May 07, 2008
For many students, commencement is a time to say farewell to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

However, for Nicole Bates, it’s more like coming home.

photograph, Nicole Bates

photograph, Nicole Bates

That’s because while she’s been working towards her DrPH in health administration over the past three years, Bates has been on the road–a lot. Kenya, Cameroon, Tanzania, South Africa, Switzerland, England, France . . . the list of destinations reads more like a travelogue than a classroom schedule.

“I have done a class from practically every continent,” said Bates, who’s been juggling her studies with her fulltime position as the director of government relations for the Global Health Council, a Washington, D.C.-based international health NGO.

This weekend, Bates is one of three people to become the first ever graduates of the UNC School of Public Health’s doctoral program in health leadership, a distance-education program that prepares mid-career professionals for top positions.

She had offers from other universities to study elsewhere, but chose to return to UNC, where she’d already obtained a master’s degree in 2000.

“What I enjoyed most about Chapel Hill then and what drew me back, although remotely as an executive student–it’s the people, and it’s the spirit of excellence. But it’s excellence in a non-competitive way. It’s just an incredibly supportive environment–that’s why I decided to come back and I think that’s what I’ll miss out in the real world, having people who are genuinely interested in your success,” Bates said.

She notes that collegiality is especially important in a distance education program.

“We had lot of things change for people,” she said. “We had deaths, we had births, we had a lot happen during this program. And even remotely, we’ve been there for each other.”

 

School of Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu.

 

 

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