Commitment recognizes school's growing recognition and its impact on technology entrepreneurship and economic development

With a $30 million lead gift in 2004, Evelyn and Ernest Rady and the Rady Family Foundation helped establish UC San Diego's world-class, entrepreneurial business school--the Rady School of Management. They also contributed $5 million toward the expansion of the business school's campus, and gave other significant gifts to ensure excellence at the school. Today UC San Diego announced that the Rady Family Foundation has made a $100 million commitment to help recruit and retain faculty and fund strategic priorities at the Rady School of Management.

"What a magnificent first 10 years--and the school is just getting started," said Ernest Rady. "Dean Sullivan and other leaders within the community held a vision of a business school in a symbiotic relationship with the innovative culture of our region. The school is already exceeding expectations and there is so much more to come."

UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla said, "The Rady School is an integral part of UC San Diego and a vital, entrepreneurial component to San Diego's science and technology communities. The generous commitment from Evelyn and Ernest Rady and the Rady Family Foundation allows the school to continue its tradition of success and impact."

For Ernest Rady, one of San Diego's most prominent philanthropists and business leaders, this recent commitment to the Rady School is driven by his "Return on Life (ROL)" philosophy. "We want the resources that we've been fortunate enough to accumulate to go to help other people," he explained. That help could be for a student who receives a fellowship to attend the region's top business school. Or success for a startup whose founders learned how to turn ideas into opportunities. Or saving a child through technology and science developed by a Rady graduate.

"The Rady School has had an impressive first decade as measured by quality of faculty and successes of its entrepreneurial alumni. However, the best and most significant impact is on the horizon," said Dean Robert S. Sullivan. "The transformational support from Evelyn and Ernest Rady is the largest single commitment in history to a business school of Rady's size and youth and will continue to propel the Rady School on its meteoric rise - enabling the recruitment of world-class faculty, attracting the best and brightest students, and pioneering with creative new academic initiatives."

The past decade has held many accomplishments for UC San Diego's Rady School of Management, including the prestigious accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International), the launch of over 80 sustaining companies and 100 "intrepreneurial" products and services by students and alumni, the construction of the Rady School campus, and the recognition of outstanding faculty research through national and international publications. Recently Bloomberg Businessweek ranked the school as the number one MBA program in the U.S. for Intellectual Capital.

Since its founding a decade ago, the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego has distinguished itself as a pioneer in a new model of business education. The school's concentration in innovation, entrepreneurship and collaboration has led to rapid success--borne out by outstanding achievements of its students, faculty and alumni.

Rady School alumni have had an economic impact on the local and state economy. Over the past decade, Rady students and alumni have created 82 companies that are operational today--hiring employees, launching products that save energy, providing goods and services, and improving and saving lives. Last year, Rady alumni-founded companies contributed an estimated $2 billion to the regional economy.

One such local impact was realized through the work of Ashley Van Zeeland, Ph.D., a 2012 Rady alumna and co-founder and CEO of Cypher Genomics, Inc. This leading genome informatics company helps people like Lilly Grossman, a local 16-year-old, who had experienced a mysterious form of muscle weakness and seizure-like fits since infancy. She and her parents were desperate for a cure. Thanks to genomic sequencing built on technology developed by Van Zeeland and Cypher Genomics, Lilly's medical team identified two suspicious gene mutations. This discovery improved her doctors' understanding of the disease, and is now guiding the treatment protocol. With renewed hope, Lilly is now visiting universities and looking forward to life as a college student.

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Evelyn and Ernest Rady commit $100M to UC San Diego's Rady School

As one recent admit to the Yale Physician Associate program scrolled through his Facebook newsfeed on March 10, he was surprised to see headlines stating that Yales program would likely be made available online. Since the announcement, this student has chosen not to enroll at Yale.

The day after the Wall Street Journal reported that Yale had approved a proposal to offer an online Master of Medical Sciences program the Universitys first full-time online degree program an email was sent to all current PA students and select alumni confirming the news. Spearheaded by PA Program Director James Van Rhee and Deputy Dean for Education at the Yale School of Medicine Richard Belitsky, the proposed online degree will allow PA students to view lectures and attend discussion sections from the comfort of their hometowns. Yales PA community has objected to the proposal, and hearing the news from the press before their own professors is only one of their many complaints.

Although the online program will be a joint venture with 2U, a well-established education technology company, PA students and alumni are concerned that the development of the degree did not take into account the views of the students themselves.

We feel as though our input is not valued or welcomed, and that we have been excluded from the planning process despite demonstrating interest and being stakeholders in the outcome, reads a collective statement from the PA classes of 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013.

