million to name, the title rights of the building at 621 Huntington Avenue can be yours for just $10 million.

These are just the posted prices, however. If recent newsshows anything, few things at Harvard are off limits in the naming game. Who knows, someday freshman may be dreading getting stuck in one of three houses in the Mark Zuckerberg Quad or asking for advice from their Bill Gates PAFs. Only time will tell.

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A Chair for $10k or a Building for $1 MillionChoose Your Own (Naming) Adventure!

Thursday, September 25, 2014 4:24 pm

The Alumni Committee would like to invite all Alumni from Aquinas High School and St. Bernardine Catholic School to attend the Homecoming Game on Oct. 10 at 7 p.m.

The Libreria Del Pueblo presented its 2012 Legacy of Exemplary Service awards Friday night Sept. 30, at the National Orange Show Renaissance Room in San Bernardino.

Aquinas High School President Jim Brennan hosted the schools second business roundtable last week at the Rezek Center at St. Bernardine Medical Center.

The Unforgettables Foundation, which helps families with expenses to bury their small children who have passed away, has grown from its humble beginnings as a little volunteer organization to one financed by major corporations and benefactors, adding to the resources provided by individual donors.

Under a clear and sunny August sky, faculty, students, alumnae, and benefactors of Aquinas High School gathered to dedicate the new Matich Science Center and Rezek Student Center buildings. Formerly the C Building and Library, respectively, the facilities have been updated to include new infrastructure improvements and greater technological amenities.

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Nearly 500 alumni and friends gathered on an idyllic, late-summer evening at Larkin Square last Friday to toast UB during its third annual all-alumni reception.

Dubbed Larkinville, the popular historic urban park site of the former Larkin Soap Company warehouses just east of downtown Buffalo provided an optimal setting for the celebration, which included several individual school receptions leading up to the main event a presentation by President Satish K. Tripathi.

Members of the UB cheerleading squad and the UB Bulls were on hand to greet guests during a bustling night of music, hula-hooping, dance and reunions with friends and former classmates.

Even UB Athletic Director Danny White and Head Coach Jeffrey Quinn took a break from what the football team calls Focus Friday preparation for the next days game v. Norfolk State to enjoy the festivities.

Julie Winkelman and Preethi Govindaraj, both 2002 Honors College graduates, are two of a group of eight friends who met at UB in 1998 who still get together regularly, despite the others living out of state. They were happy to see each other and some of their fellow graduates at Fridays event. When asked how she came to choose UB for college, Govindaraj smiled.

My father, uncle and cousin all attended UB, so I wanted to go as far away as possible to college, Govindaraj recalled with a laugh. But after speaking with humanities majors and learning about the faculty at UB and the Honors College itself, it actually was the best choice. Then, of course, once you start, you meet all sorts of wonderful friends.

Before his talk, Tripathi obliged several alumni by posing for photos with them. Those who posted their selfies on the UB Alumni Association (UBAA) social media sites were eligible to win prizes of UB gear, which were awarded every half-hour.

To begin the presentation, the UB fight song played as cheerleaders led onlookers closer to the podium under the squares canopied atrium. UBAA President Carol Gloff, BS 75, introduced Tripathi, who updated the crowd on the latest happenings on all three UB campuses, including construction of the new medical school just a few miles away on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

And he asked all UB alumni to get involved at the university.

You may want to help recruit the best and brightest students to UB or assist fellow alumni getting started on a new career path, Tripathi said. We have an alumni-powered global network of more than 235,000 graduates around the world, and were asking all of you to get involved according to your own interests.

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Alumni reception draws hundreds to Larkin Square

Four former independent-school students reflect on what their schools taught them.

BRUCE CROXON

Ridley College

Career notes: Entrepreneur Bruce Croxon first made his mark as a digital pioneer when he co-founded an early tech startup that came to be known as Lavalife in 1988. The online dating site sold for more than $150-million, and he co-founded Round13, a company dedicated to investing in growth-stage digital companies. A regular for three seasons on CBCs Dragons Den, he also owns Vida, a chain of spas on the West Coast. He sits on the board of the Trans Canada Trail and supports several not-for-profit organizations, including Anaphylaxis Canada.

School recollections: Ridley taught me the value of working as part of a team to achieve a common goal, Mr. Croxon says. The friends I made there remain my closest confidants.

