May 2017 BENEDICTINE UNIVERSITY 1 Benedictine University • May 2017 Jason Ferguson came to Benedictine University because he wanted more than a career he wanted to make an impact. Since graduating in 2000 with a Bachelor of Science in Health Science and a Master of Public Health in 2003, the product of Chicago’s West Side has surpassed this goal as an emergency management professional, serving people living with HIV/AIDS, conducting prostate cancer research and promoting safe and healthy communities on college campuses and throughout Chicago. In his most recent venture as deputy director of Training and Exercise for the nonprofit Team Rubicon, Ferguson helps prepare veterans and volunteers across the country to respond and assist in medical and recovery efforts immediately following natural disasters. Since Team Rubicon was founded by two Marines following the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake, the organization has conducted more than 100 disaster response operations. Some recent domestic responses include providing aid in the aftermath of the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires, Hurricane Matthew and the Flint, Mich., water crisis. The organization has also deployed to disaster zones around the globe, such as Sierra Leone to combat the Ebola epidemic, the refugee crisis in Greece and the 2015 Nepal earthquake. “To date, I am most proud of the work I have done while at Team Rubicon to lead the development of a fully functioning, robust and nationally reaching training program,” Ferguson said. “In less than four years, my team and I have established a best-in-class training and exercise program, which continues to develop and grow in scope and capacity.” Ferguson came to Benedictine as a recipient of the Hughes Scholarship program and spent his freshman and sophomore years as part of a small group of students that studied together and took the same classes. “That program was really helpful in facilitating my transition from high school to college life, both from an academic and community perspective,” Ferguson recalled. “I learned pretty quickly that I was comfortable assuming positions of leadership and serving as an advocate for others.” At Benedictine, Ferguson did not shy away from involving himself in a number of student organizations. He joined the Student Senate and was active in the Gospel Choir, the Black Student Union and the Pan-African Student Youth Movement. In his spare time, he played intramural basketball in the Rice Center. Training real-life heroes Training real-life heroes Jason Ferguson, M.P.H.’03, C00, Health Science, prepares veterans and volunteers to respond to natural disasters
Transcript
May 2017
BENED I C T I NE U N I VERS I TY
BENED I C T I NE U N I VERS I TY O N L I N E
1 Benedictine University • May 2017
Jason Ferguson came to Benedictine University because he wanted more than a career – he wanted to make an impact.
Since graduating in 2000 with a Bachelor of Science in Health Science and a Master of Public Health in 2003, the product of Chicago’s West Side has surpassed this goal as an emergency management professional, serving people living with HIV/AIDS, conducting prostate cancer research and promoting safe and healthy communities on college campuses and throughout Chicago.
In his most recent venture as deputy director of Training and Exercise for the nonprofit Team Rubicon, Ferguson helps prepare veterans and volunteers across the country to respond and assist in medical and recovery efforts immediately following natural disasters.
Since Team Rubicon was founded by two Marines following the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake, the organization has conducted more than 100 disaster response operations. Some recent domestic responses include providing aid in the aftermath of the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires, Hurricane Matthew and the Flint, Mich., water crisis.
The organization has also deployed to disaster zones around the globe, such as Sierra Leone to combat the Ebola epidemic, the refugee crisis in Greece and the 2015 Nepal earthquake.
“To date, I am most proud of the work I have done while at Team Rubicon to lead the development of a fully functioning, robust and nationally reaching training
program,” Ferguson said. “In less than four years, my team and I have established
a best-in-class training and exercise program, which continues to
develop and grow in scope and capacity.”
Ferguson came to Benedictine as a recipient of the Hughes Scholarship program and spent his freshman and sophomore years as part of a small group of students that studied together and took the same classes.
“That program was really helpful in facilitating my
transition from high school to college life, both from
an academic and community perspective,” Ferguson recalled.
“I learned pretty quickly that I was comfortable assuming positions of leadership
and serving as an advocate for others.”
