This story originally published on July 15, 2015 in observance of the COPH’s 30th anniversary celebration.

“USF was chosen as the place for Florida’s College of Public Health,” Dr. Peter Levin wrote in 1984, “because of the broad base of knowledge found in the many colleges of the University and the unique Tampa location.”

Levin, the college’s first dean, expounded further, noting that not only faculty from the colleges of medicine and nursing, but from business, education, engineering, natural sciences and social sciences were “key to the development of the college.”

Three decades of growth and innumerable success stories later, former Fla. Rep. Samuel P. Bell III shed more light on the founding of COPH.

Like many created entities of any kind, it all started with one person’s idea and another person’s decision to act on it.

The idea person was Robert Hamlin, a graduate of the Harvard University College of Public Health. He brought his idea to Bell, dubbed “the godfather of the college” by Charles Mahan, another founder who was COPH dean from 1995 to 2002.

“He had retired to Florida and realized that there was not a college of public health in Florida,” Bell recalled of Hamlin. “He contacted my staff director, John Phelps, with the idea, and John and I discussed the idea and decided that we should pursue the project. When we began the effort, we discovered that there had not been a college of a public health created anywhere in the country for more than 20 years, and most emphasis was on clinical health.

From left: Dr. Donna Petersen, dean of the USF College of Public Health, the late Robert Hamlin and Rep. Sam Bell, “the godfather of COPH.”

“As a member of the Florida Legislature, I could see the results of public health problems – mental health issues, alcoholism, child abuse, heart attack and stroke brought on by lack of exercise and obesity, infant mortality, etc. – yet there was no focus to address these issues. In addition,” Bell said, “there was a shortage of trained public health workers as problems grew and population increased.”

Where to establish the college as a physical entity turned out to be fairly obvious. Logic dictated that the state’s first college of public health had to be part of a public university that had a medical school and was located in an urban area, and USF was the only institution in the state that met all three requirements.

“There was no bill,” Bell said of the necessary legislative action that followed. “The college was first created by a line item in the state appropriation. Of course, we had to work the proposal through the Board of Regents and the USF administration.”

All of it moved with surprising quickness and ease, he said, underscoring an idea whose time had come. Naturally, it didn’t hurt that its biggest proponent was in prime position to do it the most good.

“The College’s success must first recognize the man who made it all possible,” said Dr. Heather Stockwell, the first faculty hire in the college’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

“Without Sam Bell,” she said, “there would be no COPH.  Before our college was formed, there were no schools of public health in Florida. It was through the vision and leadership of Sam Bell that our college was formed and its funding secured in its early years so that it could grow and develop into the College we are all so proud of today!”

From left: Dr. Martha Coulter, Dr. Heather Stockwell and Dr. Peter Levin, first dean of COPH, ca. 1988.

“Sam Bell was absolutely committed to the idea that there needed to be a strong college of public health in this state,” Dr. Martha Coulter agreed. “He single-handedly got absolute support for us from the state legislature, so that we were not dependent completely on federal funds and training grants.”

“There was not much opposition to the effort,” Bell said. “It really flew under the radar. I was in leadership during all of this time and was chair of the appropriations committee in the House for the years 1985 through 1988, for four sessions. Before that, I had chaired the rules committee and was majority leader, so I was in a position to get support. After the College was initially approved, I was able to guide funding.”

If founding the college had seemed relatively easy, running it in the early days was not. Being the only college of public health in Florida created a heavy work load at the same time it underscored the demand for what a college of public health delivers.

The first year, Coulter and the other two faculty members in the Department of Community and Family Health traveled regularly to teach at the Florida Department of Health offices in Tallahassee and at USF-Sarasota, as well as in Tampa, said Coulter. There simply was no one else to do the job.

From left: Jennifer Harrell, filmmaker and documentarian Frederick Wiseman, Dr. Marti Coulter and the late James Harrell in an undated photo.  The Harrell Center is named for Harrell and his wife, Jennifer.

“Of course, this was before you could take things online,” she said, “and it certainly was a lot easier for us to go there than for all of them to come here.”

Simply finding space was another challenge. Originally housed on the first floor of the present Continuing Education building, the fledgling college wouldn’t see its own building for another seven years.

Community and Family Health had a particularly hard time finding a permanent home, Coulter said. It would reside alongside the college’s other departments in the present Continuing Education building, then move to the first floor of the University Professional Center, then find space in the Florida Mental Health Institute (now Behavioral and Community Sciences) building.

“I had to bend my head down to get into the attic to get into my office,” recalled Dr. Paul Leaverton, first chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

“Then we took over the auditorium. It used to be a basketball auditorium – just wherever we could find room, and that was where we were ’til ’91, when we moved into this building. We kept moving around in funny little quarters, so this building was really nice – and it still is.”

COPH groundbreaking ceremony for it’s $10-million building, March 1990.

Artist’s rendering of the COPH building.

A royal opening

Almost everyone expects fanfare at any major debut, the opening of a new building at a major university posing no exception, but probably no one expected the kind of pomp and circumstance that played at the USF College of Public Health’s opening of its own building in 1991.

A month before the building’s official dedication, two weeks before faculty and staff even began moving in, the first lecture was delivered by a scientist, and yet the affair was literally regal.

With an entourage of attendants by her side, Professor Dr. Her Royal Highness Princess Chulabhorn of Thailand, a biochemist, arrived in a police-escorted motorcade of limousines to speak about her research on medicinal plants.

Leaverton talked recently about how the building’s unusual opening came to pass.

“In the late ’80s, I had done a lot of work in Thailand with NIH and Thai scientists on the epidemiology of aplastic anemia,” Leaverton said.

Thailand had an unusually high rate of the rare but serious blood disorder, Leaverton said, and the group set out to investigate why.

“My colleague over there was probably the top scientist in Thailand. He was a really good medical scientist,” he said, “and he was also the king’s doctor.”

The king was a believer in education, Leaverton said, and his four children eagerly shared that belief. All earned advanced degrees, and two earned doctorates. Leaverton’s Thai counterpart was a friend of Princess Chulabhorn’s, having done post-graduate work with him in Germany.

“So even though she’s a multimillionaire as the king’s daughter, they took it to heart that they should give back to the community. So she got an education in science and directs her own research institute, mostly in cancer.

“I had not met her, but I had heard of her and knew she liked to give lectures occasionally, so I asked my friend, ‘Do you think she’d ever like to give a lecture at USF?’ He said, ‘I’ll ask her.’

A short time later, back at USF and ready to re-settle into his routine, Leaverton had a surprise waiting for him.

“The next thing I know, my phone’s ringing, and it’s the ambassador from Thailand asking if I’d like the princess to speak at USF.”

The answer was yes, and the ambassador personally flew down from Washington to make the arrangements.

“He sounded pretty upset,” Leaverton said, “but they have to handle the royal family with kid gloves. Turned out he was a wonderful man, and he came down a couple of times. We had to meet with the mayor of Tampa and the chief of police to make sure the princess got a motorcade from the airport to her hotel – she took over three floors at the new Wyndham – and from her hotel to USF and back again, no stopping at red lights. So it was quite a show.

“The building wasn’t scheduled to open until December, but to make her schedule, she could only come in November, so the dean opened the building just to accommodate her, which I thought was nice.

News story on Thailand’s Princess Chulabhorn’s royal visit for the COPH opening, November 1991.  Pictured with the princess (left) are Drs. Peter Levin (second from left) and Paul Leaverton, who watch as a student from Thailand extends a greeting.

