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President and CEO's Blog

By Daniel Gentry, PhD, MHA posted 09-22-2020 09:43

  

AUPHA - THE REALLY BIG TENT

 

Greetings colleagues and friends:

As we have eagerly prepared for, and now excitedly launch, AUPHA’s 2020-2023 Strategic Plan initiatives, I have been thinking about AUPHA’s role as the nationally and internationally recognized association for healthcare management and health policy education, and the incredible potential for growth of our community. 

Our initiatives to redefine and expand the body-of-knowledge, add curricular guidelines for undergraduate and graduate programs, and regularly identify the most salient trends in healthcare management practice and health policy, are well-aligned with our mission and vision, our role as the health professions higher education association for healthcare management and leadership. 

Likewise, our initiatives to deliver new trainings focused on excellence in both teaching and academic leadership will enable us to more effectively deliver on AUPHA’s promise to be the driving force for continuous quality improvement and excellence in health administration and policy education.  

To achieve these goals, AUPHA has confirmed a philosophy of diversity and inclusion, to be the REALLY BIG TENT for all of health administration and policy higher education - at the undergraduate, master, and doctoral levels. This includes our commitment to meet the needs of ALL of our members: programs that were founded in the 1940s and programs founded fall 2020; public and private universities and colleges; programs with abundant resources as well as programs that are resource-scarce; small and large programs; programs that offer traditional, residential study and programs designed for fully distance learning; and, both programs across the U.S. and across the world. 

I have also been thinking about what might hold us back from growth, from successfully meeting our strategic goals and objectives, and from achieving excellence in all that AUPHA does. 

For me, the barriers are anything that doesn’t value diversity and that doesn’t recognize and communicate inclusion and equity. Anything that precludes AUPHA being the REALLY BIG TENT. 

For example, a preoccupation with rankings, which in our field are subjective at best, some would say popularity contests at worst. To this end, I will ask the Board to consider and approve a statement that recognizes AUPHA as “rankings agnostic,” meaning that AUPHA will not participate in, recognize, or communicate rankings or other lists that subjectively compare AUPHA undergraduate or graduate programs, regardless of the source. 

Second, it is important to recognIze that we are a PROGRAM-LEVEL association, whose program members represent a diverse group of home schools and colleges: business, health professions/sciences, medicine, nursing, public administration, public policy, public health, and social work. These schools and colleges have other associations they belong to, and most have their own recognized accrediting organizations. For the agencies that  accredit at the school or college level, our member programs are often included in those accreditation findings, outcomes and decisions. Many of our program members are accredited not only at the university level (regional accreditation, recognized by the Higher Learning Commission), but also at the college/school level. To this end, I will ask the Board to consider making AUPHA “accreditation neutral” with regard to program and school/college level accreditation, opening up AUPHA Full Membership at the Graduate Level for almost twice as many programs as is currently the case. 

In the short-term, there are already plans underway to grow AUPHA membership, actions that do not require Board approval or a vote by membership. These tactics include a new AUPHA-ACHE “practitioner collaborative,” an effort designed to communicate that our member programs’ executives-in-residence, practitioner faculty, adjunct faculty, and others who have formal faculty appointments, are entitled to fully participate in all that AUPHA has to offer; they are already members. The effort also includes communicating to ACHE members who may not already have relationships with our undergraduate and graduate programs, but want to get more involved in teaching and mentoring, the opportunity to join AUPHA as individual members. 

A second tactic is an intentional campaign this fall and into the winter to increase AUPHA membership among international healthcare management and health policy academic programs. The AUPHA team is working closely with the Global Health Leadership Committee of the Board, and with our Global Health Management Faculty Forum, on this international membership drive. AUPHA membership for academic programs outside of North America is extremely affordable, and dues for programs in developing countries is nearly as affordable as an AUPHA individual membership. 

Stop and think about the extent and quality of what’s been shared among our AUPHA community since the beginning of the COVID pandemic in the U.S. earlier this year. So many programs and individuals contributing to the value of AUPHA, sharing challenges and creative solutions, proposing innovative approaches and methods, and supporting and nurturing one another. We are truly better together! We have an even more promising future as a BIGGER and BIGGER TENT. 

If you have ideas about expanding our tent, growing our community, making AUPHA even more diverse, inclusive and equitable, please reach out and share your ideas with me at dgentry@aupha.org

Warmly,

Dan

Daniel Gentry, PhD, MHA

President and CEO

 

 

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09-23-2020 12:28

Dan,

Well said. I appreciate the call to be agnostic in rankings and accreditation.  We are collectively educating the future leaders of our field and erecting barriers at this, or any stage, harms us all.

I also concur wholeheartedly with the statement that any action that makes us less diverse is harmful. I would encourage all of us to be 'radically inclusive' if I my borrow a phrase and continuously ask, who is not at our table, in our discussions, and teaching and learning in our programs. The answer to that question should be a call to seek them out and add their voices to all that we do.

As so many have said, the old normal wasn't working, why would we long to get back to normal? Thank you for your leadership and casting our eyes forward to a new horizon.

Best regards - Chris Calkins