LARYSSA PATTEN

Bishop Strachan School

Career notes: A senior scientist for NATO, Laryssa Patten worked at the Canadian Space Agency in the late 1990s. There, as a satellite mission planner, she trained astronauts in the use of Canadian robotics on the International Space Station. In 2003, she moved to Europe to pursue an MBA at the University of Rotterdam after receiving her M.A. in aerospace engineering. Since 2011, she provides space support to military operations in the Hague, Netherlands.

School recollections: A big part of my success can be attributed to my experience at BSS, in class and outside, Ms. Patten said at the BSS awards dinner where she was given this years Distinguished Old Girl Award. I am very pleased and proud to be in a position to inspire other young women to set and achieve their goals.

CORY GOLDBERG

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From Dragon to doctor, private-school alumni on what they learned

When Baltimore city schools and the Maryland Stadium Authority adopted a plan to update the city's aging school buildings in January 2013, they hoped to rebuild or restore 30 to 35 schools in the first phase of renovations.

But studies to identify the schools' needs determined that the $977 million in bond funding the system expects to receive would cover only 23 to 28 schools.

The city school commissioners at their board meeting Tuesday night reviewed a hotly contested recommendation to defer renovations to some of Baltimore's most dilapidated schools because they would be the costliest to renovate.

Other measures proposed by the school system and the stadium authority included increasing utilization rates to 90 percent, reconfiguring grade levels at one school and doing "strategic modernizations" where possible to create more flexible space.

Putting off the more expensive projects at Lake Clifton and Vivien T. Thomas Medical Arts Academy would free up money for renovations at more schools, said Alison Perkins-Cohen, executive director of the school system's Office of New Initiatives, and Gary McGuigan, project manager at the stadium authority.

If the recommendations are adopted, the 11 schools still set to be renovated by August 2018 would be Arlington, Forest Park, Frederick, Fort Worthington, John Eager Howard, Lyndhurst, Patterson, Pimlico, Robert Poole Building/ACCE/Independence, and the Arundel and Cherry Hill sites of Cherry Hill schools. Arlington would be reconfigured to an elementary school from an elementary-middle school.

Fort Worthington Elementary School in the Berea neighborhood and Frederick Elementary School in Millhill are in the design phase and are expected to open in the 2017-2018 school year.

Representatives of Lake Clifton alumni and neighborhood residents excoriated the proposal and the school board for considering it, saying the reason the building which houses Lake Clifton High School, Reach and Claremont would be so expensive is because it is desperately in need of updates.

Mark Washington and Richard McCoy of the Lake Clifton Alumni Association said they worried that the school's needs would continue to be ignored. They said they had been assured when new schools CEO Gregory Thornton was appointed that the Lake Clifton renovations would remain a priority.

"This is a stunning reversal of fortune for this community," McCoy said. "I asked specifically about it."

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Extra costs could delay renovations for city's most dilapidated schools

September 22, 2014

An organization founded by Duke medical student and entrepreneurRajvi Mehta is the Grand Finale winner of theDuke Start-Up Challenge. The organization Let's Be Well Red (LBWR), which combatsanemiain India, won the $50,000 grand prize in addition to $5,000 for winning the audience and alumni choice awards.

LBWR is working to make high-protein nutritional bars more accessible in India. In 2012, she led efforts to develop a simple and delicious solution to anemia called the GudNeSs bar. The bars are made from local ingredients and contain the World Health Organization daily recommended dose of iron. Rajvi and the team, which now includes more than a dozen other Duke medical students, have produced tens of thousands of bars and are making them available in retail stores, NGOs and schools across three states ofIndia.Learn more about Mehta's workthroughLBWR.

Re-posted from Duke Start-Up Challenge

Tell us about yourself:

Born and raised in Mumbai (India), I completed my undergraduate studies at Brown University (RI, USA) where I majored in Biochemistry. I am passionate about global health, public health and research. My interest in global health led me to launch Let's be Well RED (LBWR) a social venture that aims to combat the widespread prevalence of iron deficiency anemia in India through the manufacture of iron-rich nutritional bars. Through my work on LBWR, I realized my passion for medicine and decided to pursue my medical education at Duke University School of Medicine (DukeMed).

Tell us about your time at Duke, what were you involved in?

I am a second year medical student at Duke.

What's your major/program and when will you be graduating? Tell us something about your educational experience at Duke.

MD candidate Duke School of Medicine. The additional knowledge I gained about anemia and iron deficiency anemia as a medical student helped me believe in LBWR's work and solution even more.

