Students, Faculty and Staff,

Once again, greetings. It’s been a trying week for many, and I hope things may be returning to some kind of normal for all of you.

In that spirit, I’d like to once again use this space to give some recognition to some amazing people and causes, because the month of March is actually important to our College for many reasons.

The two I want to focus on today are:

• March is Women’s History Month, and
• National Athletic Training Month

We have already started to celebrate both outstanding topics with a series of interviews, stories and social media posts that will run throughout March. For instance, we are partnering with our colleagues in the Active Women’s Health Initiative (https://www.uky.edu/chs/awhi) to provide historical facts and profiles of women who have — and still are — making a difference in the Health Professions. Read our profile of Jenny Dorich (https://www.uky.edu/chs/about/news/alumna-wins-new-investigator-research...), recent winner of a New Investigator Recognition Award. Or visit Instagram and meet Kristen Maynard (https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpki_8VOYCE/), a current student in Communication Sciences and Disorders who is graduating in May and earned recognition for her clinical rotation at Marshall Pediatric Therapy.

Or maybe you’ve seen our feature on Emalee, Johnson, MS, ATC, LAT, currently a UK Athletic Training fellow working with women’s tennis and cheer (https://www.uky.edu/chs/about/news/welcome-national-athletic-training-month). She can attest that with immersive, clinical experiences, state-of-the-art research facilities and fellowships that help pay for your education, there is no better place to study and practice the craft. We’ll also keep telling this story throughout the month.

Of course, I will emphasize again that we want to celebrate this kind of success and diversity every month of the year.

And I believe we can. Huge strides have been made in gender equity in the healthcare field, evidenced by our approximately 4 to 1 female to male student ratio in the College of Health Sciences.

It’s true that here in the College, there is no end to the wealth of great stories to be told.

Continue to stay well,

Scott