SPHHS Case Statement

Difference-Makers Ready to Change the World 

The global pandemic has revealed an unavoidable truth: in an interconnected, multifaceted, and populous world, a strong and responsive public health and health care infrastructure is essential. For the UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences (SPHHS), this is the ideal moment for us to accelerate our work and transform the health of millions.  

We are fundamentally committed to achieving health equity and improving health outcomes for all—whether that work involves combating a global pandemic or an opioid epidemic, working to prevent chronic disease or food insecurity, advocating for global health or the environment, or striving toward healthy aging or optimal reproductive health. 

But we can do more.  

We can take on the most complex research challenges because the faculty and students who choose us are tremendously talented and insistent upon tackling the root causes of diseases that hold back individuals, communities, and society. We can foster even more collaborations within and beyond the university’s many schools and colleges. We can ensure that SPHHS is an environment that keeps outcomes-oriented research leaders engaged and productive—and empowers promising early-career faculty to excel and grow.  

We must ensure leadership and innovation in our field incorporates diverse perspectives—that we truly live up to the egalitarian ideals of public health. We are not starting from square one: We’ve made great strides in keeping degree programs relevant and accessible, building on our university’s long history of working toward the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). We have resolve and momentum on our side. But our work is far from done.  

Our donors know SPHHS can move the needle in all these regards because our commitment is unwavering—and because, as part of a land grant university, we embrace our mandate to produce the ideas, discoveries, and new generations of leaders that will benefit as many people and communities as possible, as practically as possible, and as soon as possible.  

We invite you to join our philanthropic community, and support our faculty, students, and programs in creating community-based and global solutions to some of the most complex and urgent challenges of our time.