Dear Colleagues,

This note continues the series of notes that aim to orient new students, faculty, and staff on our School functions and operations, and perhaps also provide a refresher to our returning community members. This note will focus on how we communicate information.

The following are the primary mechanisms through which we communicate as a School:

  1. SPH Today. We send out SPH Today at 6 AM every weekday. This is a single, daily email that includes announcements and information relevant to our internal community—our students, faculty, and staff. While SPH Today includes what is happening on a given day, there is also a section called “Looking Ahead” that includes what is happening in the coming month and can help the community plan and look ahead. Simply put, if anyone reads only one email from the school, this should be it. If you are having any trouble with receiving SPH Today, please reach out to Meredith Brown, at mbrowna@bu.edu.
  2. SPH This Week. We send out a weekly SPH This Week at 9 AM on Sunday mornings to over 45,000 email subscribers from our community and colleagues outside of SPH. This newsletter features original coverage of SPH research and school news, as well as upcoming Public Health Conversations and media mentions. We also often include Dean’s Notes with my personal reflections on issues of importance to our community and beyond. If you have a publication to promote, or a story idea about something at SPH, please reach out to the Marketing and Communications team.
  3. SPH Calendar: All events and programs at the School are added to the SPH Calendar. In addition, the Office of the Dean manages an Outlook calendar that includes all Community Events and Dean’s Office programs. To add the sph@bu.edu calendar to your own Outlook calendar, open your Outlook calendar, click the three dots next to People’s Calendars, click Add Shared Calendar, search for sph@bu.edu, select “Public Health, School of”, and select open.
  4. Graduate Student Life and Career and Practicum. These are two weekly, School-wide email newsletters highlighting important information for all students.
  5. SPH Alumni & Friends. This quarterly newsletter is a digest of activities around SPH and goes to all alumni and friends of the School.
  6. Social media accounts. Our communications team runs a robust Instagram account (@busph) and LinkedIn page, regularly highlighting the work of the School, upcoming events, and our community. Our office of Graduate Student Life also runs an Instagram account with news of particular relevance for students. We are also on TikTok @BostonuSPH.
  7. The BU SPH website highlights our School events via our calendar and also archives all messages from SPH Today and SPH This Week. There are also dedicated information pages for Students and Faculty/Staff.

In addition to the above, we regularly host a suite of programs throughout the year that we encourage all community members to participate in. They are as follows:

  1. Public Health Conversations. These conversations convene scholars and practitioners from across the globe to discuss issues of consequence for health. Each program we host offers an opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to engage with our speakers during the Q&A session.
  2. Student Coffee Chats, Faculty Breakfasts, and Staff Breakfasts with the Dean. These are intended to be casual opportunities for conversation.
  3. School Assemblies for Staff and Faculty. Each month during the semester, we host a School Assembly for our Staff and Faculty, typically starting at 10 AM on a Tuesday, with breakfast provided. School Assemblies are posted to the School’s online and Outlook calendar a semester in advance. Assemblies include regular updates from School leadership, as well as a session during each meeting dedicated to learning about our colleagues and the work that they are doing toward our mission.

Finally, in terms of direct communication, members of the leadership team regularly communicate through notes to the community in SPH Today. A standalone email to our community, albeit rare, is normally the case when we must communicate a time-sensitive message.

Thank you all for participating in the life of the school. The goal of all these forms of communication is to be as effective as possible in communicating with a fairly large community. Thank you for engaging as you do.

Warmly,

Sandro

Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH
Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor
sgalea@bu.edu

 

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