Dean's Update
August 9, 2024 - Aron Sousa, MD
Above: Aron convinces Mary Ellen to do a selfie with him. He takes a series.
Friends,
It’s been a quiet week in our medical school, stretching out across the peninsulas. The college was founded by radical medical educators who came to Michigan in search of new opportunities and a place that would welcome a focus on communities, which was the topic of today’s Town Hall. In the coming weeks, our 60th Anniversary Town Halls include the College of Human Medicine admissions and our social mission on August 30, and the founding of the Traverse City Campus in September. Time will not forget us, and we get better with each decade!
On Monday, I had the chance to meet the 2024 matriculating class. They are as talented and energetic as ever. We gather them all in Life Sciences 133 on the first day of orientation, and I try not to talk at them for too long. Alumni will remember LS133 well, and will probably remember their usual seat in that old auditorium-style classroom. As has always been the case for orientation, students meet the various deans and each other that first day, and then sort out everything from their student ID cards, to accessing health care, to doing a day of service during their fortnight of orientation. The White Coat Ceremony is a week from Saturday in Grand Rapids, which is the second happiest day of the academic calendar. But that is next week, making this week relatively quiet.
We need to fill some vacancies in the college’s academic governance. Voting emails went out to faculty members for university committees and additional members for the college’s admissions committee. Be sure to vote. Search for an email from the CHM CAC Steering Committee (CHM.CACSteering@msu.edu). Do not miss it if you can.
Also this week, Wednesday about noon to be more specific, I walked into the Fee Hall kitchen in search of a spoon for my yogurt. Just in front of the drawer of plasticware, I ran into Ann Schultz and Amy Pohl. They work in our Office of Assessment and have been with us for many years. Amy has worked in Academic Affairs almost as long as I have, and she has seen remarkable things in the offices of Fee Hall…including deer. As is our custom on Wednesdays, Amy and I wished each other a “Happy Wednesday!” It would be more interesting if we wished each other “Happy Wednesday” regardless of the day of the week, but we don’t; we are practical, observant, calendar following people.
The news had not been well shared, but Amy told me this particular Wednesday was Mary Ellen Shea’s last day before retirement. True to Mary Ellen’s nature, there was to be no fuss; if we could remove fuss from the world in her honor that would be a true gift to her. But Erica Farr smuggled in some balloons and Amy made sure those of us in the hallway knew it was Mary Ellen’s last “Happy Insert-the-day-here" at CHM and MSU. We all went to her office for hugs.
Mary Ellen started at MSU on April 10, 1985, and joined the College of Human Medicine on September 19, 2000. She has managed student performance data for so long I cannot recall when she took on that job. Way back in the aughts, I recall Janet Osuch warning me about the state of our student database, “ARON! It’s a nightmare! Mary Ellen is holding that database together with tape and string! JEEZ!” At that point, Mary Ellen’s office was across the tracks in Life Sciences, and I knew of her only through myths and spreadsheets. Later, she moved into the Office of Assessment in Fee Hall, and I got to know and appreciate her a bit better. In a post pandemic world in which people are in the office only occasionally, Mary Ellen is here every day keeping the improved database going with grit and determination, and, importantly for my visits to the suite, managing Fee Hall’s strategic reserves of peanut M&Ms.
I apologize to Mary Ellen for the fuss in this update. Some of this fuss is to celebrate her work and dedication, but I also want to recognize her suitemates Amy, Lora McAdams, and Ann Schultz, who work in the Office of Assessment under Heather Laird-Fick, MD (’97) MPH. Our curriculum produces copious data, and students have multiple attempts to demonstrate their competence across many milestones in preparation for review by the college’s Competence Committee. They do so much important work that may not always be in the news, but our student programs would not work without them.
Our college is filled with staff like Mary Ellen, Lora, Ann, and Amy. People who make our educational programs, research projects, clinical practices, buildings, IT, and departments run and excel. May you all get balloons and hugs.
Serving the people with you,
Aron
Aron Sousa, MD, FACP
Dean, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine