CONTACT: Melissa Powell, FSU College of Medicine
(850) 645-9699; melissa.powell@med.fsu.edu

August 2017
 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Supported by a new $800,000 National Science Foundation grant, Florida State University College of Medicine Professor Yi Ren is studying the immune response to spinal cord injuries and how cellular functions contribute to paralysis and organ dysfunction.

While instant paralysis is an obvious point of fear in spinal cord injuries, a great deal of the damage actually takes place after the initial trauma.

“Most of the research being done by scientists who focus on spinal cord injuries is about trying to prevent the secondary injury from happening,” said Ren, a biomedical scientist and immunologist.

During a severe spinal cord injury, the myelin sheath that protects nerves and axons — the central nervous system’s primary transmission lines — shatters into tiny pieces. As part of the body’s immune response to such an injury, damaged tissue in the area is filled with macrophages, white blood cells that ingest foreign material.

The macrophages’ job is to act as scavengers and clear myelin debris from the injury site to promote regeneration. Macrophages remain in the injured area for months or even years, which is not necessarily a good thing.

By absorbing debris, macrophages help to prevent inflammation and stimulate tissue healing. However, once the debris is consumed, the macrophages convert from “healing” cells to harmful “killer” cells, destroying axons and amplifying inflammation at the injury site.

Ren’s four-year study funded by the NSF grant aims to better understand the underlying mechanisms in this process.

“After eating the myelin debris, the ‘killer’ macrophages secrete a lot of inflammatory substances and molecules that participate in tissue damage,” Ren said. “We think this is one of the reasons for secondary injury, so now we’d like to target it. We want to study the myelin-laden macrophages’ molecular pattern and find out what roles they play in the pathological process in a spinal cord injury.”

The work will produce an extraordinary amount of data that Ren and her collaborators will use to develop a new statistical method of analysis. She hopes the acquired data will allow her team to find cellular and molecular clues to target local and systemic inflammation that can result from spinal cord injuries.

###

CONTACT: Jodi Truel
734-934-4583; Jodi.truel@med.fsu.edu

Aug. 9, 2017

SARASOTA COUNTY STUDENTS TAKE FIRST STEP TOWARD HEALTH CAREER

SARASOTA, Florida – Rising eighth and ninth graders in Sarasota County schools will participate in an orientation program. Thursday that, for some, could be the first step on the road to becoming a physician.

The daylong experience is part of the Florida State University College of Medicine SSTRIDE program. SSTRIDE is an FSU medical school pipeline program consisting of in- and after-school resources providing academic instruction and experiential activities to encourage interest in STEM fields and prepare students for college and a possible future in health care.

The College of Medicine is starting a chapter of its SSTRIDE program in Sarasota County this schoolyear thanks to a five-year, $500,000 grant from the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation.

The program (Science Students Together Reaching Instructional Diversity and Excellence) was developed at FSU in 1993 as a way to steer more students from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine to a career in health care. Numerous SSTRIDE participants over the years have gone on to medical school and are now practicing physicians.

Five FSU College of Medicine students are among the instructors for this orientation, with activities that include introducing Sarasota SSTRIDE students to taking vital signs and performing other basic medical procedures.

SSTRIDE ‘MINI-CAMP’

THURSDAY, AUG. 10

10 A.M. – 12 P.M.: Basics of intravenous fluid therapy
12:30-1:30 P.M.: Working with vital signs

SARASOTA HIGH SCHOOL
1000 SOUTH SCHOOL AVE.
Sarasota, FL 34237
 

CONTACT: Doug Carlson
(850) 645-1255; doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu

Aug. 10, 2017

Members of the Florida State University College of Medicine Class of 2021 will receive white coats this week in a traditional ceremony symbolizing the importance of compassionate care for patients and the scientific proficiency expected of physicians.

The featured speaker is Dr. Laura Davis, a 2013 graduate of the FSU College of Medicine. She is a family physician with TMH Physician Partners in Blountstown — her hometown.