“It was a packed audience. She gave a very technical lecture that no one understood except the biochemists, but it was a big show, and we got to have lunch with the president of the university. It was a royal opening for the college.”

When the college first opened for classes, Leaverton said, a few students were admitted even before the departments were created. After they were created, the departments didn’t last long initially.

Dean Levin created the initial four of COPH’s present five departments and recruited four professors from other institutions to chair them.

From left: Dennis Werner, senior research coordinator, Jan Marshburn, research assistant, and Lesley Bateman, PR and development coordinator, move into the new COPH building in November 1991.

Leaverton was brought in from the National Institutes of Health, and before that, the University of Iowa, to head Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Dr. Stewart Brooks would leave the University of Cincinnati to lead Environmental and Occupational Health. Dr. Stan Graven came from the University of Missouri to direct Community and Family Health. Dr. Tom Chirikos from Ohio State University would take the reins in Health Policy and Management.

“In early ’85,” Leaverton recalled, “the dean got to thinking maybe we didn’t need departments. We could just follow what he called the Texas model – no departments, just one big happy family. But the four chairs who had been recruited to be chairmen of departments objected mightily, and besides, I tried to convince the dean, students tend to think of themselves along discipline lines anyway, whether you call them departments or not. So he relented and re-created the four departments.”

Typical of the new departments, “Epi and Biostats,” as Leaverton calls it, consisted of two people. He and Stockwell were it for the time being, but that was about to change, although maybe not as quickly as they would have liked.

“The legislature was wonderfully generous,” Leaverton said. “They gave us a lot of tenure-track lines, almost unheard of in the creation of a new school. As chairman of Epi and Biostats, I had six tenure-track lines. Two of them were filled by Dr. Stockwell and me, but we had to recruit for the other four.

“Dr. Stockwell and I both had pretty high standards – she had been at Hopkins. We had a file of about 30 people. We rejected all of them. We didn’t think they were good enough to be on our faculty.

“So we had to start the recruiting process all over again, and she and I did all the teaching for that first year, because we were a two-person faculty. We did have a few adjuncts, maybe, here and there, and we eventually filled the faculty positions for the next year.”

Leaverton chaired the department until 1995, then remained as a professor for another six years. He retired as an emeritus professor in 2001.

Memories

The founders and early leaders of COPH have more memories than just those that deal with the college’s inception and its early operation, more memories than space could ever allow, including a few on the lighter side.

“When she was president of the university, she knew everybody on campus,” Coulter recalled of Betty Castor, “and when I got the funding to start the Harrell Center, I was walking across the campus behind the administration building, and she was walking back to her office from somewhere. She saw me all the way across the grounds and yelled out, ‘Hi, moneybags!’

Sam Bell and Betty Castor, former USF president and Florida Secretary of Education, at the COPH 25th anniversary gala, December 2009.

“She knew everybody and supported everybody, and no matter that I was an associate professor in the College of Public Health, she knew.”

“I recall conducting a final exam in epidemiology one evening in which two unusual events occurred,” said Leaverton. “First, a student came to me in obvious pain. She had accidentally put the wrong kind of eye drops in her eyes, which were nearly swollen shut. Okay, she was excused.

“Then, another lady went into labor. We called 911 and sent her to the hospital. It turned out to be a false alarm – she delivered two weeks later. Maybe my exams were too frightening.”

“Being a fan of Chevy Chase and SNL, especially his take-offs on the clumsiness of President Gerald Ford, I purposely stumbled up the auditorium stairs and fell against the podium on the stage, scattering papers everywhere,” Mahan recalled. “This was at one of our graduation convocations. Instead of the audience laughing at my parody of Chevy, they all thought it was real and rushed to the stage to help me – very embarrassing! I think it’s funny now, but I have a very bizarre sense of humor.”

The particulars vary from person to person, but the size, scope and overall success of the college are unanimous themes for the people who were there in its earliest days. In one way or another, all said they could not have foreseen in 1984 what it is on its 30^th anniversary.

“I don’t think we could have imagined,” Coulter said, “the ability to move as strongly as it has in the direction of being a research one university – USF as a whole and the College of Public Health as a leader in that regard. I don’t think we quite envisioned it that way. That has been very exciting.

“Also, the expansion of the whole global health department, the global health focus, and the ability to do international public health work with researchers that are in the global health unit. That really hadn’t been anticipated,” she said.

“I think Donna Petersen coming here was a huge milestone,” she added. “I think she is absolutely extraordinary. Without Donna’s leadership, we could not have gone as far as we’ve gone. She’s given us a lot of support for community-based research, and that’s been critical in terms of the direction that we’ve gone.”

“I’m very pleased with how well our students have done,” Leaverton said. “It’s kind of shocking, in a way. As I look back, we must have organized the curriculum pretty well, Heather [Stockwell] and I. We had to basically design it from scratch. We set up some pretty good courses, and they essentially stayed the same for a long time. We had some good faculty who kept the standards high.

COPH student Sherri Berger as a model for a National Public Health Week poster, March 1996.  She now is chief operating officer at the Centers for Disease Control.

“I actually saw some memos that said, ‘Don’t take Epi and Biostats at the same time, it’s too hard. You have to take them separately,’” Leaverton said. “Sometimes I would take some pride in that. We never made soft courses. Our courses were tough.”

Past, Future and Present

The few shortcomings the college’s founders can think of actually only further reflect the college’s success.

“If I could change one thing,” Stockwell said, “it would be to have a much larger building. The college’s rapid growth has resulted in a need for more space. Maybe we could add a floor?”

“Our beautiful building should have been built to be able to add additional stories,” Mahan concurred.

For Leaverton, it would be an epidemiology laboratory, something he said he and Dr. Doug Schocken, a cardiology professor, tried twice to get funded by NIH.

“If I could do that over, I would pursue that even more vigorously. But we tried,” he said.

Mahan said he sees the college’s future dependent upon “a stronger marriage” between the college and the state and local health departments.

Former COPH Dean Dr. Charles Mahan (above left, below right) participates in an exercise with the Hillsborough County Fire Rescue Hazardous Materials Unit, April 2000.

“What if you got your medical degree or nursing degree but never saw a patient and never went into a hospital? Well, why are we giving people public health degrees, and they never set foot in a health department, and they don’t work in the community, which is where the problems are?”

Mahan believes that national accreditation of health departments should be as universal as accreditation for colleges and universities, and that closing the gap between public health education and practice is the way to achieve it. COPH would help a health department earn accreditation, with the understanding that once it became accredited, it would become an “official outpost of the USF College of Public Health.”

“I hope the emphasis on a strong research program will continue,” Leaverton said. “Public health programs need to be based upon sound science, of course. I hope that never changes.”

“What I would like to see the college do is continue on the path that it’s on in terms of really being a leader in the country in community-based research,” Coulter said, “increasing its role as an intermediary between research and practice, and having a committed sense of responsibility to community service providers.”

“Over the next five years,” Stockwell said, “I think – or at least I hope – that public health in general will focus on a positive approach to health, not just disease prevention but improving the quality of health and health maintenance for all our citizens. To do this there will need to be a strong interdisciplinary approach to developing strategies that focus on primary prevention and sustainability at the community level.

