A memorial service has been set for Health Science Center employee Juanita Sherfield, who passed away in April. Meanwhile, the University Police Department is taking a leading role in addressing campus safety, and Gregory Anstead, M.D., Ph.D, assistant professor in the department of medicine’s infectious disease division, will give a lecture on the bubonic plague to kick off the library’s new exhibit on pandemics.
Memorial services set for Juanita Sherfield A campus memorial service has been set for Juanita Washington Sherfield, who worked in the department of medicine as academic coordinator for the Master’s of Science in Clinical Investigation (M.S.C.I.) degree program. The service, open to Health Science Center faculty, staff and students, will be held at 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 10, in the Peveto Chapel at University Hospital.
Sherfield, 45, died on April 16 in San Antonio. “She was always at work early and was very dedicated in supporting her faculty members and students,” said one of her coworkers, Susan Stappenbeck, project coordinator for the department of medicine’s General Clinical Research Center (G.C.R.C.).
“Juanita brought a sense of joy and spirituality to the G.C.R.C. and the M.S.C.I. program, and we will miss her,” said her supervisor, Michael Lichtenstein, M.D., professor of medicine, program director of the General Clinical Research Center and director of the M.S.C.I. program.
Funeral services for Sherfield were held April 28 at Galilee Baptist Church in Houston. She was buried at Houston Memorial Gardens, 2426 Cullen Blvd., in Pearland.
Anyone interested in sending
condolences to the family may do so through the Houston Chronicle.
Police and safety officers meet at Health Science Center to discuss campus safetySecurity was higher than usual on campus last week because the Health Science Center University Police Department hosted two seminars on campus safety, including one for police chiefs from the 15 University of Texas System universities to review procedures dealing with campus emergencies.
During the same week, university police also hosted more than 30 police chiefs or their representatives, safety officers and public information officers from local universities and the Health Science Center’s Laredo Campus Extension and Regional Academic Health Center to hone their skills in emergency command post operation. Several out-of-state police chiefs also attended.
U.T. System conference
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| University Police Chief Robert Bratten hosted the two campus safety conferences. | |
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Health Science Center Police Chief Robert Bratten scheduled the conference for U.T. System police departments on April 26 in response to the recent shootings at Virginia Tech. The conference helped police commanders and other university system staff focus on how to handle unexpected emergencies including severe weather, fires, floods and campus shootings.
“It was very apparent from the onset of the meeting that all U.T. component police departments are very well positioned to respond to almost any campus emergency,” Bratten said. “However, we all shared concerns regarding communication with students, faculty and staff, and spent considerable amount of time addressing this issue,” he said.
“We also discussed communications between police agencies and had an effective cross-feed between components that emphasized best practices among us,” Chief Bratten said. “Each component brought good methods of internal emergency communications for their campuses that we all learned from. It was also an outstanding forum for all the chiefs to exchange protocol, training methods and programs for both commissioned and noncommissioned personnel.”
Seminar for local universitiesThe three-day seminar for local universities held April 24-26 was provided free of charge through the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, a 1,700-member organization of which Chief Bratten serves as an elected member of the board. The Health Science Center’s Capt. Ronald Davidson was one of four instructors leading the seminar.
Chief Bratten said that the Health Science Center Police Department and other university departments have had emergency response plans in place to deal with a variety of situations for many years. They are regularly reviewed and updated, and have proven to be effective during actual emergencies in the Medical Center area, such as the damage caused by severe weather to the cooling towers. “We have proven repeatedly that the University Police Department and various other university departments can work together to solve mutual problems,” Chief Bratten said.
He added that although the Health Science Center’s procedures on the whole are excellent, the exercises helped identify a few areas that could be improved and are being addressed.
Lecture, library exhibit focus on pandemics past and presentOn Tuesday, May 8, from noon to 1 p.m., the Friends of the P.I. Nixon Medical Historical Library will host a presentation by Gregory Anstead, M.D., Ph.D., on the bubonic plague. Dr. Anstead is assistant professor in the department of medicine’s infectious disease division.
The event is free and open to the public. It will be held in the Howe Conference Room on the 5th floor of the library. Everyone is invited to attend and may bring lunch to eat during the lecture.
Library exhibitThe presentation is being held in conjunction with a new library exhibit on ancient, modern and re-emerging pandemics. The exhibit opens May 1 in the lecture hall foyer.
The library display traces the spread of the Black Death from Central Asia across Europe and into North America. The first mention of a relationship between rats and plague appeared 4,000 years ago in Babylonian accounts, and ever since, this infectious disease has continued to inspire fear.
Also featured are other pandemics that threaten to compromise our health and security, including AIDS, cholera and avian flu.
For more information on the exhibit and lecture, please contact
Pennie Borchers at 210-567-2469.
