Veterinary diagnostic laboratory wins accreditation

Testing for a range of animal diseases, such as West Nile virus, is conducted throughout the year within the Connecticut Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory at UConn.

The Connecticut Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (CVMDL), part of UConn’s department of pathobiology and veterinary science, has received full accreditation from the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians (AAVLD).

The laboratory was awarded accreditation earlier this year following a self-study and a two-day site visit by two laboratory AAVLD scientists to examine the facilities, interview faculty and staff, and review budgetary records.

The CVMDL provides laboratory diagnostic and consultation services as well as state and federal regulatory surveillance testing for the diseases of agricultural, avian, companion, laboratory, wildlife and aquatic animal species.      

In addition, laboratory scientists also spend part of their time in extension work and research on improved diagnostic tests and disease epidemiology, pathogenesis and prevention.

The national accreditation offers validation from peers that UConn has met essential standards for veterinary diagnostic medicine. It validates the ability of the laboratory staff to provide quality diagnostic services to Connecticut and other New England states. Over the past year, the CVMDL conducted 121,000 tests for animal diseases, including 1,400 animal necropsies to determine cause of death. The procedures were performed on cattle, horses, poultry, dogs, cats, laboratory mice and rats, and other animals.

Herbert Van Kruiningen, department head and director of the laboratory, says UConn’s CVMDL is the only accredited veterinary medical diagnostic laboratory in New England and now can provide testing in the federal government’s control programs for animal diseases such as avian influenza in chickens and mad cow disease in cattle.

“This ensures that we can continue to offer a high-quality program for our students. It is a tremendous accomplishment,” says Kirklyn M. Kerr, dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and a veterinary pathologist.

Managing Hawley Armory fitness and health

Photo: Dollie Harvey

Fitness programs at Hawley Armory are being managed by the School of Allied Health.

The School of Allied Health’s mission to promote improved health has extended to managing fitness and wellness programs on the main campus at Hawley Armory.

Since the school began to manage Hawley Armory last year, active paid membership in the facility’s programs has more than doubled, the variety of exercise classes and fitness programs has expanded and opportunities have been created for student and faculty research.

The fitness and wellness programs at Hawley Armory are designed for UConn faculty and staff as well as area community members. Students also have the opportunity to increase their physical fitness in hip-hop and jazz dance classes offered five days a week, which are not available elsewhere on campus.  

“The focus of the program is consistent with our mission of health promotion,” says Dean Joseph Smey. “It also provides an opportunity for an on-campus laboratory to educate our students and offers a valuable service to the community in terms of outreach for health promotion activities.”

The Hawley Armory fitness center schedule of exercise classes and programs is comparable to those found in private health clubs. Personal training and nutritional counseling are offered, and exercise classes include yoga, Pilates, cardio-kickboxing, step aerobics and body sculpting. Fitness facilities include cardiovascular and resistance machines, free-weights and balance training equipment.

All training and exercise classes are based on current scientific principles for physical fitness, wellness and nutrition to promote overall health, says Maggie Guidry, ’03 M.A., director of the facility, clinical instructor in allied health and a certified strength and conditioning coach.    

She says the benefits of the School of Allied Health’s role in the Hawley Armory programs are the ability to expand clinical opportunities for students and gain practical experience and explore research opportunities, while providing   scientifically based methods of exercise, nutrition, and health promotion.

Faculty, M.B.A. students work with state police

Photo: Ken Best

UConn Prof. Lucy Gilson, right, with Public Safety Commissioner Leonard C. Boyle.

UConn graduate students last spring served as consultants to develop recommendations addressing management challenges faced by the Connecticut state police.

Five M.B.A. students in the business consulting class taught by Lucy Gilson, assistant professor of management, delivered a 30-page report to Connecticut Public Safety Commissioner Leonard C. Boyle that provides a series of recommendations on issues of organizational culture, information management, succession planning and grant writing.

The report is the first in a series of joint projects between UConn and the state Department of Public Safety (DPS) that originated with a request from Boyle to UConn President Philip E. Austin for assistance in developing educational opportunities for DPS managers. More than 20 DPS employees are currently enrolled in a management certificate program. Gilson is also working collaboratively with Vicki Magley, assistant professor of psychology, on a research project focusing on organizational efficiency, change management.

“This is a rare occasion when all parts of the University’s mission intersect,” says Gilson. “There is research, teaching and service. The project gives all of us at UConn the opportunity to work collaboratively with another public organization—the synergy is fantastic. I think this is exciting and really valuable to the state.”