“I think our college is uniquely positioned to address these issues,” she said. Its interdisciplinary educational focus positions it as a leader in public health education, and our emphasis on the development of high-quality, collaborative, community-based  research seeks to provide critical information to policy makers to address current and future public health concerns locally, nationally and internationally.”

From left: Susan Webb and Drs. Michael Reid and Phillip Marty establish the Public Health Leadership Institute with a grant from the CDC and ASPH, January 1995.

Stockwell remained with COPH until 2014, when she retired as professor emerita.

But between all the memories of COPH’s beginnings, all its history, successes, scarce shortcomings and envisioned futures stands the here and now.

“If imitation is the greatest form of flattery,” he said, “then we should be flattered, because every university in the state wants a college of public health.

“The College is having impact around the world. I had thought it would be a mecca for public health in Florida and a source of information and advice for state decision-makers. It has done that and much more. We now have graduates working on every continent. Our faculty are internationally recognized. Our students are studying and doing internships around the world. We are attracting major grants, and the research continues to grow.

“I am very proud of what the College has become and what it has done to touch lives around the world,” the college’s “godfather” concluded.

“It has far exceeded my hopes and expectations.”

The USF College of Public Health solves global problems and creates conditions that allow every person the right to universal health and well-being. Make a gift today and help the COPH to advance the public’s health for the next 30 years and beyond. 

Story by David Brothers, USF College of Public Health; photos courtesy of COPH and various faculty.

Related media:
30th anniversary website

The post An Idea Whose Time Had Come: Florida’s First College of Public Health appeared first on College of Public Health News.

First published on May 14, 2015 in observance of the COPH’s 30^th anniversary celebration.

Long before the deluge of online learning became a given of modern education replete with a glut of overnight “universities,” USF’s College of Public Health launched a distance-learning presence that was formidable before online classes even existed.

From 1990-93, 45 state health department employees in Tallahassee earned master of public health degrees from USF via the old-fashioned method of distance learning.  Every Tuesday, a COPH professor would journey to Tallahassee to teach a three-hour course that evening, said Dr. Charles Mahan, at that time state health officer, and later COPH dean.

Dr. Charles Mahan

“We gave them Tuesday afternoon off, and they gave up their evening,” Mahan explained.  “One professor would come up for a month and do the whole core segment of epidemiology and biostatistics, and then somebody else would come up and do the whole core of community and family health.

“When people in practice throughout the state at the health departments saw what we were doing up there, they came to the college and said, ‘Please, do that for our staff.’  That’s when we began the distance-learning program.”

Technology offered a more efficient means by 1994, when COPH began beaming public health courses via satellite to 33 host sites at state and local health departments across Florida.

Answering a mandate

“USF College of Public Health had a very good partnership with the Florida Department of Health,” recalled Sandhya Srinivasan, COPH director of educational technology and assessment, “and through this partnership, we were able to deliver public health education while utilizing health department meeting space and satellite equipment that was already part of the Florida Department of Health satellite network.  We were able to piggyback on that and beam our classes to busy health professionals.”

Sandhya Srinivasan, MPH, MEd

WUSF-TV had an uplink facility, Srinivasan explained, which enabled COPH to buy satellite time at the discounted educational rate.  The telecasts were cabled to the uplink facility in Clearwater, then beamed to the satellite from there.

As part of the founding of the college a decade earlier, USF and COPH had a legislative mandate to train public health employees statewide, Srinivasan said.  A needs assessment at the time signaled the need when it found that very few public health workers had had any formal public health training.

“They had come to public health through medicine or nursing or sociology, but they were not trained in public health,” she said, “and so the college had a huge challenge in front of it.”

Two evening courses were initiated to meet that challenge, she said.  Each met once a week for three hours, and each had an on-site technical point person should the satellite or any link in the technology fail.  Technical and material needs were communicated via phone or fax in those days before the advent of personal computers and e-mail.

Given those limitations, early growth was slow, but within a few years, the need for more courses and faster, easier means of delivery coincided well with the PC age.  In 2001, Srinivasan said, technical advances and growing interest in the program sparked its rapid expansion.

“We started incrementally,” she said, “moving our classes from satellite to a blended online-and-satellite format.”

The Department of Education weighed in with a $3-million grant for instruction in technology.  That IIT grant, as it was known (standing for Innovations in Technology and Training), enabled the college to hire instructional designers who brought in multi-media components that completed the transition from satellite-online hybrid to a fully online operation.

From online courses to online degrees

With all classes delivered entirely via Internet, geographic limitations were gone.  Anyone, anywhere could take courses on the World Wide Web, and host sites were things of the past.  It wouldn’t be long before the state’s first public health college conferred the state’s first fully online public health degrees.

According to figures supplied by David Hogeboom, statistical data analyst for COPH, the online degree program has conferred 383 MPH degrees in various concentrations since spring 2001.  The total represents more than one-fifth of all MPH degrees and more than one-eighth of all degrees awarded by COPH in that timeframe.  Srinivasan said nine students graduating on Dec. 13, 1998, from the Public Health Practice program were the first to earn their degrees via satellite.

COPH distance learning’s first nine MPH graduates made headlines in 1998.

“Today, in addition to public health practice, we have five other master’s concentrations online and 11 online graduate certificates,” Srinivasan said.

Unlike other classrooms, the virtual variety requires technical design specifically geared to disseminating educational materials.  Accordingly, full-time instructional designers are a big part of the picture at COPH online.

“Our office consists of six full-time instructional designers and a graphics designer,” Srinivasan said.  “The designers are assigned to particular courses and work hand-in-hand with faculty in preparing course materials and assessments.  They are able to parse down a lesson to bare essentials and match the right technology that can deliver that content efficiently to the students.”

Today’s COPH online learning team.  Back row, from left: Thomas Reilly, James Taylor, Andres Abril, Carlos Montoya, Samantha Lopez.  Front row, from left: Ana Vizcaino, Jung Lim, Sandhya Srinivasan, Trudian Trail-Constant.

Srinivasan said one of the concerns the designers address is interaction.

“It is less than ideal to listen to a talking head for three hours, so we use different types of interactive technologies that enable and even encourage student interaction,” she said.

Much of that interaction involves typed responses, she said, but even that is rapidly changing.

“As part of Canvas, the learning management system at USF, we now have access to an interactive virtual tool called Blackboard Collaborate.  Students and instructor log in at a given time and date, and the tools within that virtual classroom allow for interaction.  Students and faculty are able to interact via audio, video and whiteboard tools to do everything they could do in a traditional classroom.”

Alison Oberne, MA, MPH, CPH, an instructor in the USF College of Public Health, narrates a lecture for an undergraduate public health course using the recording space in COPH used for recording content for the lectures and modules of most of the college’s online degree programs.

It doesn’t take an instructional designer to appreciate the brightness of COPH’s online future.

When the college launched its online master’s program, Mahan said, deans at other colleges of public health told him it would never work.  In fact, he said, deans from the older schools of public health at revered institutions like Harvard and Johns Hopkins flat-out swore they would never do it.

“Now, of course, they all do it,” he said.  “Absolutely, we were the first to do it.  We were a couple of years ahead of everybody else in offering the full MPH by distance.”

“The tools from the beginning to now have undergone tremendous change,” Srinivasan said.  “We are committed to remaining on the cutting edge, so the future of our program will be wherever virtual classroom technology will allow us to go.”

Story by David Brothers, College of Public Health.

The post College of Public Health a pioneer of online learning appeared first on College of Public Health News.

