In a letter to UMass Medical School Chancellor Michael F. Collins, the interim chancellor of UMass Boston thanked the entire UMMS community for its distinct role in rising to the coronavirus health care challenge.
“On behalf of the 17,000 students and thousands of employees of UMass Boston, I write to express our collective gratitude for the extraordinary work your physicians, researchers, nurses, administrators and soon-to-be doctors graduating shortly are doing for the people of the commonwealth,” wrote Katherine Newman, PhD.
Dr. Newman is the inaugural system chancellor of academic programs, a position in the UMass President’s Office to which she will transition at the close of her interim term. In the new systemwide role, she will strategically align university teaching and research with commonwealth job creation and workforce development aspirations, according to UMass President Marty Meehan. Newman will also serve as senior vice president of academic affairs, student affairs and economic development for the UMass system.
Her letter to Chancellor Collins underscores the unique role UMass Medical School serves, along with the state’s three other medical schools, in training highly skilled professionals to care for the citizens of the commonwealth and the personal risks these trainees and professionals face.
“We recognize that you and your colleagues are on the leading edge of a terrible situation, that the health of your people (including their family members) is at risk as they work to take care of the rest of us,” wrote Newman. “No one is working harder or faces more personal consequences for doing their jobs than you do.
“Please convey my deepest appreciation to your staff and students. We would all be lost without you,” she concluded.
Read Newman’s full letter here.