Dr. Britigan to direct Office of Community Engagement

Denise H. Britigan, Ph.D., has been appointed as director of the newly created Office of Community Engagement.

Dr. Britigan will lead an office that will focus on growing and enhancing student, faculty, college and institutional capacity for community engagement.

“UNMC recently became the first health care campus in the country to be designated by the Carnegie Foundation as a Community Engaged Campus,” said Dele Davies, M.D., vice chancellor for academic affairs. “This campuswide effort was led by Dr. Ruti Margalit and involved members from every college and unit on campus.

“One of the outshoots of this activity was the recognition that UNMC is very engaged in all the communities in which we serve, but we do not have a coordinated effort for tracking these activities or for linking the community and our faculty, staff and students to our resources and vice versa.

“The new office is designed to provide leadership for these activities. Dr. Britigan brings a very strong background of engagement in the community at all levels. She also brings strong skills in data collection and evaluation in her current role and as a former librarian that will be very valuable to this position. She will be supported by a coordinator in her role.”

Dr. Britigan said she was excited about the new position.

“I want the office to serve both our internal and external community as a centralized contact point for engagement efforts,” she said. “That sounds pretty broad, but the vision has to stay big and broad.

“I have a lot of learning to do for this office. I have no qualms about that. And I feel that in this office, the sky’s the limit. There’s wonderful potential, and it can look like many things.”

Dr. Britigan spoke of a statewide vision for the new office, working with local health departments, University of Nebraska campuses, community organizations, educators, administrators and others to identify challenges, needs and opportunities to address them.

“I always use the phrase with my students of ‘work smarter, not harder,'” she said. “If you can leverage what you’re doing to teach and help people, then do it. I don’t plan to ignore any of the good things that are happening throughout the state, but to integrate and incorporate them.”

Dr. Britigan plans to create an advisory panel with both internal and external components.

“If we are to become the healthiest state in the nation, then we’ll need everyone, across all Nebraska counties, on board,” she said. “It can be as granular as we want it to be — down to the individual — but we have to work collectively to reach our goal.”