From Aron’s Desk

Friends,

This is reunion season at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. It’s like homecoming, but no one gets chronic traumatic encephalopathy. So far we’ve welcomed alumni from the College of Pharmacy, the Dr. William M. Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine, and the Chicago Medical School back to campus. For many of the pre-1980 graduates, this reunion may have been their first visit to our “new campus” - 46 years on, our campus can still be new!

Last year, I joined the university after the reunions, so this is my first time meeting some of our amazing alumni and hearing stories about faculty past and present. For someone like me, who is new to the institution, meeting alumni is a wonderful way to understand how people have experienced the university and the colleges that joined to eventually become RFU.

Last weekend’s Scholl College reunion gave me my first chance to meet Rick Evans, DPM ’71 and his wife Kathy Evans. They have very generously provided a series of scholarship gifts and matches in support of our Scholl students. They are incredible leaders and supporters. On a personal note, let me say that Rick is very patient, because he had to listen to Kathy and me extoll the charms and virtues of animals that do not get enough love in our world, particularly crows, rats, and octopi. They are a fun couple.

I learned a great deal at the Scholl College reunion from graduates who had attended the college’s previous incarnations. It is an interesting history we proudly stand on. One of the special moments of the reunion was a history of one of the first podiatric surgical residencies, which meaningfully transformed the field into the highly surgical field it is today. John Vanore, DPM ’79 and Jim Lawson, DPM ’71 delved into those first residencies from the early 1970s and the challenges faced by those programs, faculty, and students. The hospitals did not initially welcome these programs or their graduates onto their staffs or into their operating rooms. It has been a long slog, and many of the pathfinders who created, taught, and graduated from those early surgery programs were from Scholl. That may not be too surprising; one in three podiatrists in the US is a Scholl grad. It was a remarkable and fascinating history. My thanks to our alumni for doing the work and to our Institutional Advancement staff for facilitating the development of this important history. 

Thanks to the wonderful folks in IA who have made the reunions so meaningful to our alumni. In particular I want to call out the engagement team of Heather Truffer, Sarah Klein, Jennifer Cusick, Kelly Reiss, and Debbie Williams. They cannot do their work without the rest of the IA team George Rattin (our interim vice president), Pam Lowe, Lizzette Hernandez, Shella Blue, Amy Knutson Strack, Christine Murray, Sara Alvarado, Emily Fouts, Mary Askelson, Stephanie Geier, Claire Gardien, Zaid Khan, and Sandra Wiley.

This morning, RFUMS celebrated a new partnership with Xcellerant Ventures, which will provide first look evaluation and training for our faculty, students, and the start-up companies of our Helix 51 Bioscience Incubator. Early funding is important to young companies, and while there are no funding requirements in the agreement, it will be very valuable for our Helix 51 partners to meet with venture capital (VC) teams. Our connection to Jetstream is not random or by accident. The fund and effort behind it were founded by CMS alum John Shufeldt, MD’86 JD MBA. John is a remarkable innovator, entrepreneur, and student - he is finishing another masters in history soon. He and his wife Rene Beckham MD ’86 are here with us for their 40th reunion. I know the reunion is very special to them, although I think John enjoyed meeting with RFU entrepreneurship students about entrepreneurship this morning more than almost anything else we have planned. It will be most xcellent.

Innovative ideas, whether they are new medications or innovative programs with more power than medication, are only useful if they enter the world and are available to people. For medicines and devices, that means entering the marketplace, the fabled land of entrepreneurs. The people who bring forward new social ideas and programs are entrepreneurs of their own sort, although their source of funding is different. We hope to foster these interests and skills in our students. Making the world better means bringing your ideas to the world whether those are medicines and devices that help us live better, healthier lives or new ideas and programs that make society a better, more loving place for us all.

Improving the health of all people with you, 

Aron