Yesterday was a historic day for our program!
We were officially approved by the Chancellor of East Carolina University to start our graduate certificate online program for the university. This is a day that I had envisioned for the past 5 years when I started brainstorming the ideal about creating a certificate program specifically for ethnic and rural health disparity populations particularly since ECU and eastern North Carolina is an ideal setting and institution to lead a public health training initiative such as this one.
From the MPH students in my first courses taught at ECU (5 years ago) in the traditional face-to-face lecture style to today’s online Department of Public Health courses, I am thrilled to make these special courses AVAILABLE for more individuals who want and need this specialized training in ethnic and rural health disparities. Whether its one course or completion of the entire certificate program courses (12 credit hrs), graduates will come away from this program with a brand new set of public health skills and perspectives that will be unique, special and timely for our ever-changing, ethnically-diverse, rural populations in the United States and globally.
This is a new program that is already sponsored by our federal government — Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the Department of Health and Human Services. They have been instrumental in assisting us with the initial infrastructural setup as well as our ability to offer scholarships for those who qualify and enroll into the graduate certificate online program.
I also want to thank the key administrators, coordinators, committee members, council members, department chairpersons, faculty members, Dean of Brody School of Medicine, and family members who supported me each and every step of this certificate program.
Now it’s time to get busy!