 "Photo: Courtesy of John Adgate")
As the confetti is being cleaned up and the hangover cures being sought on New Year’s Day, a new chairman will begin his reign at the Colorado School of Public Health at Anschutz.
John Adgate, Ph.D., will become the chair for the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, a new position created for the expert himself.
A former professor from the University of Minnesota, Adgate will now be in charge of the department and all its faculty members. On top of that, he’ll be teaching and communicating with a laundry list of other organizations and groups.
The school itself is brand new, having opened on July 1, 2008.
Although the change hasn’t been made yet—the move will be made on Jan. 1—Adgate is still keeping himself busy.
“My job now, just like the other members here, is to teach, do research, and provide for the community,” explained Adgate.
“I’m encouraging and establishing research divisions in areas we already have expertise in, and others that we don’t. There’s a lot of areas of expertise.”
Adgate was recruited by the search committee when he was at the University of Minnesota.
“I was one out of three final candidates [for the position],” Adgate explained. “I don’t know that much about the process though, because I was the selectee, not the selector.”
Adgate was chosen by a small committee, a group (including the dean of the school) determined to find “someone from the outside.”
“It requires someone who has broad knowledge of the field,” said Dr. Lee Newman, a professor at the school. “He’s perfect for the job. He has a reputation for excellence in teaching.”
And the reason for the up-and-coming department and its new leader?
“The school needs [our department] in order to be accredited,” Adgate said.
Not only that, but the department will have to have at least five full time faculty members on the staff. Once that happens, the school will be able to become an accredited establishment. And the work they’re doing, Adgate says, is important and relevant to everyone.
“Everyone works,” Adgate said. “Everyone lives in a place with public stressors. We all live in the environment.”
What the department work translates to is looking at stressors—things in everyday life that cause problems—and trying to see how they can help make them safer, smaller, and easier to deal with.
“It’s everything,” Newman explained, “from the effects of population pressure, climate change, war, air pollution, to urbanization, food safety, and WMDs. You can’t address issues locally or globally in health without environmental health.”
The transition is still a little more than two months away, but Adgate is hard at work.
“Right now, I’m setting up the office, learning how the UC system works, doing faculty searches, and planning for teaching,” said Adgate. “A part of it is just learning the process.
“I hope to pull people together to make an integrated research program here.”
Already, the school receives a $1.4 million grant yearly from the National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health—a grant that hasn’t been awarded to a new facility in over a decade.
"That supports tuition and stipends and some research efforts of about 30 grad students and doctors training to become occupational health specialists,” explained Newman.
What’s unique about this department is the other areas in which the faculty works; some professors work at CU Boulder, some at UC Denver, others at CSU. “It’s a memoranda of understanding,” said Adgate. “CSU traditionally has environmental and occupational health studies, but now that’s located here.”
So after having to move states, jobs, and go through chaos to help set up in the department—what’s in it for him?
Said Adgate, “It’s the challenge of building something new.”
Be the first to comment on this article!