08-01-2021 Education - Flipbook - Page 1
A Special Advertising Section of Baltimore Sun Media Group | Sunday, August 1, 2021 1
EDUCATION
A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION OF BALTIMORE SUN MEDIA • SUNDAY, AUGUST 1, 2021
Salisbury University’s production of “Hair” was conducted virtually during the pandemic. Photo courtesy of Salisbury University.
Innovation in liberal arts
New opportunities with changing times
By E. Rose Scarff, Contributing Writer
W
hen the pandemic shut down
Salisbury University’s production
of “Hair” in the spring of 2020,
the question was “what are we
going to do in the fall?” With
his contacts in the theatre world, John Raley,
M.F.A., associate professor of theatre and dance
at Salisbury, was able to pull together a team
who could help figure out how to put on a live
production in a virtual world.
“We started working with StreamWeaver
software, which allows us control over other
computer systems,” says Raley, With actors in
dorm rooms or their apartments or back home
in another state, it involved layering many dif-
ferent technologies together to put on the show.
The next challenge was making sure the
internet connection between all these parts was
up to the job. “We set up a giant tech booth on
our black box theater,” says Raley, “and going
around to 10 different locations to get everything
networked together.” Several different services
and software were used to accomplish this.
The whole process was a huge learning experience for everyone involved. “It was a massive
challenge for us who hadn’t really worked in
those diverse fields before,” says Grayson Crosby,
a junior this fall in theatre design and production. “My job was mostly on the digital side of
things.” He was the assistant video designer for
the most recent show. He made sure all the lights
were working and that lighting was consistent
D
© 2021 Baltimore Sun Media
Above: Towson University's New Science Complex.
See article on page 6.
By Margit B. Weisgal, Contributing Writer
mbweisgal@gmail.com
Choosing a major
Gordon Gao, academic director of the AI Leadership for Healthcare Certificate program at the University of Maryland, aids a student. Photo courtesy of University of Maryland.
egree programs in health care provide
the education needed to play a critical
role in the health and well-being of
the population at large. New certification programs also lead the way to
address issues and provide solutions in health care
surrounding/addressing operations, infrastructure,
and efficiencies.
One such certification program uses artificial
intelligence (AI) to address complex issues surrounding health care. Housed at the University
of Maryland, College Park through the Robert
H. Smith School of Business, the AI Leadership
for Healthcare Certificate provides health care
managers, administrators and clinical professionals next-level skills to use AI to solve problems in
health care. This fully online program requires
no IT coding experience, making it attractive to
potential learners who worry they don’t possess
enough experience in AI for the certification.
The first course sequence began with a selected small cohort of learners. There are four consecutive courses in the program. Each four-week
course is composed of virtual, live sessions to be
held on Tuesdays. Course topics address health
financial management, health care operations and
patient engagement, health tech and informatics,
and leading AI transformation.
The academic director of the program is
advertise@baltsun.com
Ask Margit
Varied programs contribute to the health care landscape
Gordon Gao, Ph.D., M.B.A., director of the Health
Insights AI Lab, the co-director of the Center
for Health Information and Decision Systems
(CHIDS), and professor at the Smith School.
Co-directing the program is Christine Thompson,
Ed.D., executive director of executive education at
the Smith School.
According to Thompson, the benefit of the
program is its ability for the learners to harness AI
for the health care environment. “AI can improve
effectiveness of health care, prediction, and develop informatics, which all allow data driven decision making,” she says.
One of the learners in the program is Sonia
Malik, M.H.A., associate director of policy development at the American Hospital Association,
who sees the great need of upskilling in health
care. Gao agrees. “AI does not belong to just the
computer scientist anymore,” he says. “It belongs
to the health care professional who wants to leverage its power, and now is the time.”
Medical laboratory scientists are the “unsung
heroes” of the pandemic, as they are working
hard behind the scenes to analyze more than 100
million COVID-19 PCR tests since last March.