Van Rhee explained that he thought incoming PA students had been included on the email announcement sent to current students they had not hypothesizing that perhaps their Yale emails had not yet been activated. In addition to apologizing to students, he held small, online town hall meetings with the incoming class to address their concerns and answer their questions. But Van Rhee said he does not share their concerns about the online program.

In fact, he thinks the online expansion will only enhance on-campus students experience.

Described as an expansion in class size, the new online PA program will run alongside the current on-campus program, enabling students who do not live in New Haven to have access to Yales academic resources. Currently, roughly 36 students are admitted to Yales PA program on a rolling basis each year. According to Chandra Goff MED 14, an alumna in the PA program, the University intends to grow that number nearly tenfold to 350 students, answering calls from the medical community to increase the number of primary care clinicians.

A SURPRISING ANNOUNCEMENT

Rumors of the online expansion of the PA degree had begun circulating among current students and alumni as far back as spring 2014, said Goff. But it was only in March of this year that the PA community received confirmation of the program, which includes online coursework, clinical rotations in their hometown and roughly two weeks spent on Yales campus.

A March 10 email sent from the medical school deans office to students and alumni informed recipients that, after six months of thorough study, the school had approved a new pathway for earning the PA degree and was awaiting approval from the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant, the national PA degree accrediting agency.

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Online PA program comes under harsh scrutiny

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents vowed to make the schools human research programs beyond reproach after two recent reports highlighted ethical concerns and faulted the institution for inadequately protecting its human research subjects.

Regents responded to the reports and approved resulting steps the University will take at a meeting Friday. Among other changes, the board approved suspending psychiatric drug trials and creating a Community Oversight Board to ensure the schools human research subjects are being properly protected.

The school has postponed 17 current and pending drug trials until an independent review board recommends lifting the suspension. Additionally, other clinical studies that target vulnerable populations will be reviewed to ensure human research subjects protections are adequate.

Obviously, like everyone else, we would have loved to have avoided the issue, Regent Darrin Rosha said Friday. But in this circumstance we have an opportunity to make great strides.

The University will hold a public forum in May to discuss the reports findings. Medical School Dean Brooks Jackson will hold a town hall meeting next month with Academic Health Center faculty and staff to discuss the reports findings.

The school plans to commission a task force, composed primarily of faculty members and experts, to create recommendations for the school on how to follow through with an external reports recommendations by May 15.

A legislative auditors report released earlier this month said the Universitys responses were insular and defensive when ethical concerns were raised after the 2004 death of Dan Markingson, a man who killed himself while enrolled in a University antipsychotic drug study.

The auditors report followed the release of an external review in February, which examined the Universitys human research subject protections program.

The review, managed by the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs, analyzed practices from 2011 to 2014 and found flaws, including a lack of employee ethics training and an insufficient institutional review board.

Though school leaders and administrators have approved plans to reform drug trial programs, some faculty members, advocates and state officials say accountability measures should come from outside the institution.

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Board acts on Kalers request

The furor over the forced departure of Dan Jones as Chancellor at the University of Mississippi has reached into almost every corner of the state, including Columbus.

Dr. Chance Laws, a retired ophthalmologist from Columbus who attained his undergraduate degree from Ole Miss and his medical degree from University of Mississippi Medical Center, said he was caught by surprise when the Board of Trustees of the states' Institutions for Higher Learning voted Friday not to renew Jones' contract, which is set to expire in September.

"I had heard some rumors about their being some disagreements, but I never imagined it would come to this," Laws, who served as Ole Miss' national alumni president in 2006-07, said. "I don't have any insight into what exactly happened, but I'm totally supportive of Dan Jones. From what I know, things are going very well at the undergraduate school and the medical school. I think he's done a great job when you consider that the medical school has grown, a new building is under construction -- all the indicators seem to be very positive. According to Dan, they are meeting all of their budgetary targets and the whole medical school seems to be making real strides. I'm sure the people on the IHL board are certainly wise businessmen, but I have to wonder how well informed they are about hospitals."

While Laws says he has no intimate knowledge of the dispute that led to Jones' dismissal, another physician from Columbus has a far clearly view of the dispute.

Dr. James Keeton, a Lee High graduate who succeeded Jones as vice chancellor and dean of UMMC in 2009 and retired March 1, said the IHL Board's criticism of UMMC's handling of financial issues was unfounded.

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Columbus doctors disappointed with Jones' dismissal

OXFORD, MS (WMC) -

The Mississippi College Board voted to let Chancellor Dan Jones go on Friday.

The board lost faith in Jones over contracting and management practices at the University of Mississippi Medical School in Jackson.

Jones does not want to resign.