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Social Venture of Duke Med Student Wins Duke Start-Up Challenge

Education notes

-- Several east- and north- metro students have been accepted as members of the Minnesota Youth Council, a 32-member group that gives advice and recommendations to the Legislature and governor on youth issues. They are Harrison Redepenning and Kyra Tiffany of Anoka High School; Lupe Thornhill of Central High School, St. Paul; Essence Blakemore and Michelle Onyekaba of Coon Rapids High School; Rogelio Salinas of Highland Park High School, St. Paul; Rowan Hellwich of Great River School, St. Paul; Tateng Yang of North High School, North St. Paul; Aonat Popoola of Stillwater Area High School; Dustyn Montgomery of Tartan High School, Oakdale; and Zachary Correia of Woodbury High School.

DAKOTA COUNTY

-- Brian Ackland from Oak Ridge Elementary in Eagan was named physical education teacher of the year by the Minnesota Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance.

-- Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan district students earned $2.5 million worth of University of Minnesota credits during the 2013-14 school year. The credits were earned through the College in the Schools program.

-- A forum for Burnsville-Eagan-Savage school board candidates will be at 7 p.m. Oct. 2. The seven candidates for four seats on the board have been invited to the event, which will be at Diamondhead Education Center.

-- West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan school leaders will hold an open house to discuss the district's three fall levy requests.

-- Adrian Rocke, a senior at Henry Sibley High School, was appointed to the West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan school board as the student representative.

RAMSEY COUNTY

-- Band students and their parents will serve pancakes and sausages at the "Bandcake Breakfast" fundraiser at Cretin-Derham Hall. The event, which includes live entertainment and a raffle, will be from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Oct. 12 in the school cafeteria at 550 S. Albert St., St. Paul. The cost is $6 for adults and $4 for seniors and children younger than 12.

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Education notes: News from schools near you

Hundreds of UB alumni are expected to celebrate their alma mater on Sept. 19 during a function at Larkinville, Buffalo eclectic and historic entertainment district located at 745 Seneca St.

As part of the celebration, President Satish K. Tripathi will deliver remarks and alumni will have an opportunity to visit UB Engagement Stations to learn about a variety of volunteer opportunities. Members of the UB Bulls, cheerleaders and marching band, as well as other UB representatives, also will be on hand.

UBs all-alumni celebrations have become an annual event, not only in Buffalo but also in cities that include Washington, D.C., and New York City.

Our university has so much to celebrate and were holding these events to share the excitement with our alumni and thank them for supporting UB, says Carol Gloff, BS 75, president of the UB Alumni Association.

The iconic Larkinville venue also has become a tradition, says Larry Zielinski, MBA 77 & BA 75, interim executive director of the Office of Alumni Engagement. The choice of venue Larkinville demonstrates UBs support of Buffalos renaissance. With our new medical school so nearby, were thrilled to be part of our regions success.

The event begins at 6:30 p.m., with remarks slated for 7:30 p.m. Cost of the event is $10.

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UB to hold alumni event at Larkinville

SALT LAKE CITY Former University of Utah President Chase Nebeker Peterson was remembered Monday as an unselfish man dedicated to his faith, his family and Utah.

"Not only was he smart, he had such a great heart. He cared so much for the university, about his students, and about Utah," his wife, Grethe Peterson, said. "He was just so happy here."

Peterson, a physician who gave his last lecture to medical school students in July, died Sunday of complications from pneumonia. He was 84.

Peterson's sometimes contentious eight years as University of Utah president ended in 1991. He returned to medicine, first seeing patients at the campus' Madsen Medical Center and then teaching as a member of the Family Medicine Department faculty.

Born in Logan, Peterson grew up on the Utah State University campus where his father, E.G. Peterson, served as president for 40 years. "He had a ball. He thought it was his playground," Grethe Peterson said.

At 14, Chase Peterson was awarded a scholarship to attend Middlesex School, a Massachusetts boarding school. He was the school's first Utahn and first Mormon student but never forgot his roots.

"I represented my family, my state and my church as well as myself," Peterson said in his memoir, "The Guardian Poplar," published two years ago by the University of Utah Press.

His wife said he was "thankful for his Mormon roots. That was who he was and he understood it. He felt it made him stronger to go out in the world and do what he had to do."

James Clayton, a former U. provost under Peterson, said his longtime friend stood out in academia for his committment to his faith, earning respect for having taken "a religious road in a highly secular institution and maintained his standards."

Peterson attended Harvard on scholarship, where he went to medical school and met his wife. After an internship at Yale University and serving as a doctor for the U.S. Army in Germany, Peterson returned to Utah and practiced as an endocrinologist.

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Former University of Utah President Chase Peterson dies