By Dana and David Dornsife Dean Gina Lovasi, PhD, MPH

I want to thank everyone who presented at or was present for the APHA conference in Minneapolis!

A highlight of the trip for me was our alumni and friends’ reception. The somewhat cave-like side room was filled with conversation, and multiple tables stayed on to enjoy the company well past our scheduled end. It was fun to hear stories of past receptions – I learned that the ask for APHA election support at our reception last year in Atlanta led to a win, and that I’m not the only Dornsife dean to express being nervous before making comments to this amazing group. And at our booth, I got to meet still others who had connections to our school or our city, or who just came by to comment on and partake in the swag, candy, and oranges we had on offer.

I shared during the reception a few reflections about our history and our present that I was encouraged by attendees to also share through other channels, so I’m adapting my comments for this month’s newsletter.

Reflecting on Drexel and Dornsife history

I read a bit about Drexel’s history on my way to Minneapolis. The part of Drexel’s origin story that strongly resonates with me today is about making education available regardless of race, gender, religion, or economic status. I was surprised to learn that the first president of Drexel, James MacAlister, ended his term in 1913 having overseen growth to about 500 students. In the 100 years since, Drexel has grown from an institute to an R1 urban research university with more than 20,000 students.

It is easy to take for granted the current size and composition of the university, but only in 2002 did Drexel welcome its college of medicine and school of public health. In fact, we were joined at the reception by an alum who graduated in 1998, when our school was still the Allegheny School of Public Health. The college of medicine had itself brought together multiple units, including one of the world’s first medical colleges for women, which continues to have a legacy in programs based at Drexel supporting women to move into leadership positions such as school dean or hospital CEO through the prestigious ELAM and ELATES programs.

I learned more about our own school’s growth trajectory last academic year, including while evaluating the application of former Dean Marla Gold for emeritus status. She followed early deans, including Dr. Jonathan Mann who we honor as our founding dean, each of whom served for only a few months or years.

Dean Marla Gold was the first to lead our school through a full decade of growth. In 2002, the year that she started and when our school of public health became part of Drexel, the school had just 5 faculty, and 45 students. Next, interim leadership was provided by Dr. John Rich, and I was delighted to hear over lunch this summer about how he is continuing to advance health equity in his leadership role at Rush University in Chicago. Most recently, the school was led for another decade of tremendous growth by Dean Emerita Ana Diez Roux including

• Our school's naming as the Dornsife School of Public Health,
• Experimentation with a broad range of in person and online educational programs,
• Recognition by ASPPH via an inaugural award for outstanding community service, and
• A research portfolio spanning multiple funders which quadrupled.

This growth has set the stage for us to envision and accomplish projects at an even greater scale while building on the school’s core commitments and expertise. I would love to see us use the next decade to further amplify our impact on the field of public health, and, by reaching more students, to grow our collective ability to address public health challenges throughout the life course and across geographic settings.

Current challenges, sources of excitement, and conversations to move us forward

In my comments to the assembled faculty, staff, scholars, alumni, and friends, I highlighted one challenge, two sources of excitement, and a recent conversation with students.

The challenge is that higher education is poised for disruption. Tuition costs have continued going up, in a time when confidence in the value of a degree and trust in scientific expertise has wavered. We cannot yet see the full impact of generative artificial intelligence on how we teach and learn, and on what our graduates’ careers will look like. Readiness for learning and ways of teaching that we had taken for granted have been shifting during a period of remote classes, hybrid work, and experiences of trauma and loss that fall unevenly on members of our community. Continuing to operate as we always have will not work in the coming years. While we have strengths that will carry us through, we will need to loosen our grip on what was, so that we can reach for what should be. As a school, we have been an emerging force, exceeding expectations as we score wins while playing a game set up by others. This moment of disruption is a time to recognize that we have voice in what comes next, we owe it to each other to give thought to what the rules of the game could be to help ourselves and the entire field more efficiently create the actionable knowledge and sustainable partnerships that we will need if we are to advance health as a human right.

Rising to this moment is no small task. As we look to shape this future, I note two sources of excitement about the role Dornsife is poised to play:

First, we are hiring new faculty across all four of our departments. Our ability to hire at this unusual time reflects financial resiliency created by our donors, research funders, degree programs, and popular public health courses. We will also use strategic planning this year and the conversations around these faculty searches to lean into articulating and living our values, while also striving to sustain a reputation for integrity and inclusiveness, which is crucial to keeping the door open to new partnerships and engagement.

Second, we are welcoming in the coming year the A.J. Drexel Autism Institute to our school. This research-intensive group takes a public health approach to autism and advances workplace inclusiveness that spans disability and neurodiversity. While our school already represents 20% of Drexel University’s research, the incorporation of the Autism Institute is projected to make us the largest single research unit within Drexel.

To close, I want to mention a conversation from last week, which seemed valuable in a time of change. At a Caffeine with the Dean event last week both in person and online, a dozen students and staff shared experiences about their time management and overcommitment challenges, and offered each other wisdom and support. We closed the in-person session with permissions to ourselves which I wanted also to offer to you today: to protect time for rest without guilt, to let go of overperforming due to imposter syndrome or stereotype threat, and to be honest without oversharing when protecting boundaries and the quality of your work by saying no. I’m always inspired by attending APHA to know that so many are working to advance public health. Particularly this year, with the students’ wisdom fresh in my mind, I was appreciating that we all need to do our work well, but we cannot and should not try to do it all alone.