At Benedictine, Ferguson did not shy away from involving himself in a number of student organizations. He joined the Student Senate and was active in the Gospel Choir, the Black Student Union and the Pan-African Student Youth Movement. In his spare time, he played intramural basketball in the Rice Center.
Training real-life heroesTraining real-life heroesJason Ferguson, M.P.H.’03, C00, Health Science, prepares veterans and volunteers to respond to natural disasters
2 Benedictine University • May 2017
“The small campus community at BenU was a safe haven that provided a growth-rich environment for getting involved, learning more about myself within the context of a diverse community and establishing a palette for actively influencing community wellness,” Ferguson said.
During his junior and senior years, he enhanced his leadership skills as a resident assistant. In his last year as an undergraduate, he served as an intern at Loyola University Medical Center, where he supported two prostate cancer research projects and received a job offer from his internship supervisor.
In his first job, he enrolled research study participants and managed files for Institutional Review Board reporting. During this time, he became a certified phlebotomist and collected, processed and stored biological specimens.
After a year of working in research, Ferguson decided to pursue a Master of Public Health (M.P.H.) and sought out Benedictine’s program to help expand his career opportunities.
“Benedictine has a stellar program with a schedule that supports working adults, so it was at the top of my list,” Ferguson said. “I also learned during this time that the University was seeking to hire a few graduate assistants to manage teams of resident assistants (RAs). Given that I had already served as an RA and had established great working relationships with the Student Life staff, I saw the opportunity as the perfect alignment of stars and dropped my name in the hat. I was accepted in the program and also hired as a resident hall director, which allowed me to study, work and live on campus.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed the M.P.H. program,” Ferguson added. “I attended classes led by professors who worked in their respective fields of study, so their knowledge was not only theoretical but also experience-based. This sharpened my ability to work alongside professionals from diverse backgrounds with varying levels of experience.”
After graduating from the M.P.H. program, Ferguson worked as a case manager for Southside AIDS Venture, providing medication, transportation and housing to support people living with HIV/AIDS in Pittsylvania County, Va. He eventually returned to Chicago and worked as a coordinator of Residence Life at Columbia College Chicago and coordinator of Student Relations. He then became an emergency response coordinator for the Cook County Department of Public Health, working alongside 28 municipalities in the southwest region of suburban Cook County to develop, test and update emergency operations plans.
Since joining Team Rubicon, Ferguson has helped dozens of veterans develop new skills and regain a sense of purpose as they reintegrate into civilian life. To date, the organization has more than 52,000 members (roughly 70 percent military veterans and 30 percent first responders and civilian volunteers) and is growing by an average of 200 new registrations every week.
Ferguson has also been deployed to disaster areas to support operations on the ground following a series of tornadoes that ripped through Blanchard, Okla., in 2015, flooding in Lyons and Longmont, Colo., and after Typhoon Haiyan smashed into the Philippines in 2013.
This year, Benedictine recognized his exceptional work by bestowing him with a “Rising Star” award, which recognizes alumni who have made a considerable impact in their respective career fields in a short amount of time.
Outside of his work and family life as a husband and father of five children, Ferguson enjoys creating music and performing. He recently released a hip-hop/soul album, “Tribune.” The album “celebrates the good of Chicago and offers a positive perspective in contrast to seemingly endless negative media attention,” he said.
Do you know an alumnus whose life and/or career would make a good feature in an upcoming issue of Voices? Email [email protected].
As part of Benedictine’s Center for Civic Leadership (CCL) speaker series, New York Times foreign correspondent Rukmini Callimachi took students and community members to the front lines of the war against the Islamic State group (ISIS), revealing exclusive developments about the terrorist organization to the crowd of 300 gathered on March 9 in the University’s Goodwin Hall Auditorium.
Only hours coming off a red-eye flight from Cairo, Callimachi expounded on new details gleaned from her embedded reporting in Mosul, one of the last remaining ISIS strongholds in Iraq, and an area that has faced stiff resistance since the launch of a U.S.-backed Iraqi offensive last October.