Boyle describes the work done by the UConn students as “outstanding.”

“Their findings and recommendations were insightful and appropriately addressed agency needs,” he says. “DPS has implemented some of the recommendations offered in the final report. We are deeply indebted to the research team.”

Among the research team suggestions adopted by the DPS are the creation of a strategic planning committee, creation of a new mission statement, meetings between Boyle and all civilian staff members and a new department-wide newsletter.

“While we each had our own background areas of knowledge to share, the various facets of the M.B.A. program were brought together during this project, allowing us to provide quality business solutions for the Department of Public Safety,” says Chris Quimby ’05 M.B.A.

Project management sequence moves online

Planning and organizing are part of nearly every occupation in the workplace. When the scope of planning and organizing involves a major task it becomes a project that needs to be managed with professional expertise.              

The skills required to successfully manage a variety of projects from start to finish are the focus of a new series of six online courses offered through the College of Continuing Studies. The sequence prepares students to complete the professional certification process offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI), the world’s leading association for the project management profession.

“We wanted to develop a curriculum that would work with PMI’s extensive expertise. Our courses are based on that,” says Linda Friedman, program manager of the college’s professional studies section. “Students learn how to plan and execute the project, manage it and then close it out.”

Participants in this program may enroll in any or all of the six courses offered but must complete a minimum of 35 hours of coursework before moving on to the PMI certification process. Courses can be completed in four to five weeks, allowing participants to begin applying the experience gained directly to their work environment.

Friedman says the course Principles of Effective Project Management provides a solid overview of project management processes and functions and is recommended as a prerequisite to the other courses, which cover areas such as team building, procurement and contracting, finance, customer focus, and managing risk. All of the courses are instructor-led and include interaction with the instructor and other participants through online communication tools.

“Success in project management allows you to be successful in a range of work environments. Until recently, it’s a career path many people didn’t specifically pursue,” Friedman says, noting that students taking the courses include executives, engineers, ISO coordinators and many others responsible for completing projects on time and on budget.

Federal grant establishes tissue repair and regeneration center

Photo by: Peter Morenus

A researcher collects tissue for culturing from chicken embryos at the UConn Health Center.

The UConn Health Center has received a $2.6 million, two-year federal grant to build a craniofacial tissue repair and regeneration program dedicated to research with clinical application.

The grant, one of seven awarded nationally by the National Institute for Dental and Craniofacial Research, will jumpstart the new program with funds for faculty positions and research equipment.

“We currently have strong basic science underway in skeletal development, bone biology and biomaterials,” says William Upholt, professor of oral rehabilitation, biomaterials and skeletal development and one of the co-investigators of the grant. “This grant will help us attract the faculty to bridge the disciplines throughout the Health Center and develop synergistic programs across current areas of research.”

The grant is funding the recruitment of a senior researcher and manager to become center director.   It will also support recruitment into the medical and dental schools of up to half a dozen faculty members with a mix of skills in disciplines such as craniofacial biology, translational research, epidemiology and biostatistics to help with clinical trials.

“We want to develop procedures that ultimately can be used clinically to repair and regenerate tissue.   If we can fix wounds or defects with cells and tissue that can live and grow, then the repair is much less likely to wear out or degenerate over time,” says Upholt.

Other grant co-investigators include Jon Goldberg, director of the UConn Center for Biomaterials, whose research focuses on the development of new biomaterials, studies of structure-property relationships, and clinical trials of restorative dental materials; Mina Mina, professor of pediatric dentistry, whose research focuses on jawbone and jaw-related tissue growth;   and   Susan Reisine, associate dean for research at the UConn School of Dental Medicine and   chair of the department of behavioral sciences and community health.

Researcher says low-carb diets reduce heart risk

Photo: Peter Morenus

Findings on low-carb diets by Jeff Volek, assistant professor of kinesiology, were published in the Journal of Nutrition.

The most popular method in the United States for losing weight — low-carbohydrate diets — can reduce a person’s risk of developing heart disease, according to a study conducted by Jeff Volek, assistant professor of kinesiology.

Volek reviewed more than a dozen clinical trials conducted since 2003 and examined low-carb diets and related risk factors for cardiovascular disease. His findings were published in the June issue of the Journal of Nutrition, the official publication of the American Society for Nutritional Sciences.

Volek’s analysis found that low-carb diets outperform low-fat diets in lowering triglycerides, or fat in the blood, and increasing HDL, or good cholesterol levels.