The ceremony will be held:

CONTACT: Melissa Powell, College of Medicine
(850) 645-9699; melissa.powell@med.fsu.edu

August 2017
 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — From the beginning, medical students at Florida State University’s College of Medicine have been trained to be part of their patients’ medical team. Starting now, the college is training other members of that team as well — as the doors officially open for the School of Physician Assistant Practice.

“What is unique about the PA program is that you get an opportunity to have this interdisciplinary team early on in training,” said Assistant Professor Susan Salahshor, who also is president of the Florida Academy of Physician Assistants. “It affords us that ability to help them be better team-based professionals because the med students and PAs are here together and are developing a rapport with each other.”

Physician assistants work under a physician’s supervision and in close partnership with nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, behavioral health professionals, administrators and others. At FSU, students will spend 27 months learning within the same network of faculty physicians who teach FSU medical students.

“The community aspect of this program really drew me here,” said student Annaelle Scanlan. “We have a learning community where we can all be together. And in addition to that, we have the opportunity to work with med students, which is important since we will be working with them the rest of our lives. It’s nice that we get to interact with them — and we can see what they go through, and they know what we go through — to prepare us for working together in the future.”

Since its creation in 2000, the College of Medicine has addressed the need for more physicians in Florida, especially those who will serve in primary-care specialties and work with elder, rural, minority and underserved populations. PAs will provide another layer of primary care, further strengthening the medical school’s commitment to its mission.

“The Legislature, visionaries and pioneers for our program recognized that the Panhandle and other parts of Florida are underserved areas for providers,” said Ben Smith, director of Didactic Education. “Our focus is to help address that need.”

Students in the program are heavily recruited out of Florida with the hope that they’ll stay and practice in underserved communities within the state. Scanlan, for example, came from Ave Maria, a small town near Immokalee in southwest Florida.

FSU welcomed its inaugural class of 40 PA students for orientation Aug. 22. Enrollment is scheduled to increase to 50 next year and then be capped at 60 thereafter.

The program’s structure is similar to that of FSU’s M.D. program. In their first year, PA students will build a strong foundation in biomedical sciences through courses in anatomy, physiology, pharmacology and nutrition. During their final year, they’ll complete clinical rotations at one of the medical school’s six regional campuses. Through an apprenticeship model, they’ll work one-on-one with a physician or PA throughout each rotation.

“Community-based medical education — as opposed to almost entirely hospital-based education, as most medical schools do it — has been very successful at providing a high-quality clinical education to our M.D. students, and at helping to influence our graduates to eventually practice in these communities,” said College of Medicine Dean John P. Fogarty. “The PA program is built along the same principles, and we expect similar results. We’re excited to have PA students helping us achieve our mission.”

The first FSU PAs will graduate in December 2019 with a Master of Science in Physician Assistant Practice. They’ll then be eligible to sit for the Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam and apply for state licensure to begin practice.

The PA students at FSU are new, but the program has been in the works for several years. Jim Zedaker, its founding director, arrived in January 2016 and began building the program and undergoing the rigorous process involved in accreditation. Provisional accreditation was granted in April of this year.

“The accrediting agency noted that we had zero areas of noncompliance with the accreditation standards, which is a testament to everyone at the College of Medicine,” Zedaker said.

There’s a lot of demand for these PA slots. While the accreditation process was underway, more than 800 prospective students applied to a PA school that — at the time — existed only on paper. The program is on pace to more than double the number of applicants next year.

“I think people had faith seeing the program’s progression as we’ve gotten started — and knowing the reputation of Florida State and the College of Medicine gave them more confidence,” Zedaker said. “It’s all about building a reputation and letting people know who we are. My goal is for this to eventually become a top nationally recognized program.”

###

CONTACT: Melissa Powell, College of Medicine
(850) 645-9699; melissa.powell@med.fsu.edu

September 2017

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — When Lataisia Jones earned her doctorate this past summer, her family was thrilled. Her sister posted a graduation photo on Facebook. Sounds pretty routine. Except for one thing: Her sister’s Facebook post was “liked” or shared more than 6,000 times, and Jones is getting requests for advice from students around the globe.

Why? Jones was the first African-American doctoral graduate at the Florida State University College of Medicine — and one of only a few in the whole country. As of 2014, among the 4,923 graduate students in U.S. neurobiology/neuroscience programs, only 163 were black or African-American.