“Where do you think ISIS gets their weapons?” Callimachi asked. “They grabbed some of their hardware from Mosul in 2014 when the city fell and when they overpowered the Iraqi Army and raided their armory. They got thousands of armored personnel carriers and AK-47s, but most of that equipment has been destroyed in airstrikes.
“Here’s the shocking thing,” Callimachi added. “Over the past three years, ISIS has become so sophisticated in how they fight that in some ways they are starting to resemble a conventional army. And one of the things they are doing is they are now manufacturing many of their own weapons.”
Callimachi explained other tactics that have helped prolong ISIS’s occupation of Mosul, showing the audience pictures of commercially sold drones used to deploy small bombs, leaflets warning people not to collaborate with Iraqi forces and a network of tunnels the group has constructed to hide from military surveillance.
In her presentation, Callimachi showed the audience images of recovered ISIS documents supporting the existence of training camps for new recruits and other more advanced services it has organized to support its population, such as a police force and court system.
“We are used to thinking of ISIS as the ultimate boogeyman,” Callimachi said. “There is no denying their brutality and the horrific things they have done,
but what we miss when we only focus on their atrocities is the very real support they have garnered from people in Iraq and Syria, and to our peril, from their followers in the west.
“We, not just America – but really the entire world – underestimated the Islamic State,” she said.
Callimachi, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and a former Daily Herald reporter from 2001-2003, was invited to Benedictine as part of the University’s CCL lecture series. Every year the CCL invites prominent figures to speak on topics of public importance and this year has focused on the issue of terrorism and international and national security.
On April 27, the CCL brought former CIA officer and noted terrorism analyst Robert “Bob” Baer to continue the discussion as part of the CCL’s Youth Government Day activities.
A 21-year CIA veteran and recipient of the Career Intelligence Medal, Baer is one of the most accomplished agents in CIA history serving everywhere from Iraq to New Delhi. He is also the author of four The New York Times bestsellers including
“See No Evil,” the basis for the acclaimed film “Syriana.”
He spent the day holding discussions with students in classrooms and gave a lecture to local high school students.
Baer also gave a public lecture in the evening titled "National Security and Global Terrorism in the 21st century."
His lecture was particularly significant given the global community’s fight to end terrorism after recent ISIS attacks in Paris, Nice, Beirut, London and many other incidents that continue to occur throughout the world.
The CCL is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving discourse and the political culture in Illinois by encouraging civil, open dialogue across political boundaries, and promotes civic engagement and leadership among young people and the general public.
Embedded reporter and acclaimed former CIA agent share insights on ISIS, National Security
3 Benedictine University • May 2017
Only hours coming off a red-eye flight from Cairo, Callimachi expounded on new details gleaned from her embedded reporting in Mosul, one of the last remaining ISIS strongholds in Iraq, and an area that has faced stiff resistance since the launch of a U.S.- backed Iraqi offensive last October.
“Here’s the shocking thing,” Callimachi added. “Over the past three years, ISIS has become so sophisticated in how they fight that in some ways they are starting to resemble a conventional army. And one of the things they are doing is they are now manufacturing many of their own weapons.”
but what we miss when we only focus on their atrocities is the very real support they have garnered from people in Iraq and Syria, and to our peril, from their followers in the west.
“We, not just America – but really the entire world – underestimated the Islamic State,” she said.
“We are used to thinking of ISIS as the ultimate boogeyman,” Callimachi said. “There is no denying their brutality and the horrific things they have done,
On April 27, the CCL brought former CIA officer and noted terrorism analyst Robert “Bob” Baer to continue the discussion as part of the CCL’s Youth Government Day activities.
His lecture was particularly significant given the global community’s fight to end terrorism after recent ISIS attacks in Paris, Nice, Beirut, London and many other incidents that continue to occur throughout the world.
4 Benedictine University • May 2017
Benedictine is offering two new graduate programs – the Master of Science (M.S.) in Integrative Physiology and the Master of Science (M.S.) in Values-Driven Leadership.