“This type of replication across studies performed at different institutions is rare, and it shows how robust and consistent the favorable effects of a low-carbohydrate diet really are,” says Volek, a registered dietitian and a member of the UConn Human Performance Laboratory in the Neag School of Education.

Volek’s review shows that low-carbohydrate diets positively affect not only triglycerides and HDL cholesterol but also several other risk factors that lead to metabolic syndrome—a condition that puts an estimated 25 percent of adult Americans at a three-fold risk for cardiovascular disease.

His own diet research and those he reviewed indicate that a low-carbohydrate diet improves all aspects of metabolic syndrome while a high-carbohydrate diet, even if it’s very low in fat, exacerbates this disorder—unless the person loses significant amounts of weight or increases his or her activity level.

“Low-carbohydrate diets improve metabolic syndrome independent of weight loss and physical activity,” he says.

These scientifically derived facts about low-carb diets have been slow to reach health practitioners or have been ignored, Volek says, noting he was inspired to conduct his review study with the goal of better organizing the scientific evidence in a way that might more fully inform health practitioners.

Chiu developing innovative fuel cell materials

Photo by Peter Morenus

Wilson Chiu, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is working to develop sub-microscopic structures for fuel cells.

Wilson K. S. Chiu, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has achieved a rare distinction in winning three highly competitive research awards for his work in developing innovative techniques for a nanomanufacturing research laboratory.

Chiu recently received a three-year, $150,000 Army Research Office (ARO) Young Investigator Award for his proposed work to develop sub-microscopic structures to improve the efficiency of fuel cells that can be used in the field by soldiers. He previously received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research for related work in fiber optic materials.

“I’m working to develop new structures in the microscale and nanoscale range to enhance the efficiency of the fuel cell,” says Chiu, noting that the U.S. military is seeking more portable and lighter power sources to replace batteries carried by soldiers that can sometimes weigh more than 100 pounds.

Electricity is needed to operate communications devices, navigation equipment, computers and to power systems that provide air-conditioning. Chiu says he is also working to develop improved fuel cells powered by propane, butane and other hydrocarbon-based fuels that are more readily available and less costly than hydrogen, the energy source of most current fuel cell power.

“I’m trying to reduce the weight of the fuel cell and make more of the material electrochemically active,” he says. “The soldiers would be able to use the fuel cells longer and more efficiently. The Army envisions these to be used by individual soldiers or as an onsite generator in the battlefield that could last days and eventually to last several weeks.”

He says one of the potential uses of smaller fuel cells could be for an air-conditioned suit worn in the desert that could work for days before it needed to be refueled.  

Chiu says the portable fuel cell units he looks to develop would provide between 20 and 1,000 watts of power and eventually become available for consumer use.

Breaking new ground on prostate cancer research

A UConn researcher is breaking new ground in raising issues surrounding the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer in a national cancer publication.

Writing this past spring in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Thomas Blank, professor of family studies and director of UConn’s Center on Aging and Human Development, says there is a need to broaden research on the diversity of experiences with cancer, in particular with how gay men are diagnosed and treated.

Of the 230,000 diagnoses each year and nearly two million prostate cancer survivors reported by the National Cancer Institute, at least 2 to 3 percent are gay men, Blank says. Yet in reviewing more than 42,000 published references on prostate cancer, he found the impact of the disease on these patients has not been addressed, despite the fact that gay couples are twice as likely to face the disease.

“Gay men’s health has been defined as HIV-AIDS, but other issues are not addressed,” says Blank, who studies the psychosocial aspects of life-threatening diseases.

“The assumption by the usually heterosexual physician is that every man who has prostate cancer is a heterosexual male in a long-term, monogamous relationship with a woman.”

Blank says an important factor in trying to study the topic is that gay men typically do not identify themselves to their doctors. “A lot of that has roots in distrust of the medical community on the part of gay men,” he says, noting that there also are differences in the social support system for patients within the gay community.

Blank has been working on a range of prostate cancer issues since he became a prostate cancer survivor nine years ago. He has studied what having prostate cancer does to a man’s sense of himself and as a partner in a relationship, as well as how men cope with the side effects of treatment. He also studies how cancer survivors may experience psychological growth with Crystal Park, UConn associate professor of psychology.

Helping draw support for Pakistan’s children

Mo’s Star, a children’s book illustrated by UConn professor Cora Lynn Deibler is raising funds for an organization to help build schools in Pakistan.

Illustration professor Cora Lynn Deibler has helped create a children’s book that will raise money to build progressive schools for impoverished girls and boys in Pakistan.

