Public health is joining the list of academic programs offered by Bluffton University to help meet society's increasing need for health care and social services professionals.

A major and minor in public health will be available to Bluffton undergraduates beginning next fall, and the university has hired Dr. Ross Kauffman, who holds both master of public health and doctoral degrees in epidemiology, to head the program.

Kauffman is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Training in Research for Behavioral Oncology and Cancer Control program in Indiana University's School of Nursing, at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

With planned concentrations in pre-epidemiology, public health advocacy and public health education, the program will fit well with Bluffton's mission and current programs, says Dr. Sally Weaver Sommer, vice president and dean of academic affairs.

"A public health program supports our mission of preparing graduates for service professions in a variety of community settings, and builds on our faculty expertise in chemistry, psychology, sociology, economics, biology and nutrition, among others," she says. As an interdisciplinary program, it will also have broad appeal, including to out-of-state and international students, the dean notes.

Planning began in summer 2009 for the possible addition of public health, which a Chronicle of Higher Education story listed as among five college majors "on the rise" in August 2009.

Around the same time, Weaver Sommer initiated a series of conversations with Kauffman, the brother of Bluffton's restorative justice faculty member, Rudi Kauffman.

Ross Kauffman subsequently visited Bluffton to explore program possibilities, including requirements and employment possibilities. Those vary, says Weaver Sommer, from large organizations such as the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); to pharmaceutical and other industries; and working in health promotion, infection control or teaching and research. Graduate school, in a variety of fields, is also an option for graduates in public health.

"All these factors came together," she says, to build momentum for a program that is timely for students. "Public health is clearly a growing area, with great potential for our students in terms of professional opportunities," she points out, citing one national employment projection of double-digit percentage growth in jobs in public health over a 10-year period through 2016.

It's also an area with growth potential in higher education. As of 2008, only 137 of the 837 institutions in the Association of American Colleges and Universities were offering a major or minor in public health, according to a Washington Post article at the time.

Bluffton's program, the first of its kind among Mennonite institutions, will be "simply a great fit, to provide opportunities for our students and to address society's needs," adds Weaver Sommer.

Kauffman, who will join the faculty as an assistant professor, earned both his master's and doctoral degrees from The Ohio State University, in 2006 and 2009, respectively. He holds a bachelor's degree in biology and environmental science from Eastern Mennonite University.

At Ohio State, Kauffman was a University Fellow in 2005 and was named Outstanding M.S./Ph.D. Student in the School of Public Health in 2006. He was a graduate teaching associate in the university's epidemiology department in 2005-06, and received the OSU Board of Trustees' Student Recognition Award in 2007.

Much of his research has been related to smoking and tobacco. He was the principal investigator in a two-year, CDC-funded study of smoking and tobacco in Ohio prisons, and is a research assistant for three ongoing, smoking-related projects. He is a member of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, the American Public Health Association and Phi Kappa Phi academic honorary.

The public health program will join this fall's additions to Bluffton's health care and social services offerings-a health care management concentration in the master of business administration degree program, and an evening, bachelor's degree-completion program in social work for working adults.