The state-supported portion of our budget has nearly doubled in the last four years, while our sponsored projects receive funding from traditional sources as well as from an expanding array of new granting organizations at the national level. Our two-year preparation for the school’s reaccreditation by the Council on Education for Public Health culminated with a successful site visit in March. In May, we were honored to have as our convocation speaker the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna E. Shalala.

Work continues on preparation of a new home for the school. In April, UIC’s Provost Elizabeth Hoffman announced that our move to the new building would be deferred until later in 2000 because the university administration is planning a more extensive upgrading of the building’s infrastructure than originally conceived, in recognition of the school’s recent and rapid growth.

More than ever, we were reminded that the school’s achievements depend on how well we succeed in going beyond its walls to reach, teach, work with, and learn from our partners in public health at the local, state, national, and international levels. To celebrate our many partnerships, we decided that the theme of this year’s magazine should be Public Health in Practice—From the Classroom to the Community.

This issue focuses on the range of approaches we take to prepare and support public health practitioners and to advance public health practice itself. We begin by looking at a couple of the ways we introduce our students to practice, by actually sending them out to put what they have learned in theory into practice in the community.

The next step beyond the School of Public Health is empowering others—not only schools, families, parents, youth, but also other professions, businesses, and corporations—to address health concerns within their highly varied domains.

We then move beyond direct interventions to respond to particular health problems to advocating for policies that support health for all. Finally, we look to the future, considering programs that explore the evolving needs of the public health workforce and train leaders as catalysts for change.

The mission of the School of Public Health is carrying forth research, service, and education that will improve the health of the public. The concept of community—whether it means our richly diverse neighbors here in Chicago or the global neighbors with whom we share our rapidly shrinking planet—is central to that mission, and this edition of HealthPro is a salute to the community partners who help us to pursue and achieve it.

Susan C. Scrimshaw, PhD