First published on April 6, 2015 in observance of the COPH’s 30^th anniversary celebration.

Dr. Karen Liller has been a child and adolescent injury prevention researcher for a quarter of a century.  A professor in the USF College of Public Health’s Department of Community and Family Health and a member of the Florida Injury Prevention Advisory Group, she worked with a Tampa General program called More Health in the mid-1990s to help evaluate its health education programs.  One of those programs promoted bicycle helmets for children.

Dr. Karen Liller

“I evaluated their program, and I started observational studies of children’s bicycle helmet use in Hillsborough County,” Liller said.  “I was monitoring this because, as part of the Injury Group, I knew this bill had been denied two times before.  We were all part of the advocacy efforts with Tallahassee between the state of Florida program, More Health and the college to get this passed.”

A natural proponent of requiring kids to wear helmets when they rode their bikes, Liller had her interest piqued.  From casual observation alone, she surmised that few were.  Determined to put scientifically collected numbers to the problem, she and a cadre of her graduate students set about the task of collecting data.

From low expectations to high hopes, then action

“I was focused on unintentional injuries in children,” she said.  “Nationally, this was a huge issue.  I had some colleagues at Harborview Injury Prevention Program in the state of  Washington, and they were some of the early leaders nationally in helmet use.  So I naturally got very, very interested and started looking, started conducting observational studies, because I didn’t know:  What is the helmet use rate? “I developed and performed community observations,” she said.  “I would hire my grad assistants, and they would stand on corners doing observational surveys of kids in helmets.  We mapped out the whole county, and I had them on streets everywhere.  We had a whole protocol of where we wanted to be, because we wanted to capture observational surveys in many different places – in community sites, in schools, not near schools, etc., so we had a good idea of what was going on in Hillsborough County.”

As low as Liller’s expectations were, reality turned out to be even worse.

“I can tell you, it was pitifully low,” she said.  “For children under 16, it was about three percent.”

Liller set out on a concentrated campaign to get a helmet law passed.  It already had languished and died in two previous legislative sessions, and she was determined to make the third try count.

“I did many radio spots and TV spots and Good Morning Whomever promoting bicycle helmets as the law was working its way through the legislature,” she recalled.

“I wanted to get ahold of it,” she said, “because I knew this was a national issue, and I knew states were starting to pass laws.  Florida is a tough state to get a law passed for children’s injury prevention.  In fact, we just got the booster seat law done.  We were one of the last states to do that.  I knew it was going to be a battle.  So, I knew I’d better get started early.” Liller learned through focus groups that legislators weren’t the only people she needed to convince.  Some parents didn’t want a law telling them to put helmets on their kids’ heads.  After all, bicycle shops already were selling more helmets.  McDonald’s was giving out helmet discount coupons and safe rider certificates.  Why should there be a legal mandate?

“My answer to them was, ‘Do you have a driver’s license?  Yes?  Well, the government told you to do that.’

“It always surprised me when parents would argue with me on this issue.  The famous one for me was, ‘I rode a bike all the time when I was a kid, and I never got a head injury.’  I’d say, ‘When was that?  Where was that?’  And it would be some idyllic little community in some other state, and I’d say, ‘Try riding a bike in Tampa now, and get back to me on that.  The world has changed.  The roads have changed.  The danger level has changed.”

Clearly, the law’s chief proponent had taken on a daunting task, but being part of the state’s first college of public health had its rewards.  Dr. Charles Mahan, state health director under Gov. Lawton Chiles, was a valuable ally.  COPH was still the only school of public health in Florida, and COPH professors were trekking all the way to Tallahassee to teach weekly classes at the state health department office.  Through the department’s close working relationship with COPH, Mahan already had known Liller and had been supportive of her efforts.

Dr. Charles Mahan

“We knew that Karen was really focused on getting a child helmet law through, and certainly, we were very much in favor of that,” said Mahan, who was COPH dean by the time the measure was in its third incarnation.  Mahan had known Chiles since well before the latter began his two terms as governor.

When Mahan was a medical student at the University of Florida, Chiles became interested in his work on infant mortality.  Personal and professional bonds soon followed.

“When he was a senator, I would go around the country and hold hearings with him,” Mahan recalled.  “He would do all the talking, but I would help him figure out what to say, depending on what the issue was.”

Mahan knew the governor well enough to know he was predisposed to children’s health issues.

“Any issue related to children was something that Gov. and Mrs. Chiles were supportive of,” Mahan said.  “Anything that needed his support on children’s issues for safety or survival or whatever, he would tell the staff – me and everyone else – to make sure that it got supported.” With the encouragement of a popular governor, the proposal was gaining momentum.  The awareness raised by the news of the pending legislation helped engender educational outreaches that helped the ball roll faster.

“Betty Castor, who became president of USF, was head of education at the time,” Mahan said, “and the school systems jumped right in with educational efforts.”

Those collective efforts eventually generated the irresistible momentum that carried the measure over the finish line.

“With Charlie’s support and the governor’s, on the third attempt, it was successful,” Liller said.  “And I testified and did a variety of things locally, as well, for the bill.  A colleague of mine also did a cost-effectiveness study, and he also testified with that in Tallahassee.  I think it was a combination of all of these things.  We kept sending the legislators our research findings, and with all the backing, eventually, in 1996, the bill passed.”

A victory not etched in stone

“Bike helmets are an investment we should make to ensure our children’s health and safety,” Chiles declared as he signed the bill onto law.

The measure became effective on Jan. 1, 1997, and for the next 12 months, it was easy for anyone to live with.  A violator would receive a warning and a bicycle safety brochure.  As of Jan. 1, 1998, however, that brochure was delivered with a $17 citation.  It was a light fine as fines go, and even it could be circumvented.

“After the first year, you could get a fine if the child was riding, was under the age of 16 and didn’t have a helmet on,” Liller said, “but you could get around that if you could show evidence of a bicycle helmet.”

That, of course, was only when the law was enforced, which, according to Liller, wasn’t – and still isn’t – very often.

“Police are very reluctant,” she said.  “I talk to them about how many tickets they’ve given, and usually the answer is ‘none,’ at least in Hillsborough County.  They’re very reluctant to stop a child on a bike.”

Nonetheless, she said, by 1998, helmet use had risen exponentially, to 67 percent in Hillsborough County.  So even without much enforcement, the law was accomplishing its purpose.

“I think the law has been great,” Liller said.  “We did an analysis of its efficacy.  We did show that helmet use has gone up, and we showed that injuries have gone down.  And that was great.  That was the intent of the law.  Injury prevention does its best, many times, when there’s a policy change or a legislative change, because it just reaches more people.”

Mahan agreed. “Having it as law is a big awareness raiser,” he said.  “It gets all over the papers and the news again and again.  The legislature is considering this measure.  That’s news.  The legislature passed it today.  That’s news.  The governor signed it into law.  That’s news again.  It went into effect today, so that’s news, too.

“For the majority of parents, who care so much about their kids, just the awareness-raising and then seeing other kids out there with their helmets on helped, but it took time.  As with any legislation, it takes about three years to get a good idea through.  It’s very hard to take a new idea on regulation to the legislature.”

“It was a very exciting time,” Liller said, “because, the first couple of times, I would go to the injury meetings, we’d work on the language of the law, and it just kept getting defeated.  The first year we did it, I think we just put it out there and said, ‘Let’s just see how it goes.’  The second year, we didn’t have the information about the penalty.  I still don’t like the penalty.  I don’t to this day.  But it was a really exciting process, and I’m so glad I was part of it.”

