From Aron’s Desk

Friends,

It is my great honor and delight to begin my time as president of Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science this week. It was a little unusual to start with a snow day, but I met some intrepid scholars in the hallways on Monday — thanks to Hunter, a second-year from Scholl College for helping me wayfind that morning.

If you get the remarkable opportunity to lead a wonderful institution like RFU, I suggest you spend your first weeks meeting the students, faculty, and staff, who make the university so special — that is what I’m up to. This week, I’ve met facilities staff and took a tour of the boiler room. I’ve visited anatomy and met some of the staff and learned about the innovative partnerships they have. I’ve met the lovely folks in finance and learned about their roles. I met some faculty and students in the Physician Assistant program after the Division of Community and Campus Outreach documentary on food insecurity and food deserts on the Crow Nation reservation. I’ve visited Student Affairs and the Chicago Medical School. I’ve met people on the campus safety team and, of course, I’ve met Ellie at the front desk, who has been at RFU for 45 years. (Ok, I met Ellie, and Emory, last month when I visited.) I will come to your unit too.

Each day I have wandered the halls and the cafeteria, and I am impressed by how friendly people are and how excited they are to tell me about their work and studies. The impact and legacy of a great university comes from the work and dedication of staff, students, and faculty; and it has been fun and edifying to meet people.

One of the best events of the week was the university’s Veterans Day Celebration on Tuesday. The event was organized by Gordon Blanchard and Eric Williams, PhD, with a performance by the Waukegan High School Junior ROTC Color Guard and Drill Team. The highlight for me was the talk by one of our student-veterans, Brittani Garayalde, who is a first-year student in our Physician Assistant program. She spoke eloquently about her experiences in the Air Force as a medic and how that has shaped her as a person, a healthcare provider, and as a future PA.

Providing educational opportunities to people like Ms. Garayalde is at the core of why we as a university exist.

As an institution, we are defined by the opportunities we create for others. Some of us spend our careers in education providing the chance for those who follow us to take up the mantle of our work for the benefit of those they will serve. Others provide opportunity directly through engagement, improving the wellness of all people through the services we provide. And some of us create opportunity through discovery and scholarship. Generating new knowledge and discovering how to better implement knowledge creates the chance for us to improve health through new medications, new services, better systems and the jobs that come from those efforts.

I’ve thought a great deal about discovery over the last week or so. You will likely recall that James Watson, PhD, died last week. I did not linger on him, but I’ve wondered at our place as an institution named for and inspired by Rosalind Franklin, PhD, the physical chemist whose stunning x-ray crystallography pictures demonstrated the helical structure of DNA. I do not know what you have read about her, but caricature and mythology are not the midwives of enlightenment. Dr. Franklin’s work was genuinely remarkable, and I encourage you to learn about her life and work. She is an inspiration, and the opportunities her discoveries created have improved the wellness of us all.

Improving the wellness of all people with you,

Aron