Vassar Quarterly - Fall/Winter 2019 - 61

Vassar News

Vassar and Columbia Partner for Dual
Bachelor's/Master's in Public Health

From top: Bennett Fort '23 / Karl Rabe

Vassar College has forged a partnership with Columbia University Mailman
School of Public Health that will enable Vassar students to earn a master's degree
in public health a year after they graduate from Vassar.
Starting this fall, juniors at Vassar had the opportunity to begin the application process and take courses that will help lead them to acceptance into the
Columbia Mailman-Vassar partnership. Those accepted into the program (about
five students in the first year) will spend the summer participating in a hands-on
internship, and they will take classes at Columbia Mailman School in the first
semester of their senior year.
After they graduate from Vassar, the students will spend the following year at
Columbia Mailman completing course requirements for their Master's in Public
Health. They will receive their degrees upon completion of their master's thesis.
The groundwork for the partnership was laid by Vassar President Elizabeth
Bradley and Linda P. Fried, Dean of Columbia Mailman. Bradley, who earned her
PhD in Health Economics and Public Health from Yale University and formerly
served as a hospital administrator at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston,
called the program "a perfect fit" for both institutions.
Dean Fried said, "Public health presents a world of opportunities to research
and advance new knowledge and develop solutions to today's most complex
health challenges. We are passionate about our role in educating the next
generation of public-health leaders, and we are very excited by the chance to
welcome Vassar's talented students to our classrooms."
Vassar and Columbia Mailman hosted a symposium on the Vassar campus in
September; it offered Vassar students the opportunity to learn about Columbia
Mailman's curriculum and programs and to draw attention to the multidisciplinary nature of research in public health and the value of a liberal arts education as preparation for work in public health. -Larry Hertz

From left to right, Julie Kornfeld, Vice Dean, and Linda Fried, Dean of Columbia University's
Mailman School of Public Health; Vassar President Elizabeth Bradley; and David J. Esteban,
Chair of the Science, Technology, and Society Department at Vassar College, a coordinator
of the new partnership and the principal organizer of the public-health symposium.

During the on-campus Climate Strike, the prevailing sentiment was:
There is no Plan B for Earth.

Vassar Students Join
Global Climate Strike,
Calling for Urgent Action
On Friday, September 20, millions of people from all over
the world took to the streets to protest political inaction on
climate change. Rallies took place in over 150 countries and
on all seven continents, collectively forming what some have
described as the biggest global climate protest in history. The
Vassar community joined in this passionate call for change
with a Climate Strike rally that drew nearly 500 people.
One organizer of the on-campus Climate Strike, Clara
Layzer '20, said the release of the 2018 United Nations
Climate Change Annual Report, which declared that
catastrophic change would occur by 2030 if greenhouse
gas emissions are not reduced by 45 percent worldwide
by that year, has acted as a galvanizing force in climate
activism. "If we only have 11 years to reverse course," she
said, "the time to act is now."
Compelled by this sense of urgency, members of the
Vassar community, joined by members of the greater Poughkeepsie area, assembled on the Chapel lawn for the daylong
strike. Local politicians, student organizers, and religious
leaders spoke of the need to swiftly combat climate change.
Some speakers called on politicians to "listen to the
scientists," evoking the words of Greta Thunberg, the
16-year-old Swedish activist who has become the de facto
face of the Climate Strike; others suggested everyday
changes that individuals can make to reduce their carbon
footprint, such as limiting the use of plastics and reducing
meat consumption. Those in attendance also led a
procession down Raymond Avenue and staged a "die-in"
outside of Main Building to represent the mass extinctions
that rapidly rising global temperatures could bring about.
But more than anything, speakers and attendees alike
stressed the futility of despair. Climate change, they said,
would not be solved by apathy. -Sam Cibula '20

VA S S A R Q U A R T E R LY

Vassar Quarterly - Fall/Winter 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vassar Quarterly - Fall/Winter 2019