Still, Liller knows that no law is etched in stone.  The state threw a scare into helmet proponents and safety advocates in general when it partially repealed its motorcycle helmet law by limiting the requirement to riders under 21. “We were very afraid that they were going to repeal the bicycle helmet law, too, but so far, so good,” Liller said.  “They haven’t touched that law.  I think that’s because it’s for children.  I think if we would have had that helmet law for all ages, we would have been in trouble.”

“When I was at the state health office,” Mahan said, “the helmet law was a big plus, but at the same time, we lost the motorcycle helmet law, and that’s had tremendous consequences.”

The work continues

“We want it to become a norm,” Liller said of bicycle helmet use.  “We want it to be that, when these children have children, there won’t be any question when you get on a bike.  And we’re starting to see that.”

Mahan concurred.  He said he and his wife live two blocks from an elementary school, and the progress is easily visible.

“A lot of the kids are riding their bikes to school,” he said, “and every one of them has a helmet on.”

Work since the law’s passage has been geared toward bicycle helmet give-away programs.

“If you don’t have a helmet, we can find you one,” Liller said.  “We can find a program – Safe Kids, Tampa General, we can find somewhere to get you a helmet.”

Liller’s work on the law continues to influence safety initiatives.

“Our work has been in world publications about helmet use, about laws, about how it’s done,” she said.  “The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation wants to know about strategies, and it seems that the strategies that were developed in the ’90s – people are still really interested in those.  We were always pleased that our work is often cited as an example, even though many years have passed.”

Liller said she also is gratified to see the lasting validation of her and her colleagues’ methodology.

“It’s interesting that the work that we did is still being used.  If you run a program, you do some observational surveys.  You look at that helmet use on those kids.  You don’t just ask them.  You actually watch them.”

In the intervening years, Liller’s focus has shifted to high school sports injuries, but she remains committed to the legislation she helped to bring about, and she remains engaged with it, most recently as a content reviewer for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Wisconsin Population Health Institute for strategies they want to propose for child safety seats – and yes, bicycle helmets. Her message for the naysayers remains the same.

“We’re not telling children they can’t ride bikes,” she said.  “We’re not telling children they can’t have fun or anything else we were accused of so often.  Basically, it’s just taking necessary precautions.  There’s been some literature that says we should let kids take more risks.  We don’t want to stop anyone from taking risks or having fun or getting exercise.  We just don’t want a child to die from a perfectly preventable head injury.  We’re smarter now.”

Story by David Brothers, College of Public Health.  Photos courtesy of the National Highway Traffic Safety Association, Helmets On Heads, County Mayo and other sources.

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To date, the USF College of Public Health has recognized dozens of alumni with significant impact in public health. Nominations are accepted on a rolling basis.

“During the process of soliciting and reviewing nominations for 2015 it became clear that the Outstanding Alumni Awards should be an annual event recognizing our more than 11,000 alumni doing great things in various places,” said Dr. Heather Stockwell, emeritus professor from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

To be considered for an Outstanding Alumni Award, nominees must have earned an academic degree (BS, MHA, MPH, MSPH, PhD or DrPH) from the COPH.

“Our alumni are doing wonderful things locally, statewide and internationally and this award is one way that the college can acknowledge their success,” said Dr. Karen Liller, COPH professor.

The Outstanding Alumni Awards are presented in Tampa during National Public Health Week, which is typically during the first week in April.

Complete details on eligibility and the nomination process are on the  alumni awards website. The deadline for all materials to be received is 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 1.

“I applaud the College of Public Health for recognizing alumni who not only have tremendous accomplishments, but who have made a difference in the lives of so many,” said Bill McCausland, executive director of the USF Alumni Association.

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First published on June 4, 2015 in observance of the COPH’s 30^th anniversary celebration.

It was January 1998, and the Florida Board of Regents had just promoted one of USF’s fledgling entities to major status with sublimely understated efficiency.

Following authorizations for a BS in dance education, a degree of undetermined level in occupational therapy and an MS in physical therapy, it was the last of four single-sentence items in the typically dry language of officialdom, replete with redundancy and excessive capitalization, on a State University System memo to Dr. Thomas Tighe, then USF provost: “Established the Type I Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center for Healthy Mothers and Babies as a Type I Center (sic).”

The rationale for the Center’s status elevation cited the state’s “tremendous progress in improving the health status of pregnant women and infants, largely through the leadership of Gov. and Mrs. Chiles and Charles Mahan,” who was then USF College of Public Health dean.  Marked improvement in the state’s infant mortality rate was among the leading factors, along with the Center’s performance the previous two years as a Type IV center.

Mahan had envisioned a research, program and policy institute for maternal and infant health as early as 1988, according to the Center’s official timeline.  The Center’s originally intended location was the University of Florida, Mahan said, but that was before the state had established its first college of public health at USF.  By the time the Center was created a few years later, USF, with the only COPH in the state, had become the obvious location, and Mahan had been named COPH dean.

Charles Mahan, MD, former USF College of Public Health dean

“Gov. and Mrs. Chiles had a lot of allegiance to the University of Florida, where they met and where he got his law degree,” Mahan said.  “I was state health officer on loan from the medical school at Florida, and I was supposed to go back there, and the Chiles Center was supposed to be there.”

But having served in the same administration, Mahan was friends with Betty Castor, who had been state secretary of education under Chiles and had since become president of USF.  Mahan said she called him and personally asked him to be the dean of COPH.  He accepted, and the first “steal” from the University of Florida only naturally led to the second.

USF was the better location for the Chiles Center, Castor told the governor, as it had the only college of public health and was headed by a dean who had served him as state health officer.  It also had a Healthy Beginnings program in place that arguably was already doing some of the work the Chiles Center would do.

Dr. Betty Castor, former USF president and Florida secretary of education.  To her left is her husband, former Florida state Rep. Samuel P. Bell III.

The Florida Healthy Start Program had been created by the legislature in 1991, under the urging of Chiles, and from its inception, had included a Healthy Beginnings Program at USF.  So when Mahan was appointed COPH dean in February 1995, he was at the right place at the right time to begin realization of his vision.  A year later, the Board of Regents established the Center, and Mahan served as its founding director in addition to his duties as COPH dean.

A $2-million federal grant followed in 1997 that was specifically aimed at reducing infant mortality in Hillsborough County.  In December of that year, a gala event at Busch Gardens honored the governor and his wife and formally launched the Center.  Additional state funding came in 1998 for construction of a building and a $600,000 annual operating budget.

Former Florida first lady Rhea Chiles (third from right) and her and the late governor’s daughter, also named Rhea (fourth from right), and son Ed (center) at the Chiles Center’s groundbreaking ceremony.

“President Castor invited Gov. and Mrs. Chiles down to USF, and we toured the campus and got them to put their names on the Chiles Center,” Mahan recalled.  “And then, Gov. Chiles was great about taking me to Washington and meeting all the senators who were his friends and raising money for the building.”

That journey for federal support brought home another $800,000 for the building.  The governor and first lady then spearheaded a series of fundraisers in Daytona Beach, Lakeland, Pensacola, Tallahassee and West Palm Beach.

