Dear Colleagues,
We are very pleased to jointly present this year’s Annual Report for our newly titled Office of Planetary Health and Global Engagement (PaGE). Our mission statement is the following: To advance human and environmental health through local and global knowledge and collaboration.
We are proud to highlight our shared achievements in international experiences, exchanges, programming, and impact. Our commitment to our students and faculty and renewed strategic planning around planetary health contributed to the school’s mission of “better health for all.” The restructuring process has brought us under the newly established Office of Impact led by Associate Dean Christine Rodriguez who has undertaken her leadership with intentionality and great enthusiasm. We are honored to work closely with Dr. Rodriguez as we envision a new chapter for PaGE – one that has been built with momentum in initiatives led by Dr. LaRon Nelson and Patricia Ryan-Krause, and is deeply rooted in the contributions of past deans and faculty whose global engagement laid the foundation for our work today.
Despite ongoing challenges in global health,
our faculty and our staff have shown resilience, flexibility in funding constraints, and dedication. We are grateful to our committee members for their guidance and input as we restructured, renamed, and developed a new mission for PaGE. We also offer special thanks to Drs. Zhao Ni, Michelle Telfer, Jennifer McIntosh, and Sandy Cayo who worked with us closely this past year and led transformational global health experiences for our students in China, Uganda, Japan, and Ghana.
You will read more about the key highlights from the year in the following pages, but we want to share a few themes that we leaned into this past year:
- Celebrating 10 years of Planetary Health
- Strengthening bidirectional exchanges with key global partners
- Amplifying our impact to develop global citizens and nurse leaders
As we reflect on the achievements of the past year, we are also reminded of the work that lies ahead as we implement our new mission and vision. These themes set the foundation for our strategic plan for the coming year, which will focus on the following areas: Innovation, Global Nursing, Technology, and Equity (“IGNITE”).
To kick off our strategic plan, we are pleased to share that we have launched a new international partners’ platform and website (“BRIDGE”) to enable multi-institutional collaborations between all our global partners. We are also launching several funding opportunities for all YSN students and faculty and planning several large events to include interdisciplinary approaches to planetary health.
We are grateful to our faculty, staff, students, donors, and partners, whose generosity and collaboration make our work possible. Thank you for your continued support and please do not hesitate to be in touch with your feedback and ideas.
Best wishes,
Office of Planetary Health & Global Engagement Team