2014-2015 Innovations Magazine

i nnovations • 4 Rosebud Foster, Ed.D., who served as special assistant to my office and as deputy director of the College of Osteopathic Medicine’s AHEC Program, was a uniquely skilled and intellectually brilliant woman of incredible humanity and personal capabilities. She also played a major role in the construct of NSU’s Health Professions Division. I first met Dr. Foster, who passed away on July 20, in the early 1980s during a time when she was serving as the pioneer academician and administrative leader charged with establishing a series of programs at Florida International University in Miami, including its nursing pro- gram. I happened to be working in public service as a member of the Florida House of Representatives at the time, and she came to me be- cause my jurisdiction was health issues. Working with my legislative colleagues, we supported the establish- ment of a nursing program at FIU. Several years later, Dr. Foster and I got to know each other better when I came to work at Southeastern University of the Health Sciences. At the time, Dr. Foster was serving as a consultant in our AHEC Program relative to her previous service as a nurse professional and FIU educator and administrator. Although she remained a full-time FIU administrator, the university’s leadership allowed her to spend a portion of her workweek with us in the AHEC Program to address the needs of rural and underserved areas of interest to the Florida Legislature. As the years progressed, she became more involved with us due to her interests. In the late 1990s, when I became executive vice chancellor and provost of NSU’s Health Professions Division, I asked Dr. Foster to join us full-time as she was already contemplating her retirement from FIU. In 2001, this became a reality, with Dr. Foster serving as an aca- demic and informational diplomat for the Health Professions Division due to the national recognition she had achieved as an individual who understood health care disparities that existed in minority and under- served areas. Throughout her distinguished career, she sat on a num- ber of presidential commissions and served as a respected information source for the executive offices of various Florida governors because they trusted her wealth of knowledge, which was not anecdotal. It was always supported with well-documented facts as well as a lifetime of experience in dealing with the delivery of—and addressing the dispar- ities that existed within—health care. Dr. Foster was a multifaceted individual who worked closely with Dr. Steven Zucker and others on our hugely successful tobacco cessation initiatives. She also taught in our Master of Public Health Program from its inception and served as a pillar of strength to coordinate, along with Dr. Cyril Blavo, the ascension of the program to the esteemed and ac- credited entity it is today. Additionally, she served as my office’s special assistant in acting as the chairperson for the pro-forma committee that was established to provide information relative to the viability of creat- ing a nursing program at the Health Professions Division. Because of her well-regarded reputation with the nursing profession and other health care professionals, she assembled a wonderful team of individuals that provided us with fact-based information related to the marketplace conditions and the resultant needs of the nursing pro- fessional community in the state of Florida. The efforts of Dr. Foster and her pro-forma committee would soon lead to the successful cre- ation of our nursing program, which would eventually evolve into the College of Nursing. Dr. Foster was an incredibly valuable asset to the Health Profes- sions Division and my office. She will be sorely missed not only per- sonally to me as a person who always displayed her kindness, guidance, and abilities, but by the individuals who received the advice and advocacy of a very competent health care professional and thoughtful human being. FROM THE HpD cHANcEllOR REMEMBERING AND HONORING DR. ROSEBUD FOSTER a unique, brilliant, and kind humanitarian, who was a strong advocate for the underserved Frederick Lippman, R.Ph., Ed.D.