Education and Academics Special Interest Group
Don Tyson and Don Carufel-Wert, co-chairs
The Education and Academics SIG has a goal to promote health care career choices among Mennonite youth at the high school and college level. Among the methods used toward this goal will be the following:
- Coordinating opportunities for shadowing healthcare professionals
- Providing activities at youth conventions, regional gatherings, and in coordination with Mennonite colleges.
- Supporting the departments, faculty, and students, of academic programs such as nursing, pre-med, pre-allied health professional, social work, etc. and assisting as a liaison among these groups
- Stimulating discussions on timely topics, e.g.-recruitment, ethics, choosing a career, issues unique to the discipline, contemporary teaching issues, being Mennonite/Christian in healthcare careers, etc.
In addition, this group seeks to support academicians, especially those who seek to live out their Anabaptist convictions in areas where there is not a high concentration of Mennonites. This may be accomplished through email lists or other communication platforms.
The group also seeks creative new methods of health education and intervention including producing opinion papers and/or study materials on topics important to the larger church community such as health care reform, healthy lifestyles, the obesity epidemic, and congregational level healthcare plans.
