Supercourse Newsletter- 6 February 2006
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http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/
Dear Friends:
Schools of Global Health: There continues to be considerable in-
terest in the Global Health Schools. Many top quality universi-
ties from across the world have expressed an interest, most are
willing to support much, if not all of the program in the coun-
tries. The cost is small, as we would be recruiting the best
students, the teachers are already there as is the building and
facilities. The only external components would be the curricula
and the global help desk. Quite a few of you volunteered to help
select lectures from the Supercourse for the curricula, and to
serve on the help desk. The major problem is to build a business
plan so that is sustainable, without excluding any country be-
cause of cost. At this point if we started we potentially could
have more faculty and more students than all the schools of pub-
lic health in the world. Pretty cool stuff!!!
Socrates: Gil Omenn, the President of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, Ismail Serageldin Director of
the Library of Alexandria, Vint Cerf, father of the Internet,
joined Faina and I on the article that we sent to Science titled
Globalization of Science: A Scientific Supercourse. It was one
of the best articles I have been a part of, and a privilege for
Faina and I to work with them. If you would like the final draft
of the paper, please let me know. We received out standing com-
ments and ideas about the paper from you all.
Employ your time in improving yourself by other men�s writings,
so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
- Socrates
Teaching the Teacher: Hakan Yaman from Turkey wrote an idea that
was so brilliant, yet so simple. It is one of those ideas where
you hit you head and said�Gee, why didn�t I think of that. But
Hakan did. His logic was straight forward. We are giving our
faculty the lectures which is great. What about the 23 year old
teacher going into the class for the first time. S/he needs
something else. He reasoned that we needed a supercourse on
teaching methods, or a �how to teach� Supercourse. Few of us
were taught how to teach. We were pushed into the classroom, for
the first time, scared out of our minds, sweating profusely,
with trembling voices and hands. Having a good lecture would
certainly help from the supercourse, but also having lectures on
how to teach from some of the best experts in the world would
most definitely help. What if we could have a global chat room
for people teaching for the first time, or a global teaching
help desk. Hakan, I really wanted to thank you, it is a bril-
liant idea.
Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other profes-
sions. - Author Unknown
Avian Flu: We have been talking with William Ambusher at the
State Department concerning building training programs on Avian
Flu. It is most interest, and scary on how this flu can spread.
I had just finished reading the book: The Great Influenza: The
Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John Barry. It
is a very interesting book. He is writer who really knows his
epidemiology, the people in the book think like us. In general I
think epidemiologists are not the most exciting writers (includ-
ing myself). But Barry captures the tension of the times. We are
discussion as to how to build an Avian Flu supercourse starting
with China and then to Vietnam, and Turkey in the beginning.
China is a first target as Yang Ze is my Chinese brother and one
of my top friends. His classmate heads the Avian flu initiative.
We have already fantastic lectures from China already, and the
beginning of the Chinese Supercourse.
Lecture of the week
In the past several months, we have been fortunate to work with
Dr. Saida Karimova from Azerbaijan, who is completing her Heinz
fellowship in Pittsburgh. Dr. Karimova is helping the Super-
course team to develop and expand women�s health network. With
the help of Dr. Karimova, we recently received an outstanding
lecture from Michelle Holmes from Harvard University. �Energy
Balance and Cancer Survival� lecture, Donated to the Supercourse
by Dr. Holmes can be accessed at
http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec22441/001.htm
It gives many interesting perspectives on breast cancer and pre-
vention of mortality associated with breast cancer. We are look-
ing forward to receiving new lectures on women�s health! Thank
you!
Who are we? You might want to look to see a description of who
we are. As you will see we represent the United Nations of Su-
percourse: http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/assist/dev.htm
I would love to hear how you are doing, please write to me, Ron,
mailto:ronlaporte@aol.com
Best Regards
Ron, Faina, Soni Eugene, Mita, Nicholas, Jiaying, Saida, Gil,
Ismail, Vint, Julia, Rania, Francois, Ali, Socrates, Shai, Hakan