Y U R I J A D O T T E , M D , P H D STUDENT, D U L A PA C Q U I A O , E D D , R N , C T N , PROFESSOR, UMDNJ-SN, AND S H A R E S E P O R T E R , M P H , C H E S , P H D STUDENT
STUDYING CITY LIFE Yes, it’s complicated. Start by thinking socially, culturally, politically, economically, geographically, <strong>an</strong>d bio-environmentally. You c<strong>an</strong>’t pursue one line <strong>of</strong> re<strong>as</strong>oning without the others. With backgrounds, adv<strong>an</strong>ced degrees <strong>an</strong>d full-fledged careers already in public health, nursing, medicine, architecture, education, social work <strong>as</strong> well <strong>as</strong> administration, 60 doctoral students are capturing the essence <strong>of</strong> interdisciplinary education. What’s at stake is the health <strong>an</strong>d everyday life <strong>of</strong> the 222 million Americ<strong>an</strong>s who call a metropolit<strong>an</strong> area home. T hroughout the 2011-12 fall <strong>an</strong>d spring semesters, Yuri Jadotte, MD, took the CHEN bus traveling a loop <strong>of</strong> city streets between the <strong>University</strong> Heights campuses <strong>of</strong> UMDNJ-School <strong>of</strong> Nursing (SN), New Jersey Institute <strong>of</strong> Technology (NJIT) <strong>an</strong>d Rutgers-Newark. This PhD student laughs e<strong>as</strong>ily about how m<strong>an</strong>y miles he logged going from one school to <strong>an</strong>other <strong>an</strong>d how different the cultures are at each stop. Fellow student Sharese Porter, MPH, CHES, <strong>an</strong>d their pr<strong>of</strong>essor, Dula Pacquiao, EdD, RN, CTN, sit alongside Yuri at a conference room table <strong>an</strong>d nod in <strong>an</strong>imated agreement. “We are certainly a one-<strong>of</strong>-a kind program,” says Dula. (By the way, this is a program in which everyone, from full pr<strong>of</strong>essors on down to first-year students, is on a first name b<strong>as</strong>is, a fact <strong>of</strong> life that w<strong>as</strong> not only hard for Yuri <strong>as</strong> a new physici<strong>an</strong>, but that we also found difficult to do <strong>as</strong> editors who almost always refer to individuals <strong>as</strong> “Doctor” or by their l<strong>as</strong>t name in our copy. In this story, <strong>as</strong> you see, we bow to the Urb<strong>an</strong> Systems’ style.) A 4:14 p.m. CHEN bus departing from Rutgers could get Yuri to UMDNJ by 4:26 or to NJIT by 4:37 with one stop on this regular route taking him <strong>as</strong> far <strong>as</strong> the train station by 4:46. Cl<strong>as</strong>ses were all in the evening to accommodate his day-time work schedule <strong>an</strong>d typically, he’d be on that bus between 4 <strong>an</strong>d 5 p.m. <strong>an</strong>d later heading home between 8 <strong>an</strong>d 9 p.m. CHEN st<strong>an</strong>ds for Council for Higher Education in Newark, established back in 1971 to encourage collaborations among the four public institutions <strong>of</strong> higher education in Newark: UMDNJ, NJIT, Rutgers-Newark <strong>an</strong>d Essex County College. This unincorporated <strong>as</strong>sociation works well <strong>an</strong>d h<strong>as</strong> served <strong>as</strong> a force in the revitalization <strong>of</strong> the community bounded by Springfield Avenue/Market Street, Littleton Avenue, Or<strong>an</strong>ge Road <strong>an</strong>d Halsey Street. The CHEN institutions have a combined daytime population <strong>of</strong> almost 50,000 <strong>an</strong>d close to 35,000 <strong>of</strong> them are degree-seeking students like Yuri <strong>an</strong>d Sharese, a public health educator who is at the dissertation stage <strong>of</strong> her PhD journey. W O R D S B Y M A R Y A N N B R I N L E Y / P H O T O G R A P H S B Y J O H N E M E R S O N s p r i n g / s u m m e r 2 0 1 2 3 7
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