In early 2011, ATSU was selected as one of only three inaugural member institutions of the Gallup Campus Wellbeing Consortium along with Texas Christian University and University of North Texas. The Consortium works to create a new discussion about the wellbeing of the people who learn and work at colleges and universities. Consortium member institutions are committed to increasing the wellbeing of all the people on their campuses and in the surrounding communities.

Since that time, the project is moving forward. In September, informational sessions were held explaining the project and inviting ATSU first-year residential students, faculty, staff, and administrators to participate in filling out the Gallup Wellbeing Finder online. Initial data regarding participation was collected for both campuses September through October 2011.

“Although we are still in the initial data analysis phase of this five-year project, the initial response rate among residential students, faculty, and full-time employees was fifty-one percent,” said Janet Woldt, Ph.D., associate dean for academic assessment, Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health, and a member of the ATSU Gallup Wellbeing Consortium Project team. Other team members include Project Manager Bernadette Mineo, Ph.D., OTR/L, chair, occupational therapy, Arizona School of Health Sciences, and Trish Sexton, D.H.Ed., associate professor, family medicine, and American Osteopathic Association Health Policy fellow, Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Drs. Mineo, Sexton, and Woldt attended the Gallup Campus Wellbeing Consortium held in in early November in Washington, D.C., where they met members from the other participating inaugural universities. In addition, following the meeting of the consortium they represented ATSU at the annual Gallup Wellbeing Forum also held at Gallup Headquarters in Washington, D.C. According to Gallup, their annual Wellbeing Forum “brings together world-renowned research scientists and nationally recognized leaders from healthcare, government and industry to understand and explore crucial issues that affect the wellbeing of the world’s nearly seven billion citizens.”

Some of the next steps for the ATSU Gallup Wellbeing project will include: focus groups and conversations on both campuses about Gallup’s model of wellbeing, and the enlistment of “champions” of wellbeing – those who want to nudge, model, provide information or otherwise inspire others to improve their wellbeing. In addition, a follow-up research fielding period of the Gallup Wellbeing Finder will occur sometime in the spring. Stay tuned for more on those events.

In the meantime, the ATSU consortium team has a reminder: “Don’t forget your wellbeing!” This is a five-year project, but you can start your own wellbeing journey now. If you are part of the fifty-one percent who completed the Wellbeing Finder, use the Wellbeing Daily Tracker to help you track your wellbeing.

For more information about the ATSU Gallup Wellbeing Consortium Project, contact atsugallupwellbeingproject@atsu.edu.

Six underserved children from working poor families in Arizona will get preventive oral health education and care thanks to a $3,500 grant from Cox Charities to A.T. Still University’s Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health (ATSU-ASDOH). Children who are not eligible for funding from the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System and have no dental benefits will receive care at ATSU-ASDOH’s community dental clinic in Mesa.

“Children from working poor families face huge barriers to getting access to oral care and this generous gift from Cox Charities will help us serve those in need,” said Jack Dillenberg, D.D.S., M.P.H., dean, ATSU-ASDOH.

Created in 1996, Cox Charities has awarded over $3 million in grants to hundreds of non-profit organizations across Arizona.

Andrea O’Brien, M.S., associate director, residential admissions on ATSU’s Missouri campus didn’t know just how much a simple act could impact so many lives. In early August, O’Brien’s former colleague from Truman State University, Stephanie Chrissotimos, sent O’Brien and others a note requesting book donations for her classroom library. Chrissotimos is a high school English teacher with the Teach for America program, in Crossett, Ark., a significantly underserved school district.

“Her students are on average reading three grade levels below their current age, with some reading at a sixth-grade level,” said O’ Brien. She found out that Chrissotimos’s goal was to provide reading materials for students so that their reading levels could be improved by at least two grade levels within the next year. However, her school library was significantly lacking recent, interesting books for students to read, and her classroom library was furnished with only 30 books that Chrissotimos supplied from her personal library for 79 students.

“My husband John and I brainstormed on about how we could obtain enough books to ‘stuff our van’ so that we could drive them down to Stephanie’s classroom in Arkansas over Labor Day weekend,” said O’Brien. “We didn’t go through another organization to get the idea or to plan it. We just saw a need and wanted to help.”

The O’Brien’s asked friends and family to donate books. In addition, they called upon colleagues, church members, and Rotarians to clean off their personal book shelves or go online to donate to the cause by buying a book directly for her classroom library. They committed to bringing 500 books to Chrissotimos’ classroom. In the end, they collected more than 2,000 books over four weeks.