“I never imagined it to be this big, but I’m glad it is,” Jones said of her degree. “It’s 2017 and still an African-American being a first has created such honor and motivation and inspiration. I’m talking to people in Tennessee or California or other countries and they’re asking me for tips about biomedical programs, putting up with long hours in the lab and asking what kept me interested and driven. I think it’s wonderful.”

The significance of Jones’ achievement is not lost on the College of Medicine. Discussions are underway to improve the pipeline for future minority researchers — and to continue to diversify the faculty.

Jones, now a role model herself, credits the mentors and advisers who guided her on her path to her degree.

During her five years at FSU, she worked under Professor Pradeep Bhide, the Jim and Betty Ann Rodgers Eminent Scholar Chair of Developmental Neuroscience in the Department of Biomedical Sciences. She successfully defended her dissertation on dystonia, a disease causing involuntary muscle contractions, and was awarded her doctorate in neuroscience at the summer commencement ceremony.

“She has had a number of challenges that she went through outside of research, and she is very resilient, deals with it well and gets things done,” Bhide said. “It’s great that she’s gone this far. She would stand up against any student anywhere.”

There was always a lot of pressure, Jones acknowledged.

“Not only am I the first black graduate,” she said, “but I was Pradeep’s first grad student, I’m the first Ph.D. in my family, and I don’t have any friends who have a Ph.D.

“There were many times when I wanted to give up. I didn’t know how I got there or if I was even good enough. Eventually, it got to the point where I would talk to certain members in my department, such as Dr. [Richard] Nowakowski [the department chair] and Dr. Bhide, who always said, ‘We wouldn’t let you get to this point unless you were capable and knowledgeable enough to do so.’”

From an early age, Jones’ ability to overcome scientific challenges taught her she could do the same when facing tests outside the lab.

“I remember everyone was kind of challenged by science class, and I took that and made it something competitive for myself,” Jones said. “I told myself it would be amazing if I could understand it. My scientific curiosity sparked so many other parts of my personality to where I can take challenges a lot easier now. I don’t see trouble when I think of certain elements of life. I see it as something I can get past or learn to get through.”

Jones’ path to FSU began at Virginia State University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in biology. As a master’s student there, she conducted research and worked as a teaching assistant under mentor Glenn Harris. Nearing the end of her master’s program, Jones sought out an opportunity to study abroad and teach kids in Ghana. Her experience in Africa became her inspiration to pursue a doctorate.

“I was teaching kids who got so excited to learn, even if I was just teaching them the smallest thing,” she said. “I loved that feeling so much that I realized I wanted to continue doing that. I wanted to teach, study, volunteer and even create study-abroad opportunities for other students.”

Through involvement with numerous outreach programs, including the Young Carver after-school program in Tallahassee, Jones continues to teach and connect with kids through science. She visits elementary schools with predominantly minority students and conducts hands-on experiments to introduce kids to STEM. As she continues to work in Bhide’s lab finishing a project related to her dissertation, she’s pursuing faculty and postdoctoral positions that can afford her the opportunity to continue influencing and encouraging the next generation of minority neuroscience researchers.

“I think it is very important to have that pipeline created even as early as elementary school,” Jones said. “I fear for the people who don’t have advisers like I did, who can guide them toward their future and give them the knowledge and motivation to do it on their own.”

The College of Medicine is strongly committed to addressing the barriers facing minority students who want to pursue research careers, said Jeffrey Joyce, senior associate dean for research and graduate programs. He points to the Bridge to Clinical Medicine program as a possible template.

“If funding is available, we’d like to actually establish a Bridge to Ph.D. program as a pipeline to make students competitive and give them research laboratory experience,” he said. “I think one of the most important things is to continue to work toward diversifying our faculty as well.”

Providing diverse role models for minorities is one way to attract a more diverse population of students.

“It’s important to have people in place who look like me for students up and coming,” Jones said. “Because although I can go talk to any of my professors, it’s different when you’re talking to a professor who looks like you, who went through those same things.”

