ROOTSTOWN, Ohio — Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy (NEOUCOM) has named Jay A. Gershen, vice chancellor of external affairs at the University of Colorado Denver, as its sixth president.
Dr. Gershen, who holds doctorate degrees in dental surgery and philosophy, will succeed Dr. Lois Nora on Jan. 15, 2010. Nora has been NEOUCOM president and medical school dean since 2002. She announced in mid-2008 that she would leave NEOUCOM at the end of her contract on Dec. 31.
“We are delighted that Dr. Gershen has accepted our offer to become NEOUCOM’s next president, and we look forward to his arrival on campus,” said Steven Schmidt, chairman of NEOUCOM’s trustee board, in a written statement.
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“I am confident that his passion for health sciences education combined with his experience developing a leading-edge health sciences campus makes him an ideal match for NEOUCOM,” said Schmidt, who is a director of surgical research at Summa Health System in Akron. “The board of trustees and the entire NEOUCOM community are looking forward to continued excellence and growth under his leadership.”
NEOUCOM’s trustee board approved Gershen as president of the medical and pharmacy college at a meeting this morning, announcing it to a university audience just after noon.
Gershen has served as the University of Colorado Denver’s point person for business development, community affairs and external relations, as well as holding positions on numerous business advisory boards in the Denver area, Colorado and nation. Before that, he was executive vice chancellor at the former University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (now the UC Denver Anschutz Medical Campus). He has been a professor in the UC Denver School of Dental Medicine since 1997.
Gershen received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo and doctorate in dental surgery from the University of Maryland. He did a clinical specialty in pediatric dentistry and earned a Ph.D. in education at the University of California, Los Angeles. At the same time, he was a postdoctoral scholar in child psychiatry at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute.
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In 1982, Gershen was awarded a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship, sponsored by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
“The opportunity to serve as NEOUCOM’s president is an exciting one, and I am truly honored to have been chosen for the role,” Gershen said in the NEOUCOM statement. “The university’s outstanding faculty and staff, inspired students, and dedicated and loyal alumni make it a unique institution, one that offers an exceptional resource to the region.”
Gershen acknowledged that he has big shoes to fill. “I anticipate working closely with NEOUCOM’s diverse constituencies to build upon its strengths and to capitalize on both the accomplishments and emerging opportunities the University has achieved under the extraordinary leadership of Dr. Nora.”
Nora has a medical degree, law degree and master’s in business administration — a rare combination. She leaves when NEOUCOM is growing. In mid-2008, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland signed into law a bill that added Cleveland State University to University of Akron and Kent State and Youngstown State universities, which feed students to the medical college. Nora also presided over the addition of pharmacy and graduate colleges to the university’s medical college, and helped launch the Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron.
“I’m absolutely delighted,” Nora said after the announcement of her successor. “He is a phenomenal candidate. He’s done amazing things. And the best predictor of future success is past success.” Nora plans to stay in her positions until Jan. 14, when she will begin a six-month sabbatical. Then, she said, she likely would return as a professor at the medical school.
While announcing her intentions to leave, Nora suggested splitting the jobs of college president and medical school dean. That’s what the trustees decided to do early this year, Schmidt said, looking for a president only. Gershen said his No. 2 priority is to find a dean of medicine for the university. His No. 1 priority is to update the university’s strategic plan, especially to include likely impacts from health care reforms and a state budget shortfall.
Created in 1973 to boost the number of family-practice physicians in the area, NEOUCOM accepts students out of high school and lets them start four years of medical school after as few as two years at feeder universities. Students graduate with bachelor’s of science and medical or pharmacy degrees.
