School of Public and Environmental Affairs expected to complement the public health mission of Northwest Indiana’s only HHS college 
Three years after the inception of Northwest Indiana’s only College of Health and Human Services at Indiana University Northwest, another of the university’s esteemed academic divisions has formally joined forces with CHHS to advance the cause of public health in the region.
“We are proud to announce a reorganization at IU Northwest that puts our well-regarded School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) under the aegis of our new College of Health and Human Services,” said Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs David J. Malik. “SPEA now will have new resources and new opportunities for collaboration with colleagues in other divisions of the College. We believe all the SPEA programs will be strengthened by this move. Furthermore, this improves the ability of the campus to address holistically many of the urban problems confronting our citizens.”
SPEA offers Bachelor of Science programs in public affairs, criminal justice, and health services management, as well as minors in environmental health and science, health systems administration, criminal justice, and public affairs. The School also offers a Master of Public Affairs degree with concentrations in criminal justice, public management, health services administration, and human services administration. SPEA offers Post-Baccalaureate Certificates in public management, nonprofit management and environmental affairs.
CHHS is comprised of the School of Nursing, the Division of Social Work, and programs in dental education, radiologic sciences and health information management. The Northwest branch of the IU School of Medicine, located in the Dunes Medical/Professional Building at IU Northwest, is also a partner in the College of Health and Human Services. Patrick Bankston, Ph.D., is the dean of CHHS and the assistant dean and director of the medical school.
“In so many ways, the missions and programs of the College of Health and Human Services overlap with SPEA,” said Bankston, who has served as SPEA’s interim dean since September 2009. “For example, violent crime is increasingly recognized as a public health issue. Just three weeks ago, Dr. Mike McGee, of the Emergency Medicine Department at Methodist Hospitals, gave a talk here for CHHS and the IU School of Medicine – Northwest on the high incidence of violence and penetrating trauma in their hospital emergency rooms."
“Certainly, this issue has implications for criminal justice, public health, public policy, hospital administration, and public affairs,” Bankston said. “All of this concerns SPEA faculty and students, as well as our medical, nursing and social-work students, and students in other CHHS programs at IU Northwest.”
The inclusion of SPEA’s environmental-affairs program in CHHS is another logical move for the College and for the region, Bankston added.
“Recently, SPEA hosted a Public Affairs Month program featuring sustainability expert Naomi Davis, founder of the Blacks in Green education and trade organization, who spoke about a new green economy that should be spearheaded by minority communities,” he recalled. “Davis made the point that, especially in urban settings, the host of problems faced by the population – healthcare disparities, mis-education, dropouts, hyper-incarceration, recidivism, violence, industrial pollution, unemployment, and public corruption -- are all linked."
“Now, at IU Northwest, all of these problems are the subject of study and teaching in the College of Health and Human Services, including SPEA as a prominent new enhancement,” Bankston said.
Malik announced that SPEA professor Barbara Peat, Ph.D., who teaches criminal justice, would assume the role of Director for SPEA within CHHS. SPEA professor Samuel Flint, Ph.D., who teaches health administration, will serve as Associate Director. These changes will take effect July 1, 2010.
The College of Health and Human Services at IU Northwest is organized to facilitate team learning experiences between students in complementary disciplines who might otherwise not have the opportunity to interact in academic or research settings. Malik predicted that SPEA’s inclusion in CHHS would expand those possibilities for interdisciplinary learning.
“We envision new learning and research opportunities for our students that are especially appropriate for Northwest Indiana,” he said. “We would like to see teams of students from CHHS with their separate interests – medicine, nursing, social work, the environment, public affairs, public and health administration, and criminal justice - working on research and service projects for the betterment of our community. Such projects might loosely be grouped under the term ‘public health.’ This newer, stronger CHHS will certainly have strength in that area.”