CONTACT: Doug Carlson
(850) 645-1255; doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu

Sept. 18, 2017

Dance Marathon at Florida State University and Children’s Miracle Network at UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital will present a check for more than $915,000 to the Florida State University College of Medicine to aid children throughout Gadsden and Leon counties.

The proceeds are part of the record $1.85 million raised earlier this year by Dance Marathon, the largest student-run philanthropy on the FSU campus. That money supports the Children’s Miracle Network at UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital in Gainesville and the FSU College of Medicine’s pediatric outreach programs.

The presentation will take place:

The money invested locally supports a school-based primary-care health clinic at three schools in Gadsden County, where children often have inadequate access to care. The clinics represent a partnership among the College of Medicine, the Gadsden County Health Department and Gadsden County Schools.

The College of Medicine also shared funds in 2017 with Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare to support pediatric services, including potentially lifesaving genetic screening for a few adolescents who otherwise could not get it. Some of the funds in 2017 supported pediatric services at Bond Community Health Center, Big Bend Hospice and the Young Parents Project at Early Head Start.

Set to participate in the presentation are Dr. J. Fogarty, dean of the FSU College of Medicine; representatives from UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital and from the organizations receiving funds; nurse-practitioner Susan LaJoie, who oversees the Gadsden school-based clinic; members of the Dance Marathon student executive committee, who will perform a brief dance; and students from the medical school’s Pediatrics Interest Group.

CONTACT: Doug Carlson, FSU College of Medicine
(850) 645-1255; doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu

Sept. 20, 2017

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — For years, scientists and physicians have been debating whether personality and behavior changes might appear prior to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Now, the findings of a new and comprehensive study from FSU College of Medicine Associate Professor Antonio Terracciano and colleagues, published today in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, has found no evidence to support the idea that personality changes begin before the clinical onset of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia.

“We further found that personality remained stable even within the last few years before the onset of mild cognitive impairment,” Terracciano said.

Terracciano, College of Medicine Associate Professor Angelina Sutin and co-authors from the National Institute on Aging examined data from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. The study looked at personality and clinical assessments obtained between 1980 and July 2016 from more than 2,000 individuals who initially showed no cognitive impairment.

About 18 percent of study participants later developed MCI or dementia.

“We compared whether personality change in people who later developed dementia differed from those who remained cognitively normal,” Terracciano said. “Unlike previous research, this study examined multiple waves of self-rated personality data collected up to 36 years before participants developed any sign of dementia.”

What the researchers found is that the trajectory of personality traits did not differ between those who would later develop dementia and those who did not.

While personality change was not an early sign of dementia, Terracciano’s study provides further support that personality traits (including high levels of neuroticism and low levels of conscientiousness) are risk factors for dementia.

For physicians and loved ones, personality changes remain an important consideration in the care of those who have already experienced the clinical onset of MCI or dementia. Increasing apathy, irritability, mood changes and other behavioral symptoms impact quality of life for both patients and their caregivers.

CONTACT: Veronica Jones, FSU Autism Institute
(850) 488-4072; veronica.jones@med.fsu.edu

Sept. 21, 2017

By Ron Hartung

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida State University researchers have been awarded a five-year, $10.2 million Autism Centers of Excellence (ACE) network grant to test a two-part home intervention designed to bridge the gap between diagnosis and treatment.

Their plan is to coach families and empower them with earlier and widespread access to cost-efficient information, education and support.

“We are honored to receive this grant from the National Institutes of Health,” said FSU College of Medicine Distinguished Research Professor Amy Wetherby, director of FSU’s Autism Institute and the ACTION Network’s lead principal investigator. “It allows us to collaborate with universities across the country and to develop and train a new workforce of individuals in the community who specialize in helping families understand autism. Our goal is to catch autism early and get underserved children ready for regular kindergarten.”

The new ACE ACTION Network brings a unique interdisciplinary team with expertise in early detection, maternal mental health, clinical trials, health disparities, implementation science and policy from FSU, the University of Miami, Boston University, the University of Massachusetts Boston, Kaiser Permanente, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the National Black Church Initiative. It is one of four ACE networks announced this month by the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development.

