Last Lecture, educational awards promote change and opportunity at UMass Chan

The 2023 UMass Chan Medical School Educational Recognition Awards ceremony on Wednesday, May 3, honored achievements by faculty of the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing, Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and T.H. Chan School of Medicine.

Mark Johnson, MD, PhD, the Maroun Semaan Chair in Neurosurgery, chair and professor of neurological surgery and senior vice provost for mentorship, leadership and transformation at UMass Chan, was named recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring, and Melissa Fischer, MD, MEd, professor of medicine and assistant vice provost for interprofessional and instructional innovation, presented the annual honorary Last Lecture.

Dr. Johnson is the founder of the UMass Leadership Institute for Growth, Health and Transformation, or LIGHT, a leadership and mentorship organization aimed at increasing diversity, equity and inclusion; promoting career growth; and creating personal and professional development opportunities.

Presenting the Chancellor’s Award to Johnson, Chancellor Michael F. Collins said, “Your door is always open to diverse members of our academic community, who will approach you and, in turn, you continue to open the doors for them. With UMass Chan LIGHT, you’re creating an enterprise-wide mentorship framework for underrepresented students and faculty spanning all three schools. This exciting endeavor promises to enrich diversity and energize our UMass Chan learning community for years to come.”

The Last Lecture provides an educator the opportunity to share a message they would want to give students if they had only one lecture left to give. At UMass Chan, the honor of delivering it is bestowed on the recipient of the prior year’s Chancellor’s Medal for Distinguished Teaching, which Dr. Fischer was awarded at Convocation in September 2022. The award is presented annually to a faculty member who has fostered students’ personal, intellectual and professional development. Recipients are nominated by faculty members and selected by the chancellor.

Dr. Fischer’s lecture, “Change,” highlighted the benefits of simulation and virtual reality in medical education, and discussed the opportunities available to medical students and the UMass Chan community to address the issues of climate change, reproductive justice and gun violence.

“I strongly believe that researchers and educators are change agents. We can be reformers, we should be risk takers and disruptors. And together I know that we at UMass Chan have the capacity to keep making a very positive impact,” Fischer said. “This institution is changing, of which I am proud, and there is so much more we can do.”

Fischer is also the recipient of the 2023 Manning Prize for Excellence in Teaching, a $10,000 award established by UMass Board Chair Robert Manning and his wife, Donna Manning, both of whom are UMass alums. The prize honors one outstanding faculty member from each of the five UMass campuses.

Deans’ and faculty awards were presented by Joan Vitello-Cicciu, PhD, the Donna M. and Robert J. Manning Chair of Nursing, professor of nursing and dean of the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing; Anne Larkin, MD, associate professor of surgery and vice provost and senior associate dean for educational affairs; Mary Ellen Lane, PhD, the Donna M. and Robert J. Manning Chair in Biomedical Sciences, professor of neurobiology and dean of the dean of the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences; Terence R. Flotte, MD, the Celia and Isaac Haidak Professor, executive deputy chancellor, provost and dean of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine; and Educational Policy Committee co-chairs Erin McMaster, MD'96, associate professor of pediatrics, and Lela Giannaris, PhD, associate professor radiology.

Watch the full awards ceremony and Last Lecture on the UMass Chan Medical School YouTube channel.