It started with a simple idea – let’s have a party.
From there, it has mushroomed into a full-blown reunion.
The reunion – for graduates of the UNMC Radiation Science Technology Education (RSTE) program – will take place July 17-18 on the UNMC campus.
The mastermind of the party idea was Carol McGlade, a 1982 graduate of UNMC’s RSTE program.
“For years, I’ve been suggesting to Jim Temme (associate director of RSTE) that we have a party,” McGlade said. “I’m a graduate of the UNMC program, but I’ve never received a single mailing from the school since I graduated. It’s like I didn’t exist.
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“I have to give credit to Kyle Meyer, Ph.D. (associate dean of the School of Allied Health Professions). He encouraged us to think bigger. We started looking at alumni records and realized that many of them were down at UNL (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), instead of UNMC, which would be the logical place. We also discovered that this is the 75th year the RSTE has been educating students. The timing just seemed right to have a reunion.”
In pouring through the records, the names of more than 900 graduates of the UNMC RSTE program were located – more than enough to justify a reunion.
“We’ve done a lot of work compiling alumni lists and combining what UNL had with what UNMC had,” McGlade said. “It has been a monumental task, but by the time we finished, we had formulated a pretty good database.”
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“This has really turned into a good thing,” Temme said. “I’m excited that we have this opportunity to celebrate a program that began 75 years ago. We hope it’s going to be like a huge high school reunion with graduates coming from all different eras.”
The reunion begins on July 17 with an open house from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in the UNMC Alumni Center, 518 S. 38th St. On Saturday, guided walking tours of the UNMC campus will be offered from 3 to 5 p.m. followed by a reception and dinner at 5 p.m. in the Michael F. Sorrell Center for Health Science Education.
Temme, who is president-elect of the American Society of Radiologic Technologists, said the reunion will provide attendees an opportunity to:
- See RSTE’s new office space on the fifth floor of Bennett Hall;
- Visit the newly renovated clinical areas where the students receive their training; and
- Hear a dinnertime talk from longtime Omaha radiologist Dennis Strauss, M.D., who went to medical school and did his residency training at UNMC and practiced general radiology at Methodist Hospital for nearly 30 years.
“I’m honored to be able to give this talk,” said Dr. Strauss, who is a past president of the UNMC College of Medicine Alumni Association. “There’s no way radiologists could do what they do without radiation science technologists. The UNMC program has improved dramatically over the years. I’m very impressed how the program has evolved. It used to be so fragmented. Now it’s consolidated in Bennett Hall. It’s come a long way.”
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McGlade is hopeful that there will be sufficient interest to eventually form a UNMC alumni chapter for radiation science technologists.
The University of Nebraska Foundation and the UNMC Alumni Relations Office are providing support for the reunion.