“The Center was originally housed in office space near Tampa International Airport on Mariner Drive,” recalled Dr. Linda A. Detman, research associate for the Center.  “I believe that was from 1996 to 1998.  The Center’s first on-campus location was in FMHI, what is now labeled on maps as the College of Behavioral & Community Sciences building.  We also had a pair of temporary trailers for added office space between FMHI and the Westside Conference Center.”

Gov. Lawton Chiles (right) and daughter Rhea with Dr. Harold Varmus, then director of the National Institutes of Health, at the dedication of Lawton Chiles House (not related to the Chiles Center).

The Center’s impressive home since 2001 puts plenty of inspiration on display for visitors and staff alike:  A photo gallery of Gov. and Mrs. Chiles, including framed moments with presidents Clinton, Carter and Bush the first; a replica of the governor’s Tallahassee conference room for his use whenever he visited; even a bronzed pair of “Walkin’ Lawton’s” famous shoes.

After all, inspiration is what it’s all about.  Over the years, the Chiles Center’s health care initiatives have racked up impressive victories, to say the least.

“At the Chiles Center, Florida Covering Kids and Families and its collaborators across the state exceeded the federal goal for Florida in enrolling people for health care coverage in the federal health insurance marketplaces,” said Dr. William M. Sappenfield, Chiles Center director and Department of Community and Family Health chair and professor.  “During the first open enrollment, about 500,000 more individuals enrolled over the initial target and reached more than 1.6 million after the second enrollment period.  Moreover, because of the success of projects like this, Florida now enrolls more people through this important health insurance program than any other state.”

William M. Sappenfield, MD, MPH, director of the Chiles Center

Sappenfield also points to one of the Center’s most recent projects, the Florida Perinatal Quality Collaborative, which has radically reduced elective early deliveries (before 39 weeks of gestation).

“Babies electively delivered before 39 weeks are at higher risk of poor outcomes, including respiratory troubles and difficulties feeding, and are at higher risk of learning, behavioral and school-related problems in childhood,” explained Detman, who oversees the project.

“It continues to make a measurable difference in the quality of health care that mothers and babies are receiving,” Sappenfield said, “through improving newborn health care at birth and reducing death and morbidity to obstetric hemorrhage.”

Another recent Chiles Center project is the Obstetric Hemorrhage Initiative begun in October 2013 with 31 Florida and four North Carolina hospitals.  The participating Florida hospitals represent more than one-forth of the state’s delivery hospitals and nearly two-thirds of all births statewide, Detman said, adding that maternal deaths from postpartum hemorrhage are the leading cause of maternal mortality in the state.

Linda Detman, PhD, program manager for the Chiles Center’s Florida Perinatal Quality Collaborative

“We are fortunate to have the enthusiasm and dedication of perinatal professionals across the state who want to be engaged in improving outcomes for mothers and infants, and we plan to grow in the number of hospitals actively engaged in one or more of our projects,” she said.

Though funding issues put an end to the Center’s branch office in Tallahassee years ago, the original main office – now an imposing office building – on the USF Tampa campus continues to thrive and achieve.

“As was initially dreamed, the Chiles Center continues to improve the health and health care of women, children and families in Florida,” Sappenfield said.  “We will continue to build upon and expand these successful collaborations to succeed in our mission of improving their health and health care.”

Gov. Chiles visits COPH and its dean, Dr. Charles Mahan, in 1995.

“We worked with Gov. and Mrs. Chiles for many years to devise and implement programs and ideas to improve the pregnancy outcomes for women and babies,” Mahan said.  “The LRCC is designed to carry out these efforts and continue to design and improve new ones for future generations.”

Story by David Brothers, College of Public Health.

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First published on October 20, 2014 in observance of the COPH’s 30^th anniversary celebration.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Like many entities directed at the greater public good, the USF College of Public Health’s Harrell Center was the product of a private philanthropist’s gift. James Harrell and his family wanted to do something to help eliminate family violence, and they acted on that desire. The result was a 1997 endowment that set the stage for what has become an international force.

“The intent of the Harrell family was to provide a center that would focus on family violence,” affirmed Dr. Martha Coulter, the center’s founding director, “but they were particularly interested in looking at the prevention of family violence, as well as research that would be directly applicable to prevention and intervention.

“So the mission of the Harrell Center, really, is to be an intermediary between research and practice, to do research that is focused on family violence intervention and prevention across the lifespan.

“The grant was an endowment, so the funding is very limited, because it’s just the interest on the endowment. Now, most of the income is from other grants and contracts,” Coulter said, “but what the Harrell endowment did was provide the base for doing that kind of research.”

Brick sponsored by the Harrell Center in remembrance of James Harrell after his death in 2007.

One of three faculty members at the center full-time, Coulter, whose doctorate is in maternal and child health, teaches three courses: Family and Community Violence, Child Maltreatment, and Child Health, in addition to coordinating the maternal and child health academic concentration at COPH.

“In the very beginning, there was only the grant and the establishment of the center conceptually,” she said. “Over the years, we’ve developed.”

That development recently necessitated alignment into three divisions.

“The specific divisions – the redesigning of the organizational chart – has really been something that I’ve done this year,” Coulter said. “Before that, over the years, we’ve just developed these different projects and all worked together, but it looked like now we were at a place where we really needed to have a little bit more separate organization and to develop some strategic goals and objectives in each of those content areas.”

The result is a children’s services division directed by Dr. Lianne Estefan, an intimate partner violence division directed by Coulter, and an elder mistreatment division directed by Dr. Carla Vandeweerd. Dr. Karen Liller recently joined the center as a regular collaborator focusing her attention on the overlap between child maltreatment and unintentional injury, Coulter said, and “usually about 10” graduate students round out her staff. A community advisory board is among the center’s numerous external extensions.

“The children’s section has been very involved in looking at issues regarding the prevention of violence in the community,” Coulter explained, “and the center has developed a virtual research institute with one of the community agencies, Champions for Children, which is a multi-program unit, so that we can do research that is truly collaborative. We’ve worked very consistently with them over the years.”

Graphic that Harrell Center graduate assistant Natasha Hojati created for the Center’s Facebook page.

Coulter said that much of what her intimate partner violence section does involves the courts, so much so that she has become a regular consultant for the courts and has undertaken the task of evaluating the effectiveness of their intervention programs for batterers. Developing and continually improving guidelines for batterer intervention and responses to the needs of victims have been major off-shoot projects.

Among the section’s more significant research findings is that female batterers are falling through the cracks. While the county’s intervention for male batterers has been “very effective,” Coulter said, it has largely failed to successfully intervene with female batterers, who comprise about 15 percent of all convicted batterers in Hillsborough County.

“The clinical providers of these programs,” she said, “have been saying for a long time that they didn’t think the state-mandated curriculum for men was really the right curriculum to use for women.”

Among many leaders and dignitaries who have visited the Harrell Center over the years was then-Attorney General Janet Reno, who attended an elder abuse conference sponsored by the Center in 2001. The attorney general is pictured above with students Seraphine Pitt (left) and Carol Williams, and below with Dr. Coulter.

The elder mistreatment division concentrates on elders with dementia and the kinds of violence against them, which is, Coulter said, “fairly common, unfortunately, from both spousal caretakers and children taking care of elderly parents. The dynamics of this are very different from other sorts of domestic violence and really have a lot to do with people not understanding how to help people who have dementia.”

Coulter said she considers a new project in the division to be particularly tantalizing and potentially groundbreaking.

