Volume 1, Issue 1
September 15, 2004
In This Issue
- JAHF Grantmaking (September and June 2004)
- Hartford Kicks Off 75th Anniversary Year with Symposium at GSA
- Two New Hartford Trustees Elected
- Communications Tip: Better PowerPoint Presentations
1. JAHF Grantmaking (September 2004 and June 2004)
Earlier this month, the trustees of the JAHF approved the following major grants:
Hartford Doctoral Fellows in Geriatric Social Work: Program Expansion and Renewal
Gerontological Society of America, Washington, DC
Principal Investigators: James Lubben, DSW, MPH, and Linda Harootyan, MSW
Grant amount: $4,890,814 over five years
With Foundation support, the Gerontological Society of America will continue to recruit and prepare talented doctoral students for academic careers in geriatric social work. This grant will support high quality dissertation research and career development of up to 102 doctoral students. In addition to providing stipends, research training, and mentorship to the doctoral fellows, the grant will establish a pre-dissertation program to attract more social work doctoral students to gerontology. Finally, an alumni assembly for participants in Hartford's geriatric social work initiative will be funded in 2008.
Increasing Geriatrics Expertise for Surgical & Related Medical Specialties-Phase IV
American Geriatrics Society, Inc., New York, NY
Principal Investigators: Nancy Lundebjerg, MPH, and John Burton, MD
Grant amount: $4,344,076 over four years
With Foundation support, the American Geriatrics Society will use mutually reinforcing efforts to help the 10 surgically related fields of medicine to transform or "geriatricize" themselves through education, research, and leadership development. This will be accomplished through the co-funding of the council of specialty societies, small grants focusing on geriatric needs of each society, updates to the recently published research agenda, a national competition to enhance residency training for 16 specialist physicians, the Jahnigen career development awards, and funds to augment those from The Atlantic Philanthropies to explore geriatrics training for some 207,000 practicing physicians in these disciplines.
Centers of Excellence in Geriatric Medicine: Renewals
Six grants: $1,799,995 over three years
The Foundation renewed six grants to increase the number of physician faculty dedicated to geriatrics. These grants allow academic health centers to provide support for fellows and junior faculty developing their careers in academic geriatrics as well as efforts to attract academic physicians from other areas of medicine to geriatric issues. Awards of approximately $100,000 per year for three years were made to: Emory University, Atlanta, GA (Joseph Ouslander, MD); University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL (Richard Allman, MD); University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI (Patricia Blanchette, MD, MPH ); University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA (Neil Resnick, MD); University of Washington, Seattle, WA (Itamar Abrass, MD); and Yale University, New Haven, CT (Mary Tinetti, MD).
Hartford Geriatrics Health Outcomes Research Scholars
Foundation for Health in Aging, Inc., New York, NY
Principal Investigator: Nancy Lundebjerg, MPA
Grant amount: $1,762,871 over four years
Shortages of geriatrics faculty in all of the health professions remains one of the most important barriers to overcome and achieve the Foundation's mission of preparing the nation to better care for its older citizens. The Geriatrics Heath Outcomes Research Scholars award-open to researchers who study the health, functional, and well-being outcomes of older people as a function of models of health service delivery, health policy, or clinical quality improvement strategies-will protect research time and provide mentoring and networking opportunities for four scholars each year.
Improving Hospital Care for the Elderly through Hospitalist Intervention
Society of Hospital Medicine, Inc., Philadelphia, PA
Principal Investigator: Tina Budnitz, MPH
Grant amount: $409,025 over two years
The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) represents the nation's rapidly expanding number of hospitalists, approximately 10,000 physicians whose primary focus is the medical care of hospitalized patients. This grant-which supports geriatrics-focused work-includes an educational symposium at SHM's annual meeting, an e-newsletter highlighting advances in geriatric inpatient care, broad distribution of the CD-ROM "Clinical Toolbox for Geriatric Care," pilot demonstration projects, and modest support for SHM's leadership training program.
And in June 2004, the trustees of the JAHF approved one major grant:
National Center for Gerontological Social Work Education
Council on Social Work Education, Alexandria, VA
Principal Investigators: Julia Watkins, PhD, and Nancy Hooyman, PhD
Grant amount: $2,300,297 over three years
With Foundation support, the Council on Social Work Education will create a National Center for Gerontological Social Work Education to:
- Produce regional, multi-year curriculum institutes at 64 schools of social work;
- Conduct workshops for up to 250 faculty on infusing gerontological social work into the curriculum;
- Work with the accreditation board for social work education to stimulate wider adoption of the gerontological competencies in education programs;
- Promote geriatrics-related content into social work textbooks; and
- Make the National Gerontological Social Work Conference self-sustaining.
The National Center will serve as a resource for programs to add meaningful geriatric content to courses at schools of social work and to raise the field's capacity to prepare aging-savvy social workers.
2. Hartford Kicks Off 75th Anniversary with Symposium at GSA
As is customary at the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America, there will be a variety of important events sponsored by Hartford Foundation grantees when the meeting convenes November 19-22, 2004, in Washington, DC. At this year's conference, the Foundation is supporting a number of events to kick off the celebration of its 75th Anniversary. Plans include a symposium on Monday, November 22, from 3:15-6:30 PM, followed by a reception. The symposium, Improving Care of Older Adults through Research, Education and Training: Faculty Creation and Research-oriented Career Development, will feature an interdisciplinary panel discussion and highlights from several JAHF-supported researchers.
If there are any events for early part of 2005 that you would like mentioned in our next Report, please forward them to Jim O'Sullivan at james.osullivan@jhartfound.org
3. Two New Hartford Trustees Elected
John J. Curley and Margaret L. Wolff were elected in June 2004 to the Board of Trustees of The John A. Hartford Foundation.
Mr. Curley, Professor and Distinguished Professional-in-Residence in communications at the Pennsylvania State University, is a former president, chairman and CEO of Gannett Co., Inc. The first editor of USA Today, Mr. Curley also served as an editor of the Rochester, NY Times-Union, editor and publisher of the Courier-News in Bridgewater, NJ, and publisher of the News-Journal of Wilmington, DE. Mr. Curley graduated from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA, and has a master's degree from Columbia University.
Ms. Wolff, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and Case Western Reserve University Law School. Her law practice is concentrated in domestic and international transactional mergers and includes Alcoa, Inc., Cooper Industries, Inc., DaimlerChrysler AG, Kelda Group PLC, Lindt & Sprungli AG, The May Department Stores Company, and Wolverine Tube, Inc.
4. Communications Tip: Better PowerPoint Presentations
For better or worse, PowerPoint presentations are a critical part of most professionals' communications arsenal. Too often, however, we treat PowerPoint as a visual report, with scads of bullets and text-heavy slides. Andy Goodman, a leading communications specialist in Los Angeles, recently published a helpful guide to better PowerPoint presentations in his newsletter, Free Range Thinking. Click here for a .pdf of this issue, titled "PowerPoint Corrupts." While you're at it, you can also subscribe to his newsletter, which is free.
Copyright 2004 The John A. Hartford Foundation |
