Mary Haven, emeritus associate dean of the one-time UNMC School of Allied Health Professions, walked into the 50th Anniversary Gala for the UNMC College of Allied Health Professions and immediately hugged Kyle Meyer, PhD, the college’s founding dean.
“You must be so excited!” she said.
It was a big night. Allied health at UNMC began in 1972 with three health professions programs, as a school that was part of the UNMC College of Medicine. Now, in 2022, as UNMC’s sixth college, it was celebrating these 50 years of history and the years to come.
The gala, held Sept. 22, began with a welcome from Dr. Meyer, who then turned the program over to its host, UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, MD. The two led the crowd of 100 in a toast, to all that had been and to the future.
Any celebration of allied health includes an explanation of what the term means. While it is a “term of art” that encompasses a wide variety of health professions, each speaker on the night would painstakingly articulate how these professions and the people who fill them are crucial to our lives.
“These are people on the front lines of health care,” University of Nebraska President Ted Carter said in a recorded message, “people that we and our loved ones see all the time.”
Or sometimes don’t see, working behind the scenes.
Dele Davies, MD, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, compared allied health professionals to crucial components of the human body: “The most vital organs are hidden. You don’t always see what they do.”
James Linder, MD, CEO of Nebraska Medicine, said that in years past he and Dr. Meyer had “conspired” together in a dream of seeing allied health someday become a college. It was a realization of that dream, and a great honor, to bring the proposal before the NU Board of Regents as interim university president.
Catherine Mello, director of UNMC Alumni Relations, said allied health’s 16,700 alumni lead all med center colleges and “step up in so many ways.” She cited one of Dr. Meyer’s favorite leadership quotes from the late Nelson Mandela — “it always seems impossible until it’s done” — as an acknowledgement that the college had exceeded expectations.
Pat Hageman, PhD, spoke as an alumna, a faculty member and a benefactor. She said external support has been a “game-changer” to the college, its programs and to her own ability to conduct research that improves the lives of rural Nebraskans.
Charles Bicak, PhD, retired senior vice chancellor at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, said expansion to the Heath Science Education Complex at UNK has been “transformational” not just for Nebraska but the Great Plains.
Recent alum Gracie Grote spoke of her time as a student undergoing multiple simultaneous life challenges and tragedies while trying to keep up her studies. “I felt like I could not catch a break,” she said, “but our faculty showed me otherwise. … They believed in me and pushed me to show up each day, they went the extra mile to ensure my success.”
Dr. Gold spoke about how meaningful it has been to UNMC that its allied health students and programs have “an identity, a college.”
Finally, Dr. Gold led the panel in a ribbon cutting, to step into the next 50 years.
A “challenge coin” had been commissioned for the occasion. Dr. Gold presented one to Dr. Meyer in a handshake. “Into your hands,” the chancellor said, “we trust the future.” It’s evidence the impossible had become a reality, but that the work was far from done.
Congratulations to Dean Meyer and the entire College of Allied Health Professions!