March faculty and staff features

Portia Cole, Ph.D., assistant professor, School of Social Work
Cole has received an appointment to the Office of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. Cole will begin her term with the Center for the Advancement for Health - H. Jack Geiger Congressional Fellows Program and Kennedy’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee in July. The H. Jack Geiger Congressional Health Policy Fellows (CHPF) program provides congressional offices and/or committees with individuals with health policy expertise who can participate in national public policy decisions and discourse that can improve the health of racial and ethnic minority populations. At VCU, Cole teaches courses in health policy and human behavior and chairs the Improving Access to Care Committee of the VCU Center on Health Disparities.

Sterling Hundley, visiting professor, and Tyler Darden, adjunct professor, Communication Arts
Hundley and Darden each won prestigious Gold Medals in the annual Society of Illustrators competition. The awards were given for Hundley’s illustration for the back page of Virginia Living magazine. The work accompanied a short story, which Hundley wrote, about Edgar Cayce, the Virginia Beach clairvoyant. Darden was honored for art direction for the work. Hundley and Darden accepted their awards in New York on Feb. 23. The Society of Professional Illustrators competition is judged by a national jury and is considered one of the highest honors for illustrators in the United States. Hundley and Darden claimed one of just two Gold Medals awarded in the Editorial category.

Bonnie Newman Davis, associate professor, School of Mass Communications
Davis was selected for an Ethel Payne Fellowship by the National Association of Black Journalists. Named after the historic Chicago Defender correspondent, the fellowship provides NABJ members with the opportunity to do international reporting in Africa. Davis will travel to Accra, Ghana, to study the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. government corporation that has initiated a five-year, $547 million anti-poverty compact with the Republic of Ghana to improve the country’s agricultural productivity. Davis will travel to Ghana for research later in 2007.

Charles P. Cardwell Jr., Department of Health Administration
Cardwell, founding program director of what was once called VCU’s School of Hospital Administration, has been elected posthumously to the Modern Healthcare Hall of Fame. The honor is given to men and women who have made outstanding contributions to health care in the United States and around the world. Sponsored by Modern Healthcare magazine, the selections are made by industry judges. The hall is located at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia.