As fall begins and with midterms occurring, Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D., urged the UNMC community to be aware of wellness and resiliency efforts throughout the university’s 500-mile campus.
“It’s an important time of year to have this discussion,” Dr. Gold said. “We have new faculty that have joined us, but most importantly, we have more than 1,000 entering students.”
In addition to being high-achievers who may be encountering new levels of academic challenges, Dr. Gold said, “they also are the cohort of students who are least familiar with our counseling services, who may be less familiar with the community because they come from afar — and who therefore are the highest-stressed and most vulnerable students.
“So this is a really important time for us to reach out to them,” he said. “The way we do that is not just in the classroom, the teaching laboratories and the clinics, but in the hallways, here in the Sorrell Center, in the student commons, on all of our rural campuses as well. When you see one of our students, ask how they’re doing. If a student appears to be withdrawing, not showing up to class, or has an issue with incomplete assignments, we need to find a way to reach out to those young women and men and make sure we understand what their needs are and try to support them as much as we can.”
Other topics the chancellor discussed during the forum included:
- Work continues on the Facilities Master Plan;
- The search for a new director for the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center may be close to concluding;
- The search for the next University of Nebraska president continues;
- Student financial services such as financial aid, student accounts, and counseling advising, will be housed in the renovated Williams Science Center to provide a single home for student services.
He offered congratulations to the UNMC College of Dentistry for the ribbon-cutting on the new Omaha clinic at the Durham Outpatient Center.
Dr. Gold also provided construction updates at the event:
- Work on the Wigton Heritage Center and the McGoogan Library is on schedule with an expected winter 2021 completion date;
- The renovation of the Williams Science Hall also is on schedule with an expected winter 2021 completion date;
- The Global Center for Health Security at the Edwin G. & Dorothy Balbach Davis Global Center opened Oct. 1, and the rest of the building is scheduled to open in early December, with a ceremonial ribbon-cutting in the spring; and
- Completion on construction of the skywalks that will connect the Truhlsen Eye Institute all the way to the Durham Research Towers will occur in the next several weeks.