JOHNSON CITY – The Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) has approved East Tennessee State University's request to establish a College of Public Health.  With this move, the university will begin transitioning its current College of Public and Allied Health into two new colleges: the College of Public Health and the College of Clinical and Rehabilitative Health Sciences .  This process will begin immediately and will be completed by Dec. 16, 2007.

Dr. Randy Wykoff, the dean of the ETSU College of Public and Allied Health, will become Dean of the new College of Public Health.  An Interim Dean for the new College of Clinical and Rehabilitative Health Sciences will be named soon.

ETSU had already received the green light from the Tennessee Board of Regents and the Tennessee Higher Education Commission to establish the two new colleges.

“For years, it has been our goal to create an accredited school of public health,” said Dr. Wilsie Bishop, Vice President for Health Affairs and University Chief Operating Officer.  “We already have solid undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs in public health, microbiology, and environmental health, and these will serve as the foundation for this new College of Public Health.

“While the creation of two new colleges allows for the needed expansion of our programs, this split is also necessary for accreditation purposes.  In order for ETSU's public health school to be accredited, the degree programs offered within the college must prepare students for the core areas of public health, such as environmental health and epidemiology.  To achieve this, we felt it was necessary to have clear distinction between our public health programs, which address the needs of the community, and those in clinical and rehabilitative sciences that focus on the health of individual patients.”

The university's Master of Public Health (M.P.H.) program is accredited by CEPH, Bishop explained, and, over the next two years, ETSU will complete preparations to seek CEPH accreditation for the entire College of Public Health.

“Throughout this process, our M.P.H. students will continue to graduate from a CEPH-accredited program,” Bishop added.

“The presence of an accredited public health school will bring national recognition to our university,” said ETSU President Dr. Paul E. Stanton, Jr.  “With this distinction, our faculty will be able to compete for major extramural grants and funding opportunities to support their research in public health.  We are thrilled at the prospects.”

The College of Clinical and Rehabilitative Health Sciences (CCRHS) will be comprised of programs in radiography, cardiopulmonary science, speech-language pathology, audiology, dental hygiene, and physical therapy, as well as the ETSU Speech-Language and Hearing Clinic and the ETSU Dental Hygiene Clinic.  In addition to a number of undergraduate and graduate programs, the CCRHS offers doctoral programs in audiology and physical therapy.

Wykoff said there are some 40 accredited public health schools in the nation.  ETSU's new college will be the first CEPH-accredited school in Tennessee and one of only three in the Appalachian region.

“The creation of a public health school will enable our faculty and students to tackle some of the major health problems of this region,” said Wykoff, who added that the United Health Foundation has given Tennessee an unfavorable overall ranking of 47 th in the nation.

“If we can empower people to make behavior changes, lives can be saved.”

Wykoff said the main academic areas within the new College of Public Health will include biostatistics, community health, epidemiology, environmental health, health care administration, and health sciences, which include microbiology, anatomy, and physiology.

A recent economic impact study found that the ETSU College of Public Health would be a major economic thrust in the region and state, producing nearly $41.5 million annually for Tennessee by the end of its first decade, and creating as many as 377 new jobs that would generate $16.1 million in household income.