Graduate students J.J. Ilseng, left, Matt Westbrook and undergrad Melissa Metz take part in a meeting of the Student Advisory Committee of the Institute for Global Health. (photo by Joe Howell)
Institute for Global Health reaches out to students across campus
In the past year, the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health has greatly expanded campus-wide programming, one that students are closely involved with shaping.
“We have a very close relationship with the medical students and we are working to develop deeper and more significant relationships with students in other schools,” said Marie Martin, a senior program manager within the education arm of VIGH.
“We wanted to engage in more interdisciplinary, collaborative efforts and gain new insight, so last summer we reached out to deans and faculty members of all schools on campus, asking for recommendations on student representatives who had an interest in global health.”
J.J. Ilseng, a second-year student from Peabody's International Education Policy and Management, and Matt Westbrook, a second-year student from the Divinity School, were among the first students to join the Institute for Global Health's newly formed Student Advisory Council (SAC). Each was already involved in international projects and was excited by the idea of working with VIGH on cross-campus collaboration.
Melissa Metz, right, makes a point during the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health’s Student Advisory Council meeting as Cat Majors looks on. (photo by Joe Howell)
“This is important so no voice is lost in examining global health projects. If we have common interests in global health and work together now, then after we graduate we can hopefully have sufficient knowledge to enact change,” Westbrook said.
Westbrook and Ilseng were elected co-chairs of the group, which is comprised of at least one or two students from each college or school at Vanderbilt. The SAC is in the process of adopting mission and vision statements and receiving formal recognition as a Vanderbilt student organization.
Three working groups are currently addressing curriculum review, marketing and outreach and an upcoming international case competition, where students at schools across the nation compete for the best plan to resolve an international health problem.
“When Vanderbilt students participated in this case competition for the first time last year, they learned the more competitive schools already had a group like ours and had an edge with the involvement of other disciplines,” Ilseng said.
School of Medicine student Katie Burns had been working with VIGH to create an online database of the global health projects under way across the Medical Center.
The database was intended to match first-year medical students with global health options for their required Emphasis research project, but has expanded to include opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students. Now Burns is on the SAC, and has created a link for the database within the new VIGH SAC website.
“One of the possibilities that opens up with the work of a student collaboration like this is the development of an interdisciplinary graduate program in Global Health, something VIGH has wanted to do,” Martin says.
To learn more, go to:
• The new SAC website at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/vigh-sac/;
• The School of Medicine's VIGH Opportunities database at http://www.globalhealth.vanderbilt.edu/education/GH_opportunities_database.