"The board said there is no pathway to renewal of my contract," said Jones. "I'd love to have the opportunity to continue as chancellor."

Former star quarterback Archie Manning and author John Grisham, a former chancellor himself, are just a few of the superstars supporting Jones.

Ole Miss students also want to keep Jones as their chancellor. The student newspaper even featured an editorial titled "We Believe in Dan."

"He has kept us on a high note and made us prosper. We have bigger enrollments than we ever had," said Lawton student John Cooper. "We have more money than we ever had."

Jones was only back at Ole Miss a week and a half when he got the news. He had been receiving treatment for lymphoma since November.

The entire campus is behind him.

Excerpt from:
Students, alumni pour in support for Ole Miss chancellor

Photo: Smoky Mountain Medican Marijuana

Close to a hundred people rallied on Sunday afternoon in support of medical marijuana at the third Smoky Mountain medical marijuana rally. Medical marijuana supporters marched from the downtown area along west State of Franklin Road before rallying at the University Parkway intersection. The group rallied for hours with colorful signs and advocacy chants as cars honked with support as they passed by.

The rally was explanatory of the cannabis culture, said Bailey Reed, an ETSU senior studying political science and womens studies. With passion, groups of families, veterans, children, students, activists, elderly and much more showed support for the legalization of marijuana.

That sense of community banded many different people with a wide variety of medical conditions together to advocate their right to choose to medicate with marijuana.

This is because cannabis and marijuana helps the community, Reed said. The rally was important to me because it showed me how much the community supports the growing knowledge of how this plant might help out humanity.

Many people rallied to advocate not only because of personal medical conditions that benefit from marijuana, but many came to advocate for their children, parents, other family members and friends.

This affects me because, not only do I see the potential of this drug, but my mother has epilepsy and could use cannabis oil to dull the effect of her seizures, said Ben Schaller, leader of ETSU environmental student group ECO. Its crazy that we live in a world that can make medicine illegal under false ideas.

The rally gave marijuana supporters a chance to talk about the potential benefits of the cannabis plant that range from medicinal, economical and environmental.

This climate is very suitable for growing cannabis a lot of money could be made here in East Tennessee, Schaller said. Im very interested to see an organic market grow from these grass roots. To quote one of the lead organizers there, this is going to happen, the only question is when.

Representatives from various marijuana advocacy organizations came prepared to spread knowledge and gather more support for the cause.

Originally posted here:
Community rallies for legalization of medical marijuana

Residency locations revealed to medical students on 'Match Day'

By Keith McCord

March 20th, 2015 @ 9:30pm

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SALT LAKE CITY Medical students around the nation found out about the next phase of their professional careers Friday.

It's called "Match Day," where fourth-year students and future doctors open their match envelope to find out where they will live and work while completing their residency over the next few years.

Your fate and future individually and collectively lies on this table in unopened letters. That is very bizarre, said Dr. Dale Hall, president of the School of Medicine Alumni Association.

The 74 students 30 women and 44 men are among the thousands of medical students across the country that open the letters at the same time, which in Utah was 10 a.m.

You're matched into 65 different programs in 23 different specialties, said Dr. Vivian Lee, dean of the University of Utah School of Medicine. Youll be going to 27 different states.

The students submit applications to several hospitals relating to their field of study, but they don't know exactly where they'll go until they open the envelope surrounded by family and friends.

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Residency locations revealed to medical students on 'Match Day'

Get ready for the 2015 Lawrence school board general election on April 7 by reading up on the candidates and comparing their answers to a Journal-World questionnaire.

Mary Loveland and Marcel Harmon, two candidates with experience serving on the Lawrence school board, beat out their two other opponents in the primary election for the open two-year term on the district's governing body. They will go head to head in the general election.

Also on the ballot will be seven other candidates vying for four other seats for four-year terms. A primary election was not needed to narrow down that field.

Read up on all the candidates below, and find more information about the school board and city commission elections at LJWorld.com/vote2015.

Profiles:

Marcel Harmon, 46, first joined the board in September 2014 as an appointee following the resignation of Adina Morse. He works for an engineering firm, M.E. Group. He served on the Kansas Next Generation Science Standard Review Committee.

Mary Loveland, 66, served on the school board from 1987 to 2003 and again from 2007 to 2011. She has worked as an organizer for youth sports leagues and served on boards for the Kansas University Alumni Association and the Kansas Memorial Union.

Questionnaires:

Marcel Harmon

Mary Loveland

The rest is here:
2015 Lawrence school board election: Final candidate profiles, questionnaires

A student committee will contribute to the Corporations Young Alumni Trustee selection process for the first time since the position was created in 2008.