The O’Briens and their son, Zane, drove the 12-hour trip to Crossett to personally deliver the books to Chrissotimos’ classroom September 3. “There were students who volunteered to help us unload two vehicles, and their excitement was uncontainable!” said O’Brien. “The books we delivered lined the side of the classroom wall in two to three rows, stacked about three boxes high, and there was a wide selection of nearly every reading genre and reading level.”

O’ Brien remarked that “Needless to say, the 24 hours driving to Arkansas and back in two vehicles was worth every penny in gas and time spent behind the wheel. It was a wonderful trip!”

Michelle Gross-Panico, M.A., R.D.H., associate director for Dentistry in the Community, ATSU-ASDOH, was presented with the Commitment to Underserved People award by the Arizona Public Health Association on September 22.

Panico has been a member of the ATSU-ASDOH faculty since 2006 and is dedicated to administering programs that meet the oral health needs of the medically underserved. “I appreciate this honor and thank the Arizona Public Health Association for the award and the great work they do for Arizona,” Panico said.

Sue Magruder honored

A.T. Still University’s Kirksville Osteopathic Alumni Association (KOAA) Board of Directors presented its legendary awards on November 1 at the annual KOAA Luncheon and Assembly meeting. It was held in conjunction with the American Osteopathic Association Convention in Orlando, Fla.

Sue Magruder, M.A., of Kirksville, Mo., received an Honorary KOAA Membership. Magruder has been an educator or involved with higher education since receiving her B.S.E. from Truman State University in 1955, where she met and married her husband, Jack Magruder, ATSU president. She has taught at the Kirksville elementary schools as well as Truman State University, and supervised student teachers in Missouri and Iowa. Sue says she admires the KCOM alumni and students for how the older generations take care of the younger ones.

“That is so important, and it may be that this profession, more than any other, depends on that in order to keep the standards high and the knowledge sharp, and because of that, to have them offer me an honorary membership just means double or triple,” said Sue.

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Alfred Studwell, D.O.

Retired Air Force Col. Alfred W. Studwell, D.O., ’62, was presented with the U.S. Armed Services Air Medal for his U.S. Air Force (USAF) service during the 1983 Beirut, Lebanon conflict. Dr. Studwell received the medal June 5, 2011, one day before his 79^th birthday in a ceremony sponsored by the USAF at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Ga.

Dr. Studwell was commander of the U.S. Regional Hospital, Incirlik, Turkey, on October 23, 1983. “We found out that there was an early-morning terrorist attack on the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, which was a short flying distance from our base in Turkey,” said Dr. Studwell. “More than 250 active-duty Marines, Navy, and Army personnel were killed.”  The primary explosion took out the attached military corpsmen and medical personnel, rendering the wounded helpless.

“I was aboard a USAF flight that was landing in Beirut to triage survivors,” he continued. “We were warned that there was sniper and mortar fire in the area. I wasn’t so much concerned about the danger for the plane, but rather the dead and injured that were lying bleeding on the runway.”

Twenty four badly-injured Marines were brought aboard the aircraft, and being the only physician on board, Dr. Studwell was credited with saving many lives on the emergency flight to trauma hospitals in Germany. He supervised a crew of 10 working on injured Marines.

Dr. Studwell now resides with his wife in Stone Mountain, Ga. He will be celebrating his 50-year reunion with ATSU-KCOM and will be invited to participate in Founder’s Day 2012 on the Missouri campus. Of his heroic actions, Dr. Studwell said, “I didn’t do anything special.  I was just doing my job.”

ATSU-KCOM student Alex Swan, OMS II, who served as part of a team of researchers at the University of Utah Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, recently had his research project published in BMC Neuroscience Journal. The article, “Proliferative reactive gliosis is compatible with glial metabolic support and neuronal function,” is co-authored by members of the research project team. Swan serves as first vice president for the KCOM Student Government Association and is an ATSU student ambassador.

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ASDOH faculty and students provided free dental healthcare to more than 75 community members at the Mesa Check Fair, in Mesa, Ariz., on Nov. 5.

Dental screenings, fluoride, and oral health education was provided at the event.

Don Altman, D.D.S., M.P.H., M.B.A., M.A., program chair, master of public health – dental emphasis, attended the fair, as well as Josh Payne, D4, Emily Harry, D2, Henry Martinez, D3, Daniel Winokur, D2, Nadia El-Hillal, D2, Irina Nenova, D2, and Eric Bjerke, D2.

ATSU-KCOM student Jinlin Wang, OMS II, was recently elected vice president of the national student section of the American College of Osteopathic Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOOG) at their fall conference. “We were also generously offered a $1,000 grant from ACOOG for service projects for our KCOM student ob-gyn club, as well as an invitation to participate in the visiting professors program,” said Wang. “We plan on fully utilizing these wonderful opportunities.” Wang is also an ATSU student ambassador and serves as KCOM’s ob-gyn club president.