Allied health marks 50 years – together

As the College of Allied Health Professions celebrates 50 years since its founding as a school in 1972, UNMC Today will offer an occasional series of stories that looks back at key milestones and forward to an unlimited future.

The UNMC College of Allied Health Professions is marking its 50th anniversary in 2022. The then-School of Allied Health Professions was established by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents in 1972.

In 1972, Jan Tompkins, now assistant dean for diversity and inclusion in the college, was a student, then graduate, of the medical technology program. She joined the faculty. She hasn’t spent the entirety of her career in allied health at UNMC, but much of it. Few others have had such a first-hand, front-row participant’s view of the history of allied health at UNMC.

"Those 50 years are my career span," she said recently.

To hear Tompkins tell it, the story of allied health at UNMC is of it being an idea at first, then a reality and at last a true college. It’s a story of disparate peoples who came together over decades to become one people, who still revel in their vast diversity.

"We just have a different perspective," Tompkins said. "Because we have all of these programs, we have to look at 15 different perspectives. And there’s good that comes from that diversity."

That has made allied health unafraid of new ideas or of assuming leadership. "We’ve been very creative over the years in developing new initiatives," Tompkins said.

It has been a long journey over a still relatively short history.

Tompkins believes emeritus professor Reba Benschoter, PhD, who led the school from 1985 to 1995 was responsible for beginning to solidify the school in the late 1980s.

Emeritus associate dean Mary Haven picked up the baton between 1995 and 2006, advancing the programs and increasing the emphasis on research and rural outreach, then so did Kyle Meyer, PhD. Dr. Benschoter, Haven and Dr. Meyer have been at the helm of allied health for about 75% of its history at UNMC.

"Moving to Bennett Hall (in 2008) changed the culture," Tompkins said.

Now that they were all together, things started to come together.

"I give Kyle a lot of credit for changing the culture," Tompkins said. "He was strategic. He was persistent and patient.

"He really worked with getting the endorsement with other people on campus to become a college."

Allied health achieved independent college status in 2015, with Dr. Meyer as its founding dean.

Adding programs at the Health Science Education Complex in Kearney, also in 2015, further cemented the culture, Tompkins said.

They occasionally still struggle with being different. But most often, they are different together.

"We continue to add new programs," Tompkins said. "We continue to be a leader of distance education."

Then, the pandemic hit.

"Now we were scattered and wondered how were we going to keep everybody together?"

The answer: A college Zoom town hall every Friday.

Attendance was strong, Tompkins said. "We get 75 people every week. Seventy-five out of 120, 130?"

They come from different perspectives, but over 50 years they’ve come together, as allied health at UNMC.