The group of students will critique and augment a list of candidates already considered by the Corporation, said Alex Drechsler 15, who has served on the Undergraduate Council of Students and the Undergraduate Finance Board in previous years.

The Graduate Student Council and the Alpert Medical School Student Council will each nominate one student from their respective schools to join three undergraduates on the committee, which is scheduled to convene after spring break and deliver its recommendations by the Corporations May meeting.

UCS interviewed undergraduate applicants Sunday following an extensive application, said UCS President Maahika Srinivasan 15. One of the most determining factors for this particular selection committee is a good understanding of what the Corporation actually does and what role a Young Alumni Trustee would serve on the Corporation, and that takes a little bit of nuance.

The misperception seems to be that the Corporation is the end all they make all of the decisions and (they are) implemented by the administration but thats not true at all, Srinivasan said. The administration creates the policy and the Corporation is a little bit of a sounding board.

President Christina Paxson P19 confirmed the inclusion of one young alum on the Corporation March 6 and said that the position would reflect student input, Drechsler said. He and Srinivasan presented proposals for increasing student engagement with the Corporation at its February meeting, when Paxson approved a proposed student input process to test run this year.

We are thinking of (this committee) as transitional, and were very open to thinking of other ways, and maybe more involved ways, for students to engage in the selection of the Young Alumni Trustee, Paxson said.

Paxson and Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey 91 MA06, in conjunction with the Governance and Nominations Committee, will review the student committees role after Commencement, Srinivasan said. Srinivasan will debrief with the student committees undergraduates at the end of the process to determine next steps towards permanence and making sure that they felt valued in the process, she added.

In response to student perception that the process of nominating Corporation members is secretive, Carey said that it is an internal process common to many governing boards. With the student committee, the idea is to bring more (student) input into the process, he said, calling it a step in a direction that is engaging and inclusive.

Young alums are selected like any other trustee, Carey said. It is a full Corporation decision, but they rely heavily on the Trustee Vacancies Committee, which develops candidate pools, he added.

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Young Alumni Trustee selection to include students

Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) March 16, 2015

African American women have higher death rates from breast cancer than do white women. Veena Rao, Ph.D., researcher, professor and co-director of the Cancer Biology Program in the department of OB/GYN at Morehouse School of Medicine, has pointed to multiple factors that contribute to the increased vulnerability of African American women, such as barriers to testing and quality of treatment. Leading medical researchers, including University of Washington geneticist and Lasker Laureate Mary-Claire King, highlight additional factors undetected inherited mutations and now recommend offering genetic testing for all women at about age 30. Dr. King will make a free, public address at the Morehouse School of Medicine on March 19, to discuss Inherited Breast Cancer: From Gene Discovery to Public Health.

Dr. Kings discovery in 1990 of the BRCA1 breast cancer gene demonstrated a mechanism of inherited cancer and proved that gene mutations could predict vulnerability to the disease.

A 2013 study of inherited predisposition to breast cancer among African American women by Dr. King and Dr. Olufunmilayo Olopade, director of The Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics, at the University of Chicago, found that 22 percent of African American breast cancer patients inherited a damaging mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2 or another breast cancer gene. Women carrying a mutation of BRCA1 or BRCA2 have a greater than 80 percent lifetime risk of developing breast cancer, as compared with 11% for women without mutations.

Recently, Dr. King showed that women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations had elevated risk for breast cancer, even if they have no family history of the disease. Therefore, she recommends that BRCA1 and BRCA2 testing be made available to all women.

I believe that every woman should be offered testing of BRCA1 and BRCA2 at about age 30 as part of routine medical care, said Dr. King. About half of women who inherit mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes have no family history of breast or ovarian cancer and have no idea that they are carrying cancer-causing mutations. Affordable, accessible early detection is a public health priority for saving lives.

While some within the medical community voice caution that universal screening could lead to anxiety for some women, King and Olopade focus on the benefits. Having a genetic mutation doesnt mean youre definitely going to get cancer, Dr. Olopade told NPR last September. Women at greater risk should work with their doctors closely to make decisions about the best approach to reducing their chances of developing breast cancer.

Within the African American community, access to mammograms and other testing, as well as follow-up care continues to be a challenge. Disparities in availability of breast cancer care is a profound public health concern.

On March 19, Dr. King will give a special lecture, co-sponsored by the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation and the Morehouse School of Medicine. In September 2014, the Lasker Foundation awarded Dr. King its prestigious Special Achievement Award in Medical Science for her bold, imaginative, and diverse contributions to medical science and human rights.

For more information on the availability of genetic screening in the Atlanta area, please see:

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Dr. Mary- Claire King to speak at Morehouse School of Medicine on how genetic screening for all women can lower risk ...