Dear Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board Members, Drexel Colleagues and Friends,
It’s been a busy Friday on our Elkins Park Campus and an eventful week welcoming students from Taiwan and preparing for our Change in Ownership to Drexel. This is the first step in the two-step integration process. My thanks to everyone who has helped to make this transition a successful one.
Here are some other items of interest from around campus:
SALUS AWARDS GALA: The 8th annual Salus Awards Gala (SAG) was held June 14, 2024, at The Fuge in Warminster, Pennsylvania. The event has evolved over the years to recognize outstanding educators, faculty, staff, administration and students in the Salus University community. This year, more than 100 nominations and more than 300 votes were cast to the Campus Activities Committee, which organized the event. Click here to see who this year’s award winners are.
CAREER PIVOT TO SLP: In our latest podcast, Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) Post-bacc program coordinator Kimberly Cafarella, MS, CCC-SLP, talks to students Lina "LJ" Jaquez-Ly '24PBSL and Fatmira "Mira" Gobeljic '24PBSL about why they chose the SLP Post-bacc program and how it has prepared them for graduate school. Click here for details.
NEW OT FACULTY MEMBER: Ashley Anderson, MS, OTR/L, has enjoyed switching gears from clinician to educator. She likes being able to break things down into manageable pieces for her students to make it easier for them to look at the bigger picture. And after being an adjunct for Salus University’s Occupational Therapy (OT) program, Ashley has joined the department as a full-time faculty member. To read more about Ashley, click here.
CLEAN ENERGY EDUCATION: Drexel University and Howard University have collaborated on a Department of Energy program for clean energy education and have already received an initial installment of $100,000 to develop a cross-university exchange program related to the design of low-carbon environments. For details, click here.
MERGER NEWS: I learned earlier today that Drexel University President John Fry may be selected as the next President of Temple University. While this news comes as a bit of a shock, it’s not really surprising given John’s exceptional leadership, unique skillset and outstanding record of achievement. On behalf of all of us at Salus, we wish him a successful outcome in the Temple presidential selection process.
Our merger with Drexel is unchanged by today’s news. Today, we filed our Statement of Merger with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which means that, effective on Sunday, we are all members of the Drexel community. Since our Board of Trustees made the strategic decision to merge with Drexel University, our leadership team, working closely with President Fry and his leadership team, developed the foundation for the Salus-Drexel Integration Council. This council has done an outstanding job across each of the verticals and threads, which both President Fry and myself deeply appreciate. I want to thank the entire Integration team as well as the entire Salus community for your exceptional work to reach this landmark achievement.
As I’ve emphasized many times this year, change is never easy, especially when the need for it is not immediately obvious. And as today’s news makes clear, the higher education landscape is shifting beneath our feet more quickly than most anticipated. I am confident, however, that we are well-positioned to become an anchor for health care and life sciences innovation driving Greater Philadelphia’s reputation for health care, interprofessional education and life science discovery in service to our community.
Moving forward, as “Salus at Drexel”, until and after Phase 2 is approved by the U.S. Department of Education, I strongly encourage all of you to continue to build relationships with your Drexel counterparts by engaging with them both here at Elkins Park and on the main Drexel campus. It is only through these professional and personal interactions that we will truly be able to leverage the remarkable talent resident in both of our institutions.
The biggest beneficiaries of our hard work are our students, who will be better clinicians, researchers, teachers and innovators as a result of this partnership.
Enjoy the weekend. Please stay hydrated and look out for one another so you can be SALUS AT DREXEL STRONG!
- Mike
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