HCOP Award

GW was named Distinguished Academic Partner for 2019 by NOVA Foundation for our Health Careers Opportunity Program (HCOP). Reamer Bushardt, professor and senior associate dean, accepted the award from Russ Ramsey, former chair of the GW Board of Trustees, at a dinner and awards ceremony Nov. 13 in Falls Church, Virginia. The honor recognized GW Health Sciences for its leadership in health professions education, commitment to living its social mission, and partnerships across the Commonwealth to advance statewide health workforce priorities. Attendees included leaders from across Virginia business, higher education, and government sectors, such as Virginia Gov. Ralph S. Northam and Senate Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw in the Virginia House of Delegates. During the event, Anne M. Kress was also honored as the incoming president of Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC). The strong collaboration between GW and NVCC was lauded as an exemplar of public-private partnerships that make a positive difference for students in Virginia. HCOP, supported through a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), provides an array of stipends, scholarships, mentoring, and career counseling to students from economically and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds who are interested in health careers. Besides Bushardt, who is the principal investigator on the HRSA grant, the HCOP team includes others from HS: Marcia Firmani, Catherine Golden, Blake Harrison, Joyce Maring, Carmen Session, Maranda Ward, and Maggie Zhu. Co-investigators also include Alison Hall (SMHS Research Workforce Development), GSEHD faculty Russ Korte, and Ellen Scully. Firmani is with the Department of Biomedical Laboratory Sciences (BLS); Golden, Harrison, Session, and Zhu are all with HS Administration; Maring is with the Department of Health, Human Function and Rehabilitation Sciences (HHFR); and Ward is with the Department of Clinical Research and Leadership (CRL).