The Dean’s Acceleration Fund boosts public health practice, global health education and inclusive excellence initiatives.
The Dean’s Acceleration Fund gives the dean of the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health resources to capitalize on emerging opportunities with the potential to make an outsized impact locally and globally.
What can the Dean’s Acceleration Fund do?
By providing flexible funding that can be directed toward new opportunities to advance public health within and beyond the Gillings School, the Dean’s Acceleration Fund is supporting our contributions to the practice of public health, our global health education program and inclusive excellence within our community.
Practice. “Practice” means putting public health learning and knowledge to work through policies and programs that support vibrant communities and healthy people. With funding from the Dean’s Acceleration Fund, the Gillings School is establishing practice hubs across North Carolina where students and faculty work with communities to address local needs. These long-term partnerships can support significant improvements to health locally and develop strategies that can be applied in other communities around the world. Along with the Gillings School’s new Department of Public Health Leadership and Practice, these hubs are a key element of the School’s six-year plan to enhance the practice of public health.
Global Health. Our signature philosophy is that there is no difference between global health and public health. The Dean’s Acceleration Fund has enabled a review of our global health curriculum to further invest in this philosophy and ensure students in this concentration have the skills to advance the health and well-being of populations in diverse global settings — including the ability to develop, implement and evaluate public health programs and projects that are aligned with local culture, contexts and resources.
Inclusive Excellence. The inclusive excellence framework reflects a striving for excellence in higher education; seeks to infuse diversity into recruiting, admissions, hiring, curriculum, administrative structures and practice; and embraces newer forms of measuring excellence, emerging research on learning and brain functioning and more nuanced accountability structures. With support from the Dean’s Acceleration Fund, the inclusive excellence team is re-envisioning how to achieve inclusive excellence at the Gillings School.
Our School was founded to bring public health to people – in N.C. and beyond – and our faculty has experience doing just that. By providing the flexibility to channel that experience into high-priority areas, the Dean’s Acceleration fund can support continued leadership at the forefront of public health.
Contact email.sph@unc.edu for more information or visit go.unc.edu/Acceleration to contribute to the Dean’s Acceleration Fund.