This autism family project aims to:
• Create a nimble, diverse, low-cost workforce of part-time community health workers called family navigators.
• Study a diverse group of families in Florida, Massachusetts and California, including those from low-income, minority and rural communities.
• Compare the individual and combined effects of two evidence-based interventions and use technology to adjust them along the way.
• Devise a system that can be adapted quickly for any community.

“Right now, early intervention providers are usually experts such as behavior specialists or speech pathologists,” Wetherby said. “However, there’s a shortage of them, resulting in long wait lists. Our approach is: Can we train people who don’t have the specialty degree but have experience with the families?”

These family navigators might be home visitors for Early Head Start, part-time preschool workers or active members of a local church. Ideally, the researchers want people who know the community and can help families transition from learning that their child has autism to learning how to teach their child everyday activities for the child’s future.

“We want to look at a broad group of individuals who can increase the opportunities for children and their families to have early intervention,” said co-investigator Juliann Woods, professor and associate dean of FSU’s College of Communication and Information.

Early intervention is the key for autism spectrum disorder, a condition related to brain development that affects social interaction and communication. The younger the child is when diagnosed, the better the brain can respond to treatment.

Even though a diagnosis is possible as young as 18 months, the median age in the U.S. is still 4 to 5 years. For minority, low-income and rural children, it’s more like age 6 — when the opportunity to receive intervention early is no longer possible. That’s why Wetherby and her team keep searching for more effective, practical and affordable ways to diagnose and treat young children. They think family navigators could be a game-changer.

“We’ve built an infrastructure to train professionals and families online,” Wetherby said. “We’ll invite the families, then measure how they are doing. We’re conducting this large randomized trial in Florida and Massachusetts, and then based on what we find out, we’ll roll out the adapted intervention in California.”

FSU’s Autism Institute has spent years developing online tools for everyone from health professionals to families. Chief among those tools is Autism Navigator. Some tools are free to the public. Courses are free to professionals in Florida because the Florida Legislature paid for its development.

“Through Autism Navigator we are now offering a How-to Guide for Families,” Wetherby said. “This online course will be part of this project. It will help the family navigators give families access to a lot of information and video examples to speed up their learning. The key is to teach the parent how to do this and do so really efficiently.

“We’re very excited to have the opportunity to show we can do this, one community at a time.”

This is the second ACE project for the Autism Institute. FSU also is a partner in a recently renewed ACE center grant that the National Institutes of Health awarded to Emory University. The FSU team is working on one project to provide interventions — as early as six to 12 months — to teach parents to support their child’s early development.

Additional co-investigators on this project include Heather Flynn, associate professor and vice chair for research, College of Medicine; and Elizabeth Slate, the Duncan McLean and Pearl Levine Fairweather Professor, Department of Statistics.

CONTACT: Elena Reyes, FSU College of Medicine Regional Director for SW Florida
(239) 658-3117; elena.reyes@med.fsu.edu

September 2017

By Doug Carlson

IMMOKALEE, Fla. — The Florida State University College of Medicine has been awarded a $3 million grant from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) with a goal of illuminating the path to effective behavioral and physical health treatment for the children of rural and migrant farmworkers.

The five-year grant also recognizes the medical school’s Immokalee Health Education Site as a Treatment and Service Adaptation Center for the National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative network.

“This funding will support our effort to develop and validate instruments and interventions, to soundly study best implementation practices and to disseminate information and train personnel across the nation to serve children from rural and migrant farm-working families,” said Project Director Elena Reyes, the College of Medicine’s regional director for Southwest Florida.

Research shows that children who experience adverse childhood experiences without a buffer or other intervention have increased frequency of mental, physical and social problems now and later in life, including depression, PTSD, anxiety, COPD, diabetes, obesity, cancer and eating disorders. They’re also more likely to smoke, become alcoholic, use illegal drugs and attempt suicide.

The more adverse events they experience, the greater the likelihood and intensity of health problems. The situation is more acute for children of migrant farmworkers.

“Migratory lifestyles, poverty and overall consistent exposure to trauma — all are contributing factors,” Reyes said. “The parents are facing the same level of stress themselves, including depression, problems related to socioeconomic status, their own history of trauma and barriers to health care. They’re not able to provide the protective buffer needed by these young children.”

