Lookin’ at U: Anita Lee

Anita Lee

Anita Lee

Each Thursday, we randomly feature a medical center employee. This week, we learn more about:

  • Name: Anita Lee
  • Hometown: Omaha
  • Number of years at UNMC: 16 months

Tell us about what you do here at UNMC.

My role as coordinator in the Office of Community Engagement (OCE) is to build relationships with community leaders and explore opportunities for students and faculty collaborations. To accomplish this, our office is in the process of developing a database (OrgSync) that would allow community agencies to post their health needs, events, projects or fairs for UNMC students and faculty to participate.

In turn, UNMC faculty can assign students external community health projects, attach assignments, reflections and track student’s attendance via Card Swipe that provides an e-transcript. OCE, which is part of Academic Affairs, is building a resource bank containing national best practices for service learning and community engagement. OCE provides guidance to interdisciplinary Legacy Projects: Bridge to Care, Decreasing the Donor Deficit, Do juSTIce and EMPOWER.

Innovation is one of UNMC’s iTEACH brand values. Tell us of a time you witnessed a person or group demonstrating innovation at UNMC.

Paul Estabrooks, Ph.D., Wayne Houston and the department of health promotion, social and behavioral health developed a survey to figure out the types of weight loss programs that would be most attractive to minority populations. Rather than asking people to complete a long survey, they developed an engaging survey to work on a tablet and collected more than 100 surveys in three hours at the Black Family Health and Wellness Fair.

What is your favorite spring activity?

Working in the yard.

List three things people may not know about you.

  • I love helping underserved and elderly people.
  • I enjoy weight training.
  • I ice skate.