Called the Senior Surfers Project, Coulter said it looks at the rapidly expanding but little-known phenomenon of women over 50 seeking relationships online and getting responses from people who wind up physically, emotionally or financially harming them.

All previous research on Internet connections leading to violent encounters has been on adolescents, she said, so Senior Surfers is another project aiming to keep potentially overlooked victims out of the cracks – in this case, the cracks that open at the nexus of society and technology.

Dr. Coulter chats with Judge Dennis Alvarez (left) and James Harrell at a 1997 function.

With so much involvement in the local community, including working closely with the Spring and, until its recent demise thanks to funding shortfalls, the Family Justice Center, the Harrell Center’s global impact might be surprising to some, but global involvement has proven beneficial on numerous fronts.

Dr. Pnina S. Klein, a clinical and developmental psychologist and professor of education at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, recently led a Mediational Intervention for Sensitizing Caregivers workshop on campus to promote cognitive functioning and attachment by improving parent-caregiver interactions with infants and young children.

Attendees included community professionals, physicians and COPH students, faculty and staff.  Dr. Robert Nelson, a joint professor in COPH and the Morsani College of Medicine, sponsored attendance by a visiting group of physicians and clinicians from Ecuador.

“It’s been used all over the world,” Coulter said of MISC. “The outcomes internationally of this program have shown that it’s very effective in strengthening attachment and reducing child maltreatment, so we brought Dr. Klein here from Israel this year to do a training for community people and staff here, as well as faculty and students.”

Dr. Martha Coulter, Harrell Center founding director (right in both photos), in Ecuador in 2007.

Elsewhere on the international front, Coulter is working with the medical school in Panama to begin collecting information and developing guidelines for Panamanian health providers to improve their responses to intimate partner violence. She’s also working in Quito, Ecuador, to develop a program that will provide fundamental intervention services for indigenous populations.

Children in a remote Himalayan village in India read books sent to them by the Harrell Center.

Coulter went to India in 2012 with a group that collected data on maternal/child health and family violence among the 26 indigenous tribes in the Himalayas as a response to one tribal leader’s interest in addressing those issues. Progress has been slow, she said, because the tribes are not formally centralized in any way, and the terrain is difficult and isolating. The center recently collected books to send to children there. A librarian navigates dirt paths on a bicycle to deliver them.

Not surprisingly, Coulter’s five-year vision for the Harrell Center is about more expansion, mostly ideological, and lots of it.

“I would like to expand our depth in looking at female offenders and the way the courts respond to them,” she said.

“We’ve applied for some grants to look with a lot more depth at issues related to fathers. This is an area that has been somewhat neglected and needs a lot of attention. What are the ways that we can help fathers from the very beginning develop the kinds of skills that will be more nurturing and less likely to produce problems?

“As far as the center itself,” she said, “I think the area that we really need to expand the most is our capacity for doing community training and education and technical assistance.”

“I’d also like to see us focus on more primary intervention in a public health direction.   A lot of what we’ve done has been secondary response intervention, but I would like to see us working with primary situations – families, parent-child relationships.”

Coulter said an example of the center’s involvement in this area is its participation in the Hillsborough County Violence Prevention Collaborative, a plan for reducing violence throughout the county.

Community events also make Coulter’s expansion list. Recent ones have included fundraisers with artists and bands, and even a biker run.

“I would like to see us expand these community events, because they have been very helpful. The center doesn’t have much funding,” she said, “and the funding that we get is almost always research funding, so if we want to do things that are outside the research arena, we have to raise the money ourselves.”

Story by David Brothers, College of Public Health. Photos courtesy of Dr. Martha Coulter, Eric Younghans, Dr. Robert Nelson, USF Health and the Harrell Center.

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The University of South Florida today announced that it is naming its College of Public Health Building after the Honorable Samuel P. Bell, III.

Bell, who passed away on March 14, is considered the “father” of USF’s College of Public Health and was a longtime champion of USF and Florida residents.

“Sam Bell was a passionate champion for the University of South Florida, and we are proud to honor his profound legacy by dedicating the College of Public Health building in his name,” said USF President Rhea Law. “His influence and impact on public health policy will continue to benefit our university, region and state for generations to come.”

A House leader from Volusia County from 1974 to 1988, Bell identified a growing need for public health professionals in the U.S. He sponsored legislation to create Florida’s first college of public health at USF in 1984 due to the university’s unique combination of having an urban setting and a medical school. 

“There would be no college of public health, no building to name, without a Sam Bell,” said Donna J. Petersen, senior associate vice president of USF Health. “He was a tireless advocate for public health and used his passion, his position and his powers of persuasion to create out of nowhere, the first college of public health in the state of Florida, at USF.”

Petersen, who also serves as dean, added that it was the only college of public health in the state for many years, and that Bell served as the first and only chair of its advisory council for nearly 40 years.  

“He was a huge presence in this building. All of us convene and learn in the Sam Bell auditorium,” she said. “Students benefitted from his generosity in the scholarships he supported and from his wisdom when he guest-lectured in the classroom. He came to our events and he enthusiastically supported new initiatives like the Salud Latina program. We know and love Sam inside the college. Naming the building proclaims to the outside world how much Sam meant to us.”

Bell laid the groundwork for Florida Healthy Kids, a government-subsidized insurance plan that became the model for the national Children’s Health Insurance Program. His work led to Florida leading the nation in regulating tap water temperature to prevent scalding deaths, improved the process for subsidized adoptions for children with special needs, established a network of neonatal intensive care units and fought to ensure passage of the bill requiring child restraints in automobiles.

“We are so grateful to Sam Bell, whose determination and passion for public health laid the groundwork for the USF College of Public Health to become the national leader that it is today,” said Charles J. Lockwood, executive vice president of USF Health and dean of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. “We are delighted that we can rename the college’s headquarters as the Samuel P. Bell, III Building to honor his legacy and reflect his many contributions to improving the lives and health of all Floridians.” 

In 1989, Bell married then-Florida Education Commissioner Betty Castor, who would become USF’s fifth president. Bell met Castor when both were serving in the state Legislature. They created a family of six children, and now, 10 grandchildren. Castor today announced an additional legacy gift to the College of Public Health. 

“Sam had a deep passion for serving the citizens of this state and this university in so many ways,” Castor said. “He would have been humbled and honored knowing his legacy will live on through his beloved college because of the students, faculty and patients he cared about so deeply.”

The university also announced a $100,000 gift from Florida Healthy Kids to establish an endowed fund focused on future discoveries in child health insurance and health policy, which will be used to offer scholarships to masters- and doctoral-level College of Public Health students.

The couple’s philanthropy continues to have a major impact on USF. In addition to the College of Public Health, Bell served on the advisory boards for WUSF Public Media and the Center for Strategic and Diplomatic Studies. He also served on the USF Foundation Board of Directors, and along with Betty, endowed scholarships for USF’s College of Public Health, School of Music and women’s athletics.

“Sam Bell’s contributions to the University of South Florida are immeasurable,” said USF Foundation CEO Jay Stroman. “Through their philanthropy, service and advocacy, Sam and Betty have forever changed our USF community for the better. There is no one more deserving than Sam Bell for this honor and his legacy will endure for generations to come.”

Bell’s previous recognitions from the university include a 2009 USF honorary Doctor of Public Health as well as the university’s highest honor to a non-alum, the Class of ’56 Award, presented in 2018. He was posthumously awarded USF’s Distinguished Citizen Award at the university’s 2023 spring commencement in May.