A PCR test stands for polymerase chain reaction test. This is a diagnostic test that determines
infection by analyzing a sample to see if it contains
genetic materials from the virus. The Medical
Laboratory Science (MLS) program at Salisbury
University’s college of health and human sciences
2 High-tech world
Master's programs
2 Learning by doing
Hands-on learning
3 Boundless
opportunities
Cybersecurity and
computer science
4 Supporting STEM
Developing STEM
teachers
4 Real-world problems
Technology is the key
5 No summer break
for research
Salisbury University
6 New Science Complex
Towson University
7 Heavy tech integration
Students no longer
need to wait
8 Real-world problems
Technology is the
key component
Education publishes five times a year
throughout all the shots. Then from a computer
in the tech booth he could actively design the
backgrounds and lights and effects for the show.
“I did anything that was a transition between
shots in the show,” says Crosby. “It was incredibly
challenging, but it was also very rewarding.” He
plans to work in theatre design and production
after graduation.
During this learning process the department
found that doing smaller productions worked
better. “We also had a faculty member who
started students doing voice over work,” says
Raley. That has evolved into doing radio plays on
a local public radio station.
Another kind of technology is on its way to
Liberal arts,
continued on page 7
Degree and certification
programs drive health care
By Emily Parks, Contributing Writer
INSIDE:
is leading the way to graduate these highly skilled
medical laboratory scientists.
Salisbury University is home to an MLS program that boasts a 100% pass rate on the national
certification exam for the profession. Led by
Diane Davis, Ph.D., M.Ed., professor and chair of
the school’s medical laboratory science program,
the program values its ability to prepare students
to thrive in their career.
“Our program prepares students for licensing and board exams and our high pass rate is
appealing to students,” she says. “We are proud of
our 100% placement rate upon graduation of our
students in graduate school or a clinical environment.”
She notes the career opportunities for the
graduates of the program are vast, with graduates going on to medical school or obtaining
their master’s degree in forensics, to working in
informatics, or going on to specialize in microbiology, infectious disease, blood banking, clinical
biochemistry, hematology, transfusion services,
immunology or clinical microbiology.
“The medical laboratory science profession
provides numerous opportunities for those interested in science and health care but are not interested in direct patient care,” she adds.
Hannah Martin of Baltimore, agrees. She
Degree and certification,
continued on page 8
Christopher J wrote and asked, “How to I
choose a major when I go to college?” Here is
what I told him.
Two men, now in their 30s, both went to
art school for their undergraduate degrees, and
both completed a Master of Fine Art. Where are
they now? You’d never guess. One is doing landscaping and designing gardens (That’s artistic,
right?); the other is a certified optician. At 17
years of age, they were sure they had chosen the
right major when they went to college.
Ten years after graduating from a college
with an undergraduate degree, many of us have
migrated to other professions, other jobs, a far
cry from what we intended to do or whom to
be when we were 17 or 18 years old. Consider
these vignettes:
• Jennifer majored in history, then spent a
year in law school (she hated it). She became a
television script writer for children’s programs,
afterschool specials, and also wrote several
books. She managed promotion for a non-profit
and eventually taught journalism at a couple of
local colleges.
• Makenna got a degree in broadcasting,
worked for less than a year at a local TV station,
and two years later owned a bar. She sold the bar
and went to work for a sales promotion agency, a
business she didn’t know existed. Through that,
she learned about the exhibition industry and
then consulted for years. Eventually, she wrote
for a newspaper and taught business classes at
the undergrad and graduate level.
• Aileen got a degree in elementary education and started out as a tutor. She floundered,
not really finding it satisfying, so she went back
to school for a certification in computer coding
and then worked steadily doing free-lance jobs
writing code.
Why did they make the choices they made?
It probably sounded like a good idea at the time,
but we’re influenced by our parents, our relatives, our friends. Rarely do we think about our
strengths and weaknesses, where we may already
find success. It’s only after we’ve left the world of
academia and started the job hunt that we can
actually try different jobs on for size. And, only
then, do we figure out that what appeared to be
a sound decision is, in reality, nothing like what
we imagined.
Internships have become de rigueur – a staple in a graduate’s first résumé. Too many internships don’t really give us an insider’s view of what
the job entails. You only get to get to be a gofer,
fetching coffee, filing or answering phones, so
you never get a taste of what the job or business
or industry is really like. You don’t always get the
opportunity to talk with the higher-ups, the ones
who have been doing the work for several years.
A few big problems exist. There are a lot of
Ask Margit, continued on page 7
