Dean's Update
August 15, 2025 - Aron Sousa, MD
Friends,
This week, I had the chance to meet our new medical students. All 190 of them gathered in Life Sciences 133, a room known to all. Well, nearly all, or at least those who have attended the College of Human Medicine. In the lecture era of our college, our students spent a lot of time there. For the last decade, we have used that room rarely, but I think all our students have been in it, watching a clock that was broken for perhaps a decade. Time never moved more slowly. The clock is finally fixed.
Greeting the students is a joy like few others. These people are dedicating the next 7-10 years of their lives to developing expertise in being with and caring for patients across the realm of human experience and need. Across my years as senior associate dean for academic affairs, interim dean, and dean, I have walked down the steps into the well of LS133 to welcome 21 classes to the College of Human Medicine. Each year, I talk about how wonderful it still is to be a physician, and how important it is to me to see patients, even if I do that less than I did in the past.
I talk for about 20 minutes and answer questions. Mostly, I talk about the College of Human Medicine and how they have made such an excellent choice to join the premier community-based medical college in the country. No one else has figured out how to do NIH work based out of so many communities, and our educational programs from Downriver to the banks of the Brule River are remarkable in their ability to educate students and lead them to practice in our communities.
I spent three days in Grand Rapids this week, and our expansion there marked a real turning point for the college. Through that growth and then our expansion in Flint, we changed from an institution whose community work was overwhelmingly focused on education into the more modern college of today, which has invested so much in bringing the full benefits of academic medicine to the communities of Michigan across education, research, clinical care, and advocacy.
Back in 2007, the university promised to put the $90 million headquarters of the College of Human Medicine in Grand Rapids in return for the remarkable community investment resulting in the Secchia Center and the promise of future development on the Medical Mile. Since then, the investment has flourished into four buildings, 1,800 student placements in West Michigan each year, and more than $3 billion (yes, billion) in economic activity.
Wednesday night the MSU Capital Campaign launched in Grand Rapids. We celebrated gifts to the college that have changed us, like the support of Rich and Helen DeVos, Peter and Joan Secchia, Corewell Heath and hundreds of community donors who fully paid for the Secchia Center. (There is no state or university money in the funding model.) One of my best moments for the month was introducing Jim Williams to DaVarius Carter (MS2), shown above, at the event that night. Jim and Sue Williams have a wonderful scholarship, and DaVarius is the recipient of that scholarship – I don’t know if I have seen two happier people this summer.
Finally, this Saturday is the Teddy Bear Health Fair from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Flint Cultural Center. It looks like Hope Bear will attend.
Serving the people with you,
Aron
Aron Sousa, MD, FACP
Dean, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine