Faculty/Staff Newsletter

The CPH Mason and Partners (MAP) Clinic holds free clinics throughout Northern Virginia every day. This summer, two of those community-based clinics helped local elementary school students get back-to-school ready. 

The fellowship involves an 18-month leadership experience that uses the truth, racial healing and transformation™ framework (TRHT ™) to strengthen the ecosystem of leaders advancing racial and health equity in their work.  

Health care professionals experience higher rates of work-related burnout than other professions. The ThriveWell program combats this by providing them with tools to manage stress and cope with the emotional demands of their work. ThriveWell is one of multiple training programs offered as part of George Mason’s Health and Public Safety Workforce Resiliency Program. 

DQ Wang, assistant professor in Global and Community Health, received support from the WHO for his new project, “Nutritional management of growth faltering in infants aged under six months in Asia and Africa: An individually randomised trial.”

Michelle Hand, assistant professor in Social Work, received funding from the Southern Gerontological Society for “Improving Health and Wellbeing in Virginia by Preventing Sexual Violence Against Older Adults via a Web-based Ending Violence Across the Lifespan (EVAL) Bystander Training.”

The CDC has announced a new grant opportunity, Research Grants for Preventing Violence and Violence Related Injury (R01).
Proposals are due December 2.  

International Conference on Information System Design and Intelligent Applications (ISDIA),

January 3 - 4, 2025
University of Wollongong in Dubai (UOWD), Dubai.
Papers now being accepted.
The proceeding will be published by Springer-Nature.  

The GMU Center for Infectious Diseases Research (CIDR) is holding its first full-day conference on November 7, 2024. You can find  more information on the center below and register here.

CPH faculty are meeting to discuss research studies and proposal strategy, roughly every 2 weeks to prepare for major proposal deadlines.

Reach out to Alison Cuellar at aevanscu@gmu.edu if you'd like to join.

The College has contracted with Lee Hartman to upgrade the conference room and classroom technology. The upgrades will include:

The upgrades to the conference rooms will begin in September.

The enhancements to classrooms are tentatively scheduled for late December (2024) or early January (2025).
Each room may take five days to complete due to the room's needs.

Matthew Hicks (mhicks21@gmu.edu) will work with the department admin to schedule conference room upgrades. He will schedule classroom upgrades when classrooms are available.

The final semester to teach in Blackboard is Spring 2025.
Some Blackboard features are not available or function differently in Canvas. These resources introduce some of the differences:

Weighted Grading (5 minute video)

Journals and Blogs (Instructure Community Page): Journals and Blogs are converted to Discussion Boards during automated course migration

Wikis (3 minute video)

College of Public Health Canvas Support

Canvas Online Office Hours:

Tuesdays 11:30 am – 12:30 pm
Thursdays 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Contact the CPH Mentors and IDs for course development and/or migration assistance: Allison Miner (aminer4@gmu.edu), Lila Fleming (lflemin1@gmu.edu), and the CPH Instructional Designers (HLTHLRN@gmu.edu).

University support is at lms.gmu.edu

Employees across all professional industries are stressed, even to the point of burnout. The Leading Thriving Organizations certificate program will teach you tools, frameworks, and strategies for building individual well-being and establishing a thriving organizational culture that prioritizes health and well-being.

The application deadline is Friday, September 20, 2024. 

The DC Public Health Case Challenge aims to promote interdisciplinary, problem-based learning around a public health issue that faces the local Washington, DC, community. Universities in the DC area that have a school or program of public health form teams consisting of 3-6 members from at least three disciplines.

2024 Board Topic: "Mental health and substance use disorders in Washington DC"

University team rosters are due Monday, September 23, 2024. 

Contact for more info:

Debora Goldberg (dgoldbe4@gmu.edu)

Evelyn P. Tomaszewski (etomasze@gmu.edu)

Eman Elashkar (eelashka@gmu.edu)

October 9, 2024 | 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm | Peterson Multipurpose Room

Exploring Policy Options to Support the Health, Safety, and Well-Being of Healthcare Workers

Confirmed Speakers:

Melissa Perry, Dean of the College of Public Health – Moderator

Tim Nanof, VP of Policy and Government Affairs, American Nurses Association

Corey Feist, CEO, Dr. Lorna Breen Foundation

Samantha Koehler, Senior Health Policy Advisor for U.S. Senator Tim Kaine

Danielle Smith, Social Worker, Executive Director, National Association of Social Workers - Ohio Chapter

The panel discussion will delve into critical policy changes aimed at enhancing the health, safety, and well-being of healthcare workers. Before the panel discussion, we will host a reception at 4:30 PM EST, where you will have the opportunity to engage with our students, faculty, and fellow speakers.

September 5, 2024 | 12:00 - 3:00 pm | Peterson Hall Quad

Welcome back fair for undergraduate and graduate students at George Mason University

At this fair:

Questions?
Contact Office of Student Affairs at cph@gmu.edu or 703-993-1901

September 17, 2024 | 11:30 am - 12:30 pm | Multipurpose Room
Optional lunch to follow

Title: "More than One Plus One: Syndemics in an Aging
and Unequal World"
Presenter: Denise Burnette, PhD

Burnette is the Samuel S. Wurtzel Professor of Social Work at VCU. Her research focuses on global topics, including health and psychosocial problems and related service needs of older populations in resource-constrained settings. 

September 27, 2024 | 12:00 pm | Virtual
November 1, 2024 | 12:00 pm | Virtual

CPH Virtual Lightning Talks are back for the fourth consecutive year!  

More information will be provided soon! If you have any questions, please contact Cathy Tompkins, ctompkin@gmu.edu.
 
To access the recordings from previous Lightning Talks, please go to:  https://publichealth.gmu.edu/lightning-talks

The CPH Steps Challenge is back again for a new semester of healthful, departmental competition. Participants may walk anywhere, anytime, within the weekly time frames, counting their steps, and then report their CPH unit affiliation along with the steps they’ve walked.

At the end of the semester, the unit with the most steps (proportionally) will be awarded a prize and take the trophy! Each week, the individual with the highest weekly number of steps will be acknowledged in the CPH newsletter along with a report of unit standings. 

Report your steps no later than 12:00 pm on the Monday after each Monday-through-Sunday challenge week. 

The first week of walking is September 2 - 8.
Report your steps by 12:00 pm on Monday, September 9.

Bookmark this link to report your Fall semester steps and get stepping!

Every Thursday | 12:00 pm | Peterson Lobby  

Join CPH and university colleagues for a weekly walk around campus. We meet Thursdays at noon in the Peterson lobby and walk around campus for about 25 minutes.

New! We now organize scheduled and impromptu walks on Microsoft Teams. Join the team for status updates on the Thursday walks, and to coordinate impromptu walks with fellow walkers.
Visit go.gmu.edu/CPH-Walks to join the team.

Every Tuesday | 12:00 pm | Peterson 2800  

CPH yoga is returning on Tuesdays beginning September 17. You are welcome to stay for as much or as little of the class as you are able and we hope to see many of you there! If you have any questions, please contact Cathy Tompkins.

PUBLICHEALTH.GMU.EDU

Access the CPH brand toolkit, including new CPH logos here.

View the newsletter archives here.