The M.S. in Integrative Physiology program is a one-year graduate degree program designed for graduates of bachelor’s degree programs in health and biological sciences who want to deepen their understanding of advanced human physiology, advanced biochemistry, bioethics and the history of physiology, and advances in the field.
The program provides students a chance to show their abilities in advanced coursework as they prepare for professional schools in health care. It enhances a student’s knowledge of physiology and greatly improves the academic training necessary to succeed in such health professions as medicine, pharmacy and dentistry. The program also serves students interested in applying to doctoral programs in biomedical research.
The M.S. in Integrative Physiology program features a full-time, 30-semester credit hour curriculum beginning in the fall and ending in the spring semester that helps prepare students for graduate program entrance exams and interviews. Students must maintain a “B” average to complete the program. Students will attend daytime classes, held five days a week, and complete coursework in approximately 10 months. Limited seats are available.
Students strengthen and deepen their knowledge of physiology and other biology subdisciplines through upper-level coursework complemented with high expectations in reading professional literature and writing professionally in each course. To complement what is taught in lectures, students have access to the latest electronic hardware and software to measure cell and
body function, providing students the chance to apply and expand on theory in the practical laboratory portion of the two required physiology courses.
Students also undertake graduate-level coursework in bioethics to prepare for the moral complexities of work in today’s health care industry. The curriculum aims to improve students’ oral and written communication in demonstrating content, organization, logical flow, presentation and use of vocabulary.
Candidates must have a bachelor’s degree in the sciences with one year of biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry and physics and a semester of calculus or statistics, human physiology and cell biology; a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.800; and be able to provide official transcripts from all institutions attended.
Applicants are also required to write a personal statement expressing their desire for the health care profession and the benefits of this course of study to their long-term goals; and provide two letters of recommendation appropriate for acceptance into a master’s degree program. Deadline for application is June 1 and the program begins the last week of August.
New master’s programs prepare students for health professions, ethical leadership
5 Benedictine University • May 2017
Business is the most powerful institution on the planet. Leadership decisions made in the workplace shape the lives of individuals, economies and the world more than any other single institution. Increasingly, smart business leaders are leveraging social, ethical and environmental performance to drive innovation and profitable growth.
The Executive M.S. in Values-Driven Leadership program is specifically designed for business leaders committed to using the creativity and discipline of business to create short-term and long-term shareholder value, enrich people’s lives, produce products and services that benefit society, and contribute to the health and sustainability of the planet.
The 18-month hybrid cohort program is taught by faculty with doctoral degrees and practical experience, and includes individual, team and organization level assessment and a customized development plan. The program is personalized using Hogan Assessments to match students with an executive coach who works with a student throughout the first year of the program.
The class schedule is designed for business executives with most of the course content delivered online and with
face-to-face residency classes on select long weekends (Thursday-Sunday) throughout the year. On-campus residencies occur three times during the program with the third residency in Guadalajara, Mexico. The program also includes a service project and international coursework requirement, and an active learning practicum that results in a deliverable for the student and the company where they work.
Students must have at least eight years of management experience, and be in a senior leadership position or be on the path to an executive position. In addition to creating advancement opportunities in a professional’s current career, this degree can lead to leadership roles in multiple settings including business, government, nonprofit and education.
Applications are currently being accepted for the Executive M.S. in Values-Driven Leadership program.
For more information about the Integrative Physiology program, contact Jayashree Sarathy, Ph.D., program director, at (630) 829-6580 or [email protected]. For more information about the Values-Driven Leadership program, visit ben.edu/leadership, or contact Marie Di Virgilio, Ph.D., at [email protected] or (630) 829-2178.
6 Benedictine University • May 2017
The world in which we live requires more than ever for people of all races, faiths and creeds to engage with one another in meaningful ways.
Confronting uncomfortable and painful – but important – issues through dialogue can help unearth greater understanding of people and issues affecting local, national and global communities.
In pursuit of these efforts, Benedictine held an all-day “Teach-In on Social Justice and Race.” The goal was to put
into action one of the University’s core values which is to engage in dialogue with others.
More than 1,200 participants registered for the University event, which administrators devised in response to growing concerns nationally involving immigration and racial inequality. It included presentations and Q&As with national experts on race, gender and ethnicity, and gave students, faculty and staff the opportunity to discuss issues of structural racism, inequality, social justice and immigration.
“So many of us agree that racial equality should be the norm,” said Tricia Rose, Ph.D., Chancellor’s Professor of Africana Studies and the director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University. “The end of Jim Crow is not the end of structural racism. It is one iteration of it. While it’s a great victory, it is not the end of the story.”
During small group sessions, students, faculty and staff participated in an activity aimed at putting some at a disadvantage, then discussed thoughts and feelings on the exercise in an effort to demonstrate race-based issues still present today.
Sessions included “Race and Racism: A Public Health Perspective,” “Your Rights in the Workplace from Violations to Micro-Aggressions,” “Racism and Poverty,” “What is Anti-Muslim Racism?” and
“Racial Inequality in the Criminal Justice System.”
Participants also debated international and political inequalities in gatherings on “Racism: An International Person’s Perspective,” “The Global Dimension: Race, Ethnicity, Power and Conflict” and “Workshop on Political Activism.”
In “Faith Traditions and Racial Justice,” Tisha Rajendra, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Loyola University Chicago, spoke about the principles of Catholic social teaching and immigration while Mark Lewis Taylor, Ph.D., the Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Theology and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary, examined the eight base points of white racism.
Rana Aquil, a senior Political Science major from Roselle, Ill., said she felt the information presented at the teach-in and the opportunities for open dialogue were enlightening.
“The best thing I gained was how to listen to others and to truly grasp how people are feeling and what they’re going through,” she said. “I learned that change isn’t made just by talking but by actively being involved.”
The event also included “‘Just’ Art,” which featured performers in spoken word, poetry and an exhibit of artwork on social justice. A free screening of director Ava DuVernay’s film “13th,” an American documentary exploring race, justice and mass incarceration of blacks in the United States, was held at the event’s conclusion.
The commitment to a daylong engagement on social issues relevant to all communities is reflective of the University’s mission to engage its community on important topics that can help shape the lives of students as future leaders who are globally responsible citizens.
Benedictine Social Justice Teach-In brings identity, racial issues to forefront
Benedictine University • 5700 College Rd. • Lisle, IL 60532
Benedictine University is located in Lisle, Illinois, just 25 miles west of Chicago, and has branch campuses in Springfield, Illinois, and Mesa, Arizona. Founded as a Catholic university in 1887, Benedictine enrolls nearly 9,000 students in 56 undergraduate and 20 graduate programs. Forbes magazine named Benedictine among "America's Top Colleges" for the sixth consecutive year in 2016. Accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (hlcommission.org). For more information, contact (630) 829-6300, [email protected] or visit ben.edu.
23rd Annual President’s Invitational Golf OutingFeaturing Special Guest Nick Faldo
Play a round of golf while raising funds for student scholarships. Cost for golf, dinner and program is $1,400 per foursome.
White Eagle Golf Club, NapervilleRSVP/Tickets at ben.edu/golf
octo
ber 07
Save the Date: Founders GalaCelebrating 130 Years of Student Success
Join us for an elegant evening of dancing, dining and entertainment as we raise funds to help future generations of students earn a Benedictine University education. Share what BenU has meant to you and your life in 130 words or less: ben.edu/gala.
Lisle Main Campus | 6:00-10:30 p.m.RSVP/Tickets at ben.edu/gala
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Commencement is a special time when the University community joins together to recognize the achievements and hard work of our graduates. It is an exciting time to watch BenU students realize their potential, turn their tassels and walk across the stage.
As our graduates get ready to begin a new chapter of their lives, we wish them all the very best in their future endeavors and look forward to hearing about the many ways they will make a difference.
To use one’s talents to make the world a better place is the true mark of a Benedictine graduate and is something for which we can all be proud and hopeful on this most auspicious occasion.
