Paul Mata and CSUSB alumni think about how many miles one ...

college newssocial & behavioral sciencesAll treated equallyThe national debate over how to deliveraffordable and adequate healthcare toAmericans is on the docket again as thenation approaches another presidentialelection. But a key part of the debate –and equally confounding – is who getsadequate healthcare. A $4 million grantfrom the National Institutes of Healthshould shed light on that issue.Awarded to Cal State San Bernardinolate last year, the money will create acenter to promote research and trainingon health inequities found among differingracial, economic and ethnic groupsin the United States.“The focus on health-disparity research,”said Cal State San BernardinoPresident Albert Karnig, “is particularlymeaningful to CSUSB’s two-county serviceregion, which is larger than 10 statesin area, contains more population than24 states, and is one of the most ethnicallydiverse in the nation. I’m delightedthat the grant will promote research thathas broad, national importance and alsomeaningful applications in our own region.”The five-year grant comes from theNIH-sponsored National Center on MinorityHealth and Health Disparities andis part of a “research infrastructure in minorityinstitutions,” or RIMI, program. It isdesigned to help minority-serving universitiesbuild innovative research programsaimed at reducing health inequalities.The program will provide students andfaculty with training for careers in healthdisparities research, and will developand enhance Cal State San Bernardino’spresence as a research institution, saidSybil Carrère, an associate professor ofpsychology and director of the university’sInstitute for Child Development andFamily Relations. Carrère and Bryan Haddock,an associate professor of kinesiologyin the College of Natural Sciences andan expert in childhood obesity, will serveStewardsof the pastIn one sense, the $340,000 gift from theArchaeological Survey Foundation to theanthropology department at Cal StateSan Bernardino is one way of investing inthe future to preserve the past.The money establishes an endowmentthat will provide funding for archaeologicalfield schools and scholarships forCSUSB anthropology students, said PeterRobertshaw, chair of the university’s anthropologydepartment.The field school’s aim is to train studentsto enter the growing field of culturalresource management, which is whereprofessional archaeology is going. Thebest description of the field, said Robertshaw,is to think of it as “stewardshipof the past.” Cultural resource management,he explained, requires knowledgeof local, state and federal historic preservationand environmental laws and regulations,as well as those related to NativeAmerican tribes. It involves analysis of developmentprojects’ impacts on knownand potential archaeological and historicalsites and also helps in designing andexecuting mitigation plans to reduce theimpacts of such building projects. ●8 | summer 2008