Department of Public Health Newsletter 12/19/2025

[Maia Feinman-Welcher]

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The Department of Public Health

December 19, 2025

 

 

Dear Public Health Scholars, 

 

Happy Holidays! Congratulations to you on what I hope was a very successful fall semester and a special congratulations to those who have just graduated! CELEBRATE!!! I hear very often from all of our faculty about how amazing our students are (and I also know this firsthand from my many years in the classroom). We are all so proud of you and we know this is an especially challenging time in our nation. We know you work incredibly hard for your education and that many of you are balancing a lot while keeping your academic/professional goals at the center of all you do.

 

I am sure many of you have been following the Department of Education (DOE) proposal to exclude public health degrees from the “professional degree definition” (see here for more). The consequences of this could mean lower borrowing limits for our students which would make public health education less accessible and ultimately weaken the public health workforce.

 

We encourage you to get involved in protesting this change. Send letters to your Congress members and consider submitting a letter to the editor or Op Ed to your local newspaper. Here are some talking points published by the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH). Here is a template (sample letter) to send to your federal representatives and at the end of this newsletter, please find a professional degrees draft op-ed from ASPPH.

 

I am also happy to collect student testimonials about the impact this rule change may have on you, so please send them my way and I will make sure to include them in my own letters.

 

As always, I welcome ideas for this newsletter and I am also eager to include your contributions in this newsletter. If you know about upcoming events that may be of interest to our community, please share them with me (email: j...@sfsu.edu).

 

I hope you use this time off to rest, rejuvenate, and enjoy the holidays. Looking forward to a 2026 where we can together rebuild a healthy and just society for all.

 

To our new alumni, please stay in touch!

Warmly,

Juliana van Olphen, PhD, MPH
Chair, Department of Public Health

 

Important Updates and Reminders:

First day of instruction in spring ’26 is Monday, January 26

The Basic Needs Initiative supports students with food, financial crisis and housing resources. Click here for more information. 

Save the dates for Spring 2026 Commencement:  DPH Commencement is on Tuesday, 5/19/2026, 2-4 p.m. at the SFSU Annex 1 (North State Drive, SF, CA 94132) and the university commencement at Oracle Park is on Thursday, 5/21/2026

Free application for federal student aid (FAFSA) for 2026-27 due MARCH 2, 2026. The Office of Student Financial Aid is committed to being of help! Their office hosts Zoom info sessions every other Friday through December 19. For more info: https://financialaid.sfsu.edu/fin-aid-fridays

California Dream Act Application is also due March 2, 2026. For more info, https://csac.ca.gov/apply and https://dream.csac.ca.gov/landing.

In this newsletter you will find:

·         Attend Mindful Compassion Workshop