Story reposted from USF Newsroom

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The USF College of Public Health (COPH) announced it has received a $100,000 gift from Florida Healthy Kids to establish an endowed fund in honor of the late Samuel P. “Sam” Bell, the college’s founder.

The gift will fund scholarships for doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows at the college studying child health policy.

Bell, who died in March, was a former Florida state legislator who tirelessly championed many public health causes, especially those that benefitted children.

Among some of his many initiatives, he advocated for the regulation of tap water temperature to prevent scalding injuries and death; rallied for subsidized adoptions for special needs children; and fought for the passage of a bill requiring child restraints in cars.

One of Bell’s enduring legacies is the establishment of Florida Healthy Kids, a government-subsidized insurance plan that has become the model for the national Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

At a ceremony held Oct. 10 naming the building housing the college after Bell, Dr. Stephanie Haridopolos, chair of Florida Healthy Kids, announced the $100,000 gift.

“To compound his good work and innovative ideas for the CHIP program for years to come, we, as a board, decided to create for the COPH the Sam Bell Memorial Endowment Fund in the amount of $100,000,” Haridopolos said to the crowd of roughly 200, which included USF President Rhea Law and former USF President Betty Castor, the wife of the late Bell.

After the gift’s announcement, Dr. Donna Petersen, senior associate vice president of USF Health and dean of the college, spoke to the crowd and made note of Bell’s passion for both students and the welfare of children.

“For the Florida Healthy Kids Corporation to create this endowment with a $100,000 gift to the College of Public Health brings Sam’s legacy full circle,” Petersen said. “It is extraordinary because it reflects Sam’s enduring legacy in promoting the health of children, and his unwavering trust in us, the College of Public Health, to develop the next generation of scholars and leaders to ensure we continue to advocate for the best policies for children.”

Dr. Steve Freedman, a COPH professor of health policy and pediatrics and Florida Healthy Kids ad hoc board member, said earmarking the funds for doctoral students studying child health policy made sense, given Bell’s ability to use policy to bring public health initiatives to fruition.

“Focusing the doctoral fellowship on child health policy was a reflection of Sam’s commitment to the health of Florida’s children and his success using the policy process to achieve those ends,” Freedman said. “Advanced work in connecting public health to public policy is so clearly manifest in Sam’s public and private history.”

Chinyere Reid, a COPH doctoral student and a recipient of one of several scholarships endowed by Bell and Castor, told gatherers that scholarships such as hers not only lighten the financial load of a student, but they also act as an inspiration.

“Sam Bell’s generosity has touched the lives of countless individuals, including mine and many public health students here at USF,” Reid said. “As I’m about to graduate and transition into a public health career, I aspire to follow in his footsteps promoting the well-being of families and the community at large, just as he did. Sam Bell’s legacy will continue to shine brightly through the lives of scholarship recipients like myself, who are committed to making a positive impact on the world one small step at a time.”

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

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Your University of South Florida College of Public Health (COPH) colleagues are excited to see you at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting in Atlanta. We want to celebrate with all of you participating in the largest gathering of public health scholars and professionals in the country!

The last time APHA was in Atlanta our event venue experienced a power outage. We started out in the dark, but everything was bright and merry by the time the party ended! Make plans now to connect with your alma mater and other public health colleagues.

Engage with us.

Members of the USF community are scheduled to give research presentations at APHA. Check out the APHA program guide for an impressive list of Bulls ready to share their passion with the masses.

Network with us.

Add the most happening APHA reception to your calendar for Monday, Nov. 13. Alumni, students, faculty and friends are invited to join Dean Donna Petersen for a bullish good time. We secured STATS for this shindig (how appropriate is that!) and can’t wait to see you there! RSVP here.

Enroll with us.

The University of South Florida is home to the highest-ranked public health degree program in Florida. For more than 10 years, the USF College of Public Health has consistently ranked in the top 25 nationally (U.S. News and World Report, 2024). We offer multiple concentrations that lead to BSHS, BSPH, MHA, MPH, MSPH, DrPH and PhD degrees, as well as several dual degrees, graduate certificates and online programs. In 2023, USF became the first public university in Florida in nearly 40 years to be invited to join the Association of American Universities, a prestigious group of the leading universities in the United States and Canada. To learn more about how the college commits to creating conditions that allow every person the universal right to health and well-being, visit publichealth.usf.edu and swing by Booth #1027.

COPH@APHA Place hours:

Sun., Nov. 12, 12:30 – 6 p.m.

Mon., Nov. 13, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Tue., Nov. 14, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

For the latest happenings before, during and after APHA, be sure to follow #USFCOPHRocks and @USFCOPH on your favorite social media platform.

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If you are planning to attend, please fill out this quick survey below. The COPH would like to have a list of everyone who has a role at the meeting or is planning on attending the reception.

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The post Join the USF COPH at APHA in Atlanta Nov. 12-15 appeared first on College of Public Health News.

The USF College of Public Health (COPH) staff working on the recently launched, interdisciplinary Disease Intervention Specialist Training Academy (DISTA) has received a USF Outstanding Staff Award.

DISTA offers public health professionals additional training and skill development to help advance their careers.

The COPH recipients include Andres Abril, Ann Marie Little, Evan Itle, James Taylor, Neil Bleiweiss and Sandra Miller. Also nominated, but ineligible due to lack of tenure, were Samantha Lopez, Silvia Moreno, Amethyst Surpis and Samantha Deveaux.

The team members helped bring DISTA to life with their project management, course development, educational design and fiscal management skills, said the team’s nominator Dr. Ann Joyce, director of the college’s Lifelong Learning Academy (LLA), under which DISTA falls.

“Over the past year, the team has been devoted to creating the DISTA program to address workforce development gaps for disease intervention specialists across Florida,” Joyce said. “At its core, the DISTA program is about maximizing the potential of employees and providing them with advanced opportunities they could not find anywhere else. The DISTA micro-certificate program is a well-thought-out training opportunity that isn’t offered anywhere else in the United States and is an exemplar for future programs. For this reason, this team is most deserving of this award.”

“I feel extremely honored to receive this award,” said Andres Abril, who works with the college’s Education, Assessment and Technology Office. “To work on the DISTA project as a learning designer has been an exciting and unique experience. I had the opportunity to collaborate with a group of exceptional faculty members from our college in the development and implementation of several online micro-learning modules. These online modules have played a crucial role in advancing the knowledge and expertise of public health professionals, making a lasting impact on the field.”

Neil Bleiweiss, another learning designer on the program, echoed those thoughts.

“DISTA is a huge undertaking for the COPH and the LLA, as it’s our first major micro-certificate project and is really helping us expand our reach outside of the Tampa area, even receiving national attention to lead more learners to our professional development programming,” he said. “It’s been a great experience being able to learn more about not only instructional design. but the field of public health by developing these courses for DISTA, and I am honored to be a recipient of an Outstanding Staff Award for this project.”

The Outstanding Staff Award, which this year had more than 100 recipients, is presented annually to eligible staff and administration employees who have gone “above and beyond” in their performance and support of the values presented in USF’s Strategic Plan—In Pursuit of Excellence. The COPH team received their award at a special ceremony hosted by USF President Rhea Law on Oct. 6.

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

The post COPH team earns USF Outstanding Staff Award appeared first on College of Public Health News.