Few behavioral health interventions have been developed and clinically tested for effectiveness in populations treated by the College of Medicine faculty in Immokalee. Even if such interventions existed, workforce issues present additional obstacles.

More than 85 percent of designated mental health professional shortage areas in the United States are rural, and more than half of the nation’s counties do not have a psychiatrist, psychologist or social worker. Immokalee, an agricultural community in southwest Florida home to many migrant farm-working families, is a designated provider shortage area.

Through its Center for Child Stress and Health, the College of Medicine already has established universal screenings for trauma and exposure to toxic stress during annual well-child visits in Immokalee. Data are collected in a clinical partnership with Healthcare Network of Southwest Florida, whose patients from farm-working families have histories peppered with traumatic experiences.

“There is little existing literature about universal mental health screenings in pediatric primary care,” said Clinical Associate Professor Javier Rosado, the College of Medicine’s co-project director for the SAMHSA grant. “Children in rural areas face a number of challenges in getting treatment for behavioral and emotional problems, including availability of such services, accessibility and acceptability. In addition, migrant families are impacted by a scarcity of linguistically and culturally appropriate services.”

The College of Medicine’s research proposes to demonstrate how services can be provided for a specific traumatized population — young and preschool children from migrant farm-working families. Such children belong to three categories of a medically underserved population: rural, immigrant and poor.

“They live in the shadows of the health-care system, particularly the mental-health system,” said Reyes, a pediatric psychologist with specialties in Latino mental health and integrated care. “We are tapping into an area where existing data are severely lacking for how to screen Latino children from rural areas and get them appropriate and effective interventions.”

The College of Medicine’s objectives include implementing and evaluating the effectiveness of a screening protocol to identify trauma in children of migrant farm-working families and developing effective prevention and treatment strategies for children experiencing trauma. The college will also develop instructional materials on child trauma to train health-care providers and early-childhood educators and disseminate information on child trauma to systems serving young children.

“Our preliminary data are encouraging,” Rosado said. “We are seeing that it is possible to screen for toxic stress during a routine well-child visit and provide effective interventions.”

The Naples Children & Education Foundation (NCEF) has provided significant support allowing the College of Medicine to develop the workforce and infrastructure to address behavioral health needs in Immokalee.

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network was established by Congress in 2000 to improve access to care, treatment and services for children and adolescents exposed to traumatic events.

CONTACT: Kathleen Haughney, University Communications
(850) 644-1489; khaughney@fsu.edu

@FSUResearch

October 2017

FLORIDA STATE WINS RECORD NIH FUNDING

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida State University researchers have brought in record funding of $35.8 million from the National Institutes of Health, more than double the amount the university received five years ago.

It is also one of the highest amounts won by any Florida research institution or university during the 2017 federal fiscal year.

“This is a great testament to the growth of Florida State University and the excellent faculty and programs we have here,” said Vice President for Research Gary K. Ostrander. “We have made strategic investments to support our faculty as they apply for these competitive research grants, and we are seeing the fruit from that labor with a remarkable demonstration of confidence from the NIH.”

FSU researchers brought in $35.8 million in the 2017 federal fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, 2017. This is a big boost over the past five years. In federal fiscal year 2013, the university received $15.7 from the NIH.

It also positions the university as one of the leaders in the state in health and biomedical research. FSU ranked fifth in the state for funding from the NIH, ahead of heavyweights such as the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville and H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa.

“We’ve worked hard to build many of our programs at the College of Medicine, the College of Nursing and in other areas that typically receive NIH funding,” Ostrander said. “Boosting our NIH funding has been a strategic goal of the university, and we are happy that our researchers have received these dollars to conduct important health-related research that can improve the lives of people in the U.S. and around the world.”

The surge in research funding from the NIH also coincides with a dramatic jump in national rankings by FSU. In two years, the university has vaulted 10 spots in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. FSU is now ranked No. 33 in the nation among public universities.

The Florida Legislature’s designation of FSU as one of the state’s two preeminent universities and the funding tied to that has allowed the university to hire additional faculty in the health sciences and other areas.

###