Illinois Medicine

dean's message E XCELLENCE IN EDUCATION IS A CORE MISSION of the University of Illinois College of Medicine. I know that you value the college's reputation as one of the nation's top public universities. This has been evident in donor support of the University of Illinois' Brilliant Futures fundraising campaign, which concluded in December. I am enormously grateful to you, our donors, for your support and truly moved by the faith it shows in us. You have ensured that the Chicago, Peoria, Rockford and Urbana campuses will continue to excel in education, research and medical care. Nowhere is this more evident than in the three ambitious and vitally important initiatives the college has undertaken to enrich our students' education and experience for years to come. The first initiative is to enhance and modernize the pre-clinical medical education curriculum. This venture began last spring after a rigorous evaluation of our entire course set allowed us to build a road map to a reinvented curriculum that moves away from the traditional emphasis on classroom lecture to a focus on active learning—interactive, small-group sessions built around case studies and discussion. Because of the extraordinary effort of our course directors, faculty and administrative leadership across the four campuses, led by Saul Weiner, MD, the college has successfully implemented many key innovations and will have all curricular enhancements in place by the fall of 2012. The second initiative is to transform core space in the College of Medicine West Tower into a state-of-the-art learning center for our medical students. The West Tower is an historic and signature academic building, one we are committed to preserving. Unfortunately, however, the space needs upgrades to maintain an optimal educational environment. In addition to the obvious imperative to improve the feel of the building by addressing essential infrastructure problems, renovation and redesign are necessary to advance our new curricular goals, including small-group/independent work rooms and technology integration. Ultimately, modernizing the medical school facilities will ensure our ability to deliver an exceptional education, improve student performance and, in turn, strengthen the university's academic standing and overall competitiveness. The third initiative, the Sweeney Scholarship Program, is a coordinated effort to increase the amount of scholarship aid we provide to help offset the burden of student loans. All gifts are important. All students deserve our support. In addition to helping our students keep their focus on their studies rather than their debt, scholarships make a major impact on medical education by providing competitive recruitment packages to attract incoming, high-achieving students. You can read about some of our outstanding students and these exciting new initiatives in the two-part cover story of this issue of Illinois Medicine. I look forward to bringing you future news about the exciting endeavors across our four campuses, and I thank you again for your support of the college and our students. Dimitri T. Azar, MD, MBA Dean, University of Illinois College of Medicine B.A. Field Endowed Chair of Ophthalmologic Research Professor of Ophthalmology, Bioengineering and Pharmacology ILLINOIS MEDICINE | 1 PHOTO: ROBERTA DUPUIS-DEVLIN

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