Genealogy of the Health Education Profession
Over the history of the health education profession, several universities have led the way in producing professional health educators. Undoubtedly, there are differences of opinion about which were most impressive in their production and in the quality of the professionals graduating from each of them. Likewise, there are differences of opinion about which have been best at sustaining prominence and which have surpassed some of the early leaders in seeding the profession with new practitioners and aspiring researchers. Would it be possible to produce a graphic depiction of the genealogy of our profession that reflects the patterns of production of major professional preparation programs?
Possibly one approach would be to encourage each program listed in the American Association for Health Education Directory of Health Education Programs in Higher Education to develop an historical time line. Ideally, this timeline would begin with the formal founding of the health education professional preparation program and trace its history to the present time. It would reflect the faculty members who have mentored aspiring professional health educators and the noteworthy practitioners and researchers developed by the program. The finished timeline could be used as desired by the program, but a copy could be sent to an agency or program willing to coordinate an effort to develop a comprehensive graphic depiction of the multiple time lines.
Within each program, a strategy could be selected and implemented to develop the time line for it. Maybe a class could do it. This approach was used at Texas Woman’s University to develop a historical time line of the health education profession that was displayed at a conference on graduate competencies that was held in the mid-1990s at the DFW Airport Hyatt Hotel. An alternative approach would be for a master-level graduate student to produce the time line as a professional paper project. This approach has been used to develop directories of graduates from selected programs.
The National Health Education Center would be a logical agency to coordinate development of a comprehensive graphic depiction of the genealogy of the health education profession. If the Center leadership decides it is not able or willing to take on this project, maybe the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing, one of the health education professional organizations, such as SOPHE of AAHE, a university-based professional preparation program or, possibly, HEDIR will be willing to do this.
Posted by William B. Cissell on December 5, 2008
Kelly House
rodneybbowden
donchaney
bethchaney
billcissell
karllarson
Jody Early
Joan Cowdery
I agree with Bill on the importance of maintaining our legacy. I disagree with him in that he wants to rely on various professional organizations. Our professional organizations (i.e., AAHE, SOPHE, ESG, NCHEC) are fine organizations, but all are overworked and understaffed. To rely on them to get things done mostly means waiting a long time. Things get done when INDIVIDUALS do it. What these organizations should be doing is finding out who’s doing what and providing them support (not necessarily money–publicity and moral support are great items). What we should have is some type of “Good Housekeeping Seal”–(maybe a “Good Health Education Seal”) given to individuals or groups who are doing things to advance the profession.
To give you an example, for DECADES we have talked about doing something about conducting interviews with some of our legends. Unfortunately there’s been more talk than action. However, there are individuals who are doing something to save our history. I believe Jim Eddy is working with his colleagues in UNC Greensboro in creating DVDs. That should be something that is highly touted by our profession.
Thanks for posting this Bill.
Mark,
Sometimes individuals get the job done, but there is a risk that individuals may not be good stewards of the finished product. Of course, indiviudals within agencies and organizations are often the key to the agency or organization being a good steward of the products.
Examples of a failure in good stewardship involve me. Along with Dr. John Allegrante, I produced several videotaped interviews with legends in our field in the video production studiio of Teachers.College, Columbia University in 1990. We had Dr. Betty Tevis Smith interview Dr. Helen Cleary, Dr. Allegrante interviewed Dr. Maran Hamburg, and I interviewed Dr. Don Johnson and Dr. Betty Tevis Smith. The original 3/4″ videotape was left with the director of media productions at Teachers College, Columbia University to make copies. When we checked on it a few months later, the director could not locate our original videotape and had made no copies of it.
In 1991, concurrent with the SOPHE Midyear Scientific Conference, Dr. Pete Cortese and I produced several videotaped interviews in the media production facilties of Cal State U Long Beach, where Pete was an assistant dean. Pete interviewed Dr. Edward “Ned” Johns, Dr. Marion Polack and Ruth Richards. Among those I interviewed were Pete, Paul Mico, Dr, Helen Ross, Dr “Rusty” Rosenstock, and Dr. Josephine Gaines. The original videotaped interviews were on 3/4″ videotapes, which I placed with the dierctor of the media center at Texas Woman’s university to make copies on 1/2″ videotapes. Some copies were made, but when a new director assumed authority over the TWU Media Center, he decided to discard all 3/4″ videotapes because he deemed them outmoded. He failed to check the ownership of the tapes discarded.
I still have a couple of copies of the interviews reproduced on 1/2″ videotapes. Currently, Dr. Anna Love, Assistant Professor, Texas Woman’s University, is supervising transfer of these to DVDs.
Also, I have a copy of a 3/4″ videotape with health education legends that was produced at the University of Kentucky by Dr. Joe Fred Sills and Dr. Carl Peter in the late 1970s. this is referred to as the “Legends Videotape”, Carl provided copies to several requesters for possibly two decades following the demise of the community health program within the School of Allied Health at the University of Kentucky. I do not know if he continues to do this.
Bill
Another videotaped interview as made at Columbia University. Dr. John Allegrante invertveiwed Dr. Bill Darity, first African-American dean of a school of public health and, probably, the first health educator to receive the Poindexter Award from APHS. I never recall receiving a copy of this videotape and have no idea if John still has a copy.