May 27, 2011

Lucy Siegel, MPH, Lupe Huitron and Gladys Siegel (l-r) visit at the 2010 World of Difference dinner.

Lucy Siegel, MPH, Lupe Huitron and Gladys Siegel (l-r) visit at the 2010 World of Difference dinner.

We chose the name to show how support for the School’s people and programs makes a “World of Difference” in many ways — scholarships that allow promising students to complete professional degrees, professorships that undergird valuable research and teaching by our faculty members, and operational funds that allow us to undertake special projects and meet pressing needs.

The School’s 2010 World of Difference dinner was held Nov. 4 to thank donors and friends — and to celebrate the professors, students and programs supported by their gifts. The annual gala evening recognizes members of the Rosenau Society, who provide unrestricted annual support of $1,000 or more, as well as benefactors who have named rooms, scholarships, professorships or specialty funds.

Beginning in 2009, a portion of the Annual Fund campaign was set aside to provide scholarships, one for each of the School’s eight academic units. In 2010, the money allocated for scholarships doubled, and 16 Annual Fund Scholars were honored at the 2010 dinner. Two of them, Angel Davalos and Corey Kalbaugh, spoke at the event.

Joan H. Gillings, the School’s chair of advancement, introduced D.G. Martin — host of UNC-TV’s “Bookwatch,” newspaper columnist and WCHL radio interviewer — who moderated the evening.

George Pink, PhD, was recognized at the event as the inaugural Humana Distinguished Professor of Health Policy and Management. The professorship was established with a $333,000 gift from The Humana Foundation and $166,000 in matching funds from the state.

“In an era of reduced government funding, the financial support provided by companies such as Humana is critical to sustaining the research of many faculty members in the School,” Pink says. “I am very grateful that Humana’s funding will enable me to continue research that benefits small, rural and primarily not-for-profit hospitals, most of which struggle to provide health care to rural Americans.”

A number of donors and the students they support were able to reunite or meet for the first time at the dinner. Among these were Gladys Siegel, widow of maternal and child health faculty member and department chair Earl Siegel, MD, MPH, and their daughter Lucy Siegel, MPH, who visited with Lupe Huitron, the 2010 recipient of a scholarship from the Earl and Gladys Siegel Student Support Fund.

You, too, can make a world of difference to the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. Please visit our website at www.sph.unc.edu/giving, consider mailing a gift in the enclosed envelope, or call our external affairs office at (919) 966-0198. Join us for dinner on Nov. 10, 2011!

Linda Kastleman

Carolina Public Health is a publication of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health. To view previous issues, please visit www.sph.unc.edu/cph.

Last updated June 07, 2011

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