The UConn professor donated the illustrations for the 24-page book, Mo’s Star, after Pakistani author and lawyer Mahnaz Malik discovered her work online.

Mo’s Star, the story of a small penguin who firmly believes he can reach the stars, is the first creative work to be sold through Project Reaching for the Stars, a new global effort created by Malik. For its first initiative, the organization is raising funds for The Friends of the Citizens Foundation, which builds and runs primary and secondary schools in Pakistan, where nearly one-third of the population lives below the poverty line.

Malik says that without access to proper education, today’s young Pakistanis are targets for extremists.

“If these boys and girls don’t grow up with access to a broad-based, progressive education, we are in trouble,” Malik says, noting half of Pakistan’s 27 million children of primary school age are not attending school.   “It’s a demographic time bomb. We could have tomorrow’s terrorists on our hands.”

Malik says Deibler’s passion for the project changed her own impression of Americans considerably, which has been tarnished because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Deibler says the political implications of her involvement with Mo’s Star were eclipsed by her excitement for the global project, which also marks the illustrator’s first book project after many years illustrating for children’s publications such as Weekly Reader and major media such as The New York Times and Washington Post.

“As an educator and artist, what could be more perfect?,” says Deibler, who is associate head of the UConn art and art history departments.

For additional details on Project Reaching for the Stars, go to www.reachingstars.com.

Keefe recognized by Connecticut Law Review

Hugh Keefe ’67 J.D. is one of Connecticut’s most prominent lawyers.

Hugh Keefe ’67 J.D., one of the most prominent criminal defense attorneys in Connecticut, received the award for excellence in legal scholarship and service to the legal community from the Connecticut Law Review during the UConn publication’s annual reception last spring.

“Hugh Keefe is a distinguished member of the legal community whose skills as a lawyer have bolstered our reputation as a law school,” says Jennifer Sheldon ’05 J.D., alumni affairs editor of the Connecticut Law Review.

Keefe is a partner with the New Haven-based firm of Lynch, Traub, Keefe and Errante, where he specializes in criminal and civil litigation at both the state and federal level. He has participated in some of Connecticut’s most high-profile trials in recent years, including that of fugitive financier Martin Frankel and the Malik Jones shooting.

Keefe has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America since its inception in 1983 and was the first lawyer in the United States to be board-certified in both civil and criminal trial advocacy. He previously served as chair of both the Judicial Selection Commission and the Judicial Review Council for Connecticut, as well as chair of the U.S. District Court’s Magistrate Appointment Committee.

Keefe is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, American Bar Foundation and American Board of Criminal Lawyers. He has served as an instructor in trial advocacy at the Yale Law School since 1979.

“Hugh has ably served both indigent clients and major corporations. He exemplifies the highest traditions of scholarship and service we instill in our students,” says Dean Nell Jessup Newton. “He has been a great friend and an ardent supporter of the School of Law.”

During the time he was a student at the School of Law, Keefe was awarded the George J. Sherman Scholar award and was president of the Student Bar Association. In 1975 he served as president of the Law School Alumni Association. In 1985, Keefe received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the UConn Alumni Association.

Expanding choices on the Latino food pyramid
Unearthing first evidence of modern chimpanzees

Expanding choices on the Latino food pyramid

Photo: Peter Morenus

Chandra Osborn with foods common in the Puerto Rican diet.

Avocados, plantains, yams, papayas and limas are not typical fruit and vegetable choices found on a food pyramid chart in the United States. But they are on the food charts and meal plans a UConn psychology graduate student designed to help Latino diabetics choose a healthful diet in Hartford, where the population is nearly one-third Puerto Rican.

Chandra Osborn, a doctoral candidate in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is using the information, motivation, behavior skills (IMB) model for her research under the direction of Jeffrey Fisher, UConn professor of psychology, who helped pioneer the successful use of IMB with HIV patients. The IMB model proposes that if patients have information, motivation, and behavior skills, they will be inclined to make healthful changes in their lifestyles.

Previous research shows that Latinos and African-Americans are twice as likely to have diabetes and that Puerto Ricans are among those with the highest rate of the disease. Osborn designed a health screening assessment and follow- up program to help 118 Latino patients manage their diabetes through the adult primary care clinic at Hartford Hospital.

Osborn ordered brochures in Spanish from the American Diabetes Association and had a meal plan designed that is illustrated with foods in the local Puerto Rican diet. Exercise options were suggested, such as walking to the market, climbing stairs and joining friends for dancing or other activities.

