Annual Review 2011: Healthier New York

V. SUNY Oswego and a Healthier New York

Supporting The Power of SUNY’s ‘Six Big Ideas’


Wellness management: This undergraduate degree program is designed to prepare students to assume roles as wellness/health promotion professionals in private business and industries, community organizations, and health care facilities. Since the program‘s inception in fall 2000, 1,055 students have declared this major.

Chemistry• The new business-oriented track in the chemistry master's degree program is the first "PSM" in SUNY‘s new professional science master‘s program initiative. It will lead to careers in industry, particularly this region's health-related enterprises.

• SUNY Oswego developed its new health information technology and integrated health care systems certificate programs in collaboration with health care professionals and health industry businesses. The "Introduction to Medical Information Systems" course has been offered at the SUNY Oswego Metro Center.

• In collaboration with the School of Business, Oswego Metro Center staff in Syracuse conducted an electronic survey of 300 nursing home administrators to determine their needs for credit and not-for-credit education. The results of this survey will guide non-credit continuing development programming decisions related to gerontology and nursing home administration to serve community needs.

• To address a demonstrated community need, the Metro Center will be the venue for a non-credit course in medical Spanish, launched in fall 2011.

• In 2009, Oswego established a degree program in risk management and insurance — the first four-year program in the SUNY system to focus on a discipline that has increased in prominence and importance as the nation seeks solutions to health care issues. The Gordon A. Lenz Center for Finance, Insurance and Risk Management — established in 2010 in support of the degree program — is one of only a handful of college centers for this area of study.

• Engaged in groundbreaking diabetes research, Dr. Webe Kadima involves student researchers in a project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Diabetes research

• An interdisciplinary team of Oswego faculty is investigating the effects of lead on children's cardiovascular health. This ongoing study has measured adverse effects of lead at levels far below the threshold for harmful effects set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. With federal funding — $205,741 by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and supplemental funds of $96,895 from the American Recovery Reinvestment Act — our researchers continue to investigate the complex biochemical interplay that is causing the observed effects.

SUNY logo

Annual Review 2011