HUNTER COLLEGE ALUMNI NEWSLETTER

Urban Public Health | Nutrition & Food Science Program
School of Health Sciences
425 E. 25th Street
New York, NY 10010

January 1999

Looking Forward From The Past By ARLENE SPARK

Happy New Year to all Hunter College alumni who majored in Home Economics or Nutrition & Food Science. While the new year is always a time of both reflection and anticipation, it is even more so this year as we prepare for a new century and the next millennium. You are cordially invited to spend the next few moments as an armchair time-traveler. Let’s take a look forward from the past . . .

Hunter Then And Now
The roots of higher education for New York women can be traced to the founding of the Female Normal and High School in 1869. Almost a half century later, the name of the school was changed to the more familiar Hunter College. In 1920, the Home Economics Department in the Division of Education opened its doors to the first Home Economics majors. As many of you will recall, academically diverse home economics included nutrition as just one of its many disciplines. Not incidentally, 1920 was also the year women in the United States attained the right to vote. In 1966, the National Organization for Women (NOW) charter was signed, thus ushering in the modern women’s movement. That year, Hunter added the degree of Master of Science in Nutrition to its BS in Home Economics, once again illustrating how our evolution has been linked to the sociopolitical history of women in the US

The Home Economics Department became the Nutrition and Food Science (NFS) Program in the Hunter College School of Health Sciences in 1982, and moved to its present site at the Brookdale campus on East 25th Street. Nine years later, an Approved Preprofessional Practice Program (AP4) was added to the NFS curriculum. In 1998, the AP4 and the graduate program closed, which  freed the streamlined NFS to merge with  Community Health Education and Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences to become the new program in Urban Public Health (UPH).

Requirements for admission into NFS  were tightened in 1998, making nutrition one of the most selective majors at Hunter College. In order to be eligible to apply, prospective  majors must complete 60 credits, including courses in general chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, anatomy and physiology, microbiology, and introductory foods and nutrition. Of the students who meet these rigorous requirements, only those 35 with the highest GPAs will be accepted.
In addition to the much-coveted BS degree, we now also offer a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in Community Health Education, with the option of a specialization in public health nutrition.

In 1998, Soo-Kyung Lee, Ph.D., RD and Arlene Spark, Ed.D, RD, CSP, FADA were hired to join Professors Deborah Blocker, D.Sc., RD and Khursheed Navder, Ph.D., RD and Senior Laboratory Technician Nora Baker, MS to complete the new 5-member Hunter College nutrition team. Dr. Lee is a nutritional epidemiologist who specializes in community nutrition. Dr. Spark became the first NFS and Public Health Nutrition coordinator in the new UPH Program, taking over from Dr. Blocker who had been NFS director when nutrition was a freestanding program. The addition of these two faculty members not only strengthens our area, but also provides tangible evidence of Hunter’s continuing commitment to nutrition. The new team has applied for developmental accreditation for a Dietetic Internship Program that emphasizes community nutrition. In September 1999 we expect to welcome the first class of 12 interns. Admission to the program will be extremely competitive. Graduates are eligible to sit for the registration examination, and may continue on to receive the MPH degree.

Nutrition research and education is continuously evolving in order to maintain its relevance to a society that is at once more diversified and more connected than ever before. The new tracks in NFS (undergraduate) and Public Health Nutrition (graduate) and the integration of nutrition into the new UPH Program provide unprecedented opportunities for collaboration in all areas of the health sciences, and for innovation in urban health care systems.

Touch the Future
The program that prepared our alumni for a 20th century career is being redefined in order to train health and nutrition professionals for the 21st century. We urge you to become actively involved in our didactic and fieldwork activities, and in the policy-making bodies that guide our decision-making. We need your input as we redesign curricula to reflect the changing demographics of the metropolitan area and the revolution in communications, as well as current research in the nutrition and food science. Please take a few moments to complete the information card below, and join us in defining nutrition’s next generation.

Do you remember the Vivian Schulte Award? We are pleased to announce that Dr. Schulte, RD, ’38 will be serving on the Advisory Board for the proposed dietetic internship program.
 
Name _______________________________________________________________
           Hunter Degree___   Year ___         Hunter Degree_____  Year______
          Other degrees______  Credentials (RD, CDE, etc.) ________________
Address _____________________________________________________________
City, State, Zip _______________________________________________________
Phone___________________    Fax___________________   E-mail_______________
Employer_____________________________  Your title_______________________
Do we have permission to include you in an alumni directory? ____     May we mention you in a future newsletter?  _____

Let us know how you would like to be involved in defining nutrition’s next generation.

Please return to Dr. Arlene Spark, Nutrition & Food Science and Public Health Nutrition, Hunter College School of Health Sciences, 425 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010. Or e-mail your response to aspark@shiva.hunter.cuny.edu.

Thank you!