Patients also were taught how to read food labels, to judge the size of a single serving, what they should eat and how many portions of it per day.

After their first counseling session last spring, patients left with a set of goals for diet and exercise. Follow-up sessions now underway are determining whether patients have modified their behavior and whether their biological measures, such as weight and average glucose level, have changed.

If successful, the program could become part of a national hospital program for Latinos known as Amigos en Salud, or Friends in Health, sponsored by Pfizer.

Unearthing first evidence of modern chimpanzees

UConn anthropologist Sally McBrearty working in Kenya, where she found the first fossil evidence of a modern chimpanzee.

UConn anthropology professor Sally McBrearty has discovered the first fossil evidence of a modern chimpanzee in Kenya’s Rift Valley. The discovery was reported in the September edition of the international science journal Nature.

McBrearty found four fossil chimpanzee teeth during her 2004 archaeological research in the Rift Valley. McBrearty and her co-author, anthropologist Nina Jablonski of the California Academy of Sciences, were surprised with the discovery because no one had previously identified a chimpanzee fossil.

 “We were going through the fossils near the end of the season, and I realized they were something unusual,” says McBrearty.

After analyzing their findings at the National Museums of Kenya and consulting with a paleontologist, the researchers identified the teeth as those of a 7-, or 8-year-old chimpanzee of the genus Pan that lived about 500,000 years ago.

Most scientists are looking for human fossils, McBrearty says, and it was assumed that humans — but not chimps — lived in the Rift Valley. The valley, a dry environment, was thought to have been a barrier to chimpanzees, who stayed in the rain forest where they live today. Humans adapted to the new environment and began to walk on two legs, while chimpanzees, the closest living relative of humans, stayed in the rain forest and remained quadrupeds, McBrearty says.

The finding shows that both chimps and humans were able to adapt to a drier environment and that chimps had a range that included East Africa, some 600 kilometers east of where they live today, she notes. The anthropologists have not been able to identify the species of the chimp fossils; McBrearty says the teeth might have belonged to a species now unknown. She hopes to continue digging in the area in the future and to unearth additional fossils.

It is possible that other chimp fossils exist in museum collections and have not been properly identified, she notes. She expects her find “will make people go back to the museum collections that already exist” to look for similarities.

McBrearty’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation since 1993.

Youth health career program recognized nationally

The Connecticut Youth Health Service Corps, a program designed to recruit high school students to health careers, has been nationally recognized for exemplary community-based collaborative activities.

The program, a joint effort by the UConn School of Medicine, Connecticut Area Health Education Center (AHEC) and the Connecticut Department of Public Health, received the 2005 Linkage Award from the Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health in Washington, D.C.

“UConn and the Department of Public Health are working together to help students recognize and avoid the pitfalls that can prevent them from reaching their full potential,” says Bruce Gould, associate dean for primary care and program director of the Connecticut AHEC, which is located in the School of Medicine and has centers across the state.

The program is also intended to help address workforce shortages and the under-representation of racial and ethnic minorities in the health care professions.

Martha Okafor, chief of the family health section at the state Department of Public Health, says the program is also part of an innovative strategy that addresses teen pregnancy through skills building and career development.

“Students learn about public health, personal health, and community service,” she says. “They are exposed to meaningful ways of spending their time, and they learn about new opportunities available to them in the workforce.”

Students from high schools in urban, suburban, and rural locations volunteer at community health centers, dental clinics, homeless shelters and long-term care facilities.

More than 20 high schools and 60 volunteer sites currently participate in the program, which is implemented through the state’s AHEC centers in Hartford, Waterbury, Bridgeport, and Norwich.

Training for the health corps includes courses in infection control methods, confidentiality and privacy rules, CPR, disease prevention, cultural competency, homelessness awareness and During the first six months of the program, 116 students were trained as volunteers, almost double the goal for the first year.

A model for trauma victims and families

Photo by Peter Morenus

Karyl Burns ’80 (NUR), left, and Barbara Bennet Jacobs ’02 Ph.D.

Even after the death of Terri Schiavo earlier this year sparked a debate about end-of-life care and the right to die, there was little national attention focused on the many issues faced by trauma victims and their families.

Now a three-year, $295,000 grant from the Aetna Foundation, awarded to researchers affiliated with UConn’s School of Nursing and Hartford Hospital’s Trauma Program, will establish a national best practices model for end-of-life care for trauma victims.

“Often trauma patients and their families are thrown into this absolute cacophony with no preparation,” says Barbara Bennett Jacobs ’02 Ph.D., UConn associate professor of nursing, a clinical ethicist and one of the project’s co-investigators.   “This best practices model will help health care professionals to ease the pain and suffering of patients and their families while honoring their individual beliefs and values.”

Karyl Burns ’80 (NUR), formerly an associate professor of nursing at UConn and currently a research scientist for Hartford Hospital’s trauma program, is the project’s other co-investigator.

The research team will address six clinical areas: decision making, communication, physical care, psychological care, spiritual care and culturally sensitive social care.

As part of the project, UConn’s Center for Survey Research and Analysis surveyed 1,000 members of the general public nationwide, representing various racial and ethnic groups, on their thoughts about issues following a sudden catastrophic injury and the use of life-sustaining care. The survey also has been converted into a questionnaire for health care providers.

“We’re going to look for areas of overlap in their opinions and areas of disconnect,” says project director Lenworth Jacobs, director of Hartford Hospital’s trauma program, chair of traumatology and emergency medicine at UConn’s School of Medicine and member of the UConn Board of Trustees. “This is a major national problem, and health professionals are looking for a good, clear plan to address it.”  

The best practices model will be tested first at Hartford Hospital before further application at other hospital sites around the country.

Pfizer Chair in Pharmaceutical Technology set

Michael J. Pikal, Pfizer Distinguished Chair in Pharmaceutical Technology.

Michael J. Pikal, director of UConn’s Center for Pharmaceutical Processing Research, has been named to the first Pfizer Distinguished Endowed Chair in Pharmaceutical Technology.

Pfizer Global Research and Development, a division of Pfizer Inc., established the chair with a $2 million gift to the School of Pharmacy in 2004. It is the largest gift to the school and the first such endowment Pfizer has made in the field in the United States.

“Pfizer’s strategic decision to promote this field of research at the University of Connecticut is of enormous national significance as it will allow the School of Pharmacy to meet increasing industry demands for highly qualified workers in this area,” says Pikal, who worked as an Eli Lilly research scientist for 24 years prior to joining UConn’s faculty in 1996.

As the Pfizer Distinguished Endowed Chair, Pikal will be responsible for developing a seminar in pharmaceutical sciences and bringing renowned researchers to campus as part of a new visiting professors program. Proceeds from the endowment also will support pre- and post-doctoral graduate fellowships.

Pikal, who is currently involved with more than $600,000 of funded research, has conducted collaborative research with Pfizer scientists and within the Center for Pharmaceutical Processing Research, a cooperative effort between UConn, other major research universities and the drug industry.

“All one has to do is look at Mike Pikal’s productivity and publication record to see that he is one of the top leaders nationwide in pharmaceutical technology,” says Tim Hagen, vice president of Pfizer Science and Technology.

“The state of Connecticut has made a tremendous investment in the School of Pharmacy, in terms of its brand new building and lab space,” Hagen says. “When you see things such as that, you know it’s going to be a very good environment for attracting new students and the best faculty. We view this as a long-term commitment.”

Alternate routes expanded for M.S.W. students

The School of Social Work has expanded the options available to students pursuing UConn’s master of social work degree.

In addition to the two-, three-, and four-year   continuing education options for obtaining the M.S.W., a new advanced standing track is available to those who have achieved a high level of academic performance in both classroom and field work.

Advanced standing is designed for individuals who have earned a degree within the last six years from an undergraduate social work program accredited by the Council on Social Work Education. Candidates must also have had a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or better. Qualifying students begin their UConn studies with an intensive four-week summer session that earns five credits. Once completed, the student is eligible to join the second year of the two-year program for the remaining 30 credits needed for completion of the degree requirements.

“The summer session serves as a bridge to completion of the M.S.W. program because those students who qualify for advanced standing have already demonstrated their preparation to undertake the challenges of the remaining coursework,” says Kay Davidson, dean of the School of Social Work.

Acceptance into the advanced standing option effectively waives 25 credits that have been successfully covered by an accredited undergraduate social work program. Students enroll as second year full-time students in UConn’s M.S.W. program to complete the coursework required for graduation.

The remaining 30 credits for advanced standing students include a year-long field education experience, a research course, a field education seminar, electives and a concentration area such as community organizations, group work, administration and policy practice.

“We understand that our students are a diverse group of individuals with different goals,” says Tilitha Conyers, director of admissions for the School of Social Work. “We are committed to providing flexible educational program options to meet the varying needs of our students.”