College of Liberal Arts & Sciences presents second annual J.S. Ward Society Leadership Dinner April 25
Kasie Corley |
Lipscomb University and the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences presents the second annual J.S. Ward Society Leadership Dinner on Wednesday, April 25 in the Collins Alumni Auditorium. A reception with hors d’oeuvres begins at 6 p.m. followed by the dinner and program at 6:30 p.m.
Created in 2014, the J.S. Ward Society exists to connect science alumni and friends to Lipscomb in meaningful ways while making pre-professional health science education accessible to current and future students of promise. The society seeks to accomplish this through a robust endowed scholarship program.
The dinner recognizes and celebrates alumni and Lipscomb’s rich heritage in the sciences while also honoring this year’s Ward Scholars and the annual Hero of Science. The 2018 Hero of Science award recipient is Dr. Manny Sethi, an orthopedic trauma surgeon and assistant professor at Vanderbilt University who founded Healthy Tennessee.
Sethi and his wife Maya are Founders of Healthy Tennessee, a nonprofit organization designed to promote preventative health care. A Fulbright Scholar working with children with muscular dystrophy in Tunisia, Sethi attended Harvard Medical School and completed his orthopedic surgical training while at Harvard University. Sethi maintains a deep interest in healthcare reform and has written for the Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality (AHRQ) and currently writes a monthly health policy column in the magazine AAOS Now. He returned home to Tennessee to impact change in healthcare and education and has served as an assistant professor at Meharry Medical College also in Nashville where he ran a clinic and operating room providing indigent care. In partnership with the RWJ Center at Meharry Medical College, Sethi led a public-private partnership with local schools to develop Violence Prevention Programs in order to reduce trauma injuries associated with violence.
“We are deeply honored to recognize Dr. Manny Sethi as the 2018 Hero of Science,” said Jeff Fincher, assistant dean of the George Shinn College of Entertainment & the Arts and executive director of the J.S. Ward Society. “The Hero of Science Award was designed to be given to a health science professional who didn’t graduate from Lipscomb but is living, working, and serving in such a way that we hope our students will aspire to emulate.”
The J.S. Ward Society is comprised of a group of alumni and professionals who are passionate about the health sciences at Lipscomb University. Lipscomb’s alumni in the fields of science and those alumni who have chosen a health science career are automatically considered members of the J.S. Ward Society.
The society, named for Dr. James Samuel Ward, strives to support and mentor students after they graduate by exploring new ways for both the university and students to be leaders. Programs such as the Executive-in-Residence and the Hero of Science challenge and inspire a new generation in the health sciences professionals.
The society and its members also provide the Ward Scholarship, the most prestigious award given to a student planning a health science career by providing up to $10,000 annually toward student tuition. At the 2018 dinner, three students will receive the Ward Scholarship.
Dr. Ward, a physician and dentist who joined the Lipscomb faculty in 1893, made critical contributions to Lipscomb’s long history of excellent health science education. He twice served as president of Lipscomb, known at the time as Nashville Bible School.
When Dr. Ward died in 1959, the editor of the Nashville Banner wrote in an editorial:
“In vocation and avocation, Dr. James Samuel Ward chose and capably filled the callings closest to his heart. Physician and educator in medicine; active in religious ministry, head of the science department in the old Nashville Bible School, laterally David Lipscomb College, which he served for two years as president, his career touched beneficially a multitude of lives in and outside the institution. The community that was his home for many years shared the blessing of his useful life. They were long and fruitful years, in friendship and enduring service.”