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Suzanne Cashman, ScD, has been named a finalist for the prestigious Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award by Campus Compact and Brown University’s Swearer Center for Public Service, recognizing her as one of the top five community-engaged faculty in the country. The winner and four finalists are selected on the basis of their collaboration with communities, institutional impact, high-quality academic work and sustained commitment to enhancing higher education’s contributions to the public good.
“Suzanne’s work with the community, and particularly with facilitating our students’ community service is exemplary, as this award indicates,” said Terence Flotte, the Celia and Isaac Haidak Professor of Medical Education, executive deputy chancellor, provost and dean of the School of Medicine.
Dr. Cashman is a professor of family medicine & community health and serves as director of community health. She has devoted her decades-long career to teaching graduate public and community health courses; developing curricula for medical and public health students and residents; conducting community-based research; and fostering partnerships to help communities improve their health.
She co-directs the Determinants of Health Course for undergraduate medical students and plays a lead role in the course's Population Health Clerkship and co-directs the community engagement section of the UMMS Center for Clinical and Translational Science and of its Center for Health Equity Intervention Research. In addition, she is an investigator for the school's CDC-funded UMass Chan Prevention Research Center. Cashman is a member of the Coalition for a Healthy Greater Worcester steering committee and a cofounder of the Community Engagement Committee at UMMS.
Previously known as the Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service-Learning, the award is named in honor of Thomas Ehrlich, former chair of the Campus Compact board of directors. The Campus Compact is a national coalition of more than 1,000 colleges and universities colleges and universities which supports institutions in fulfilling their public purposes by deepening their ability to improve community life and to educate students for civic and social responsibility.
“Reviewers were impressed by the depth and impact of your partnership work and by your creativity in integrating teaching and research in service of communities,” Campus Compact President Andrew J. Seligsohn, PhD, wrote in Cashman’s notification letter. “Your efforts exemplify the values of mutual respect in pursuit of wellbeing for all members of communities. Thank you for all you have done and continue to do.”
Cashman will accept the award at Campus Compact’s Compact20 national conference being held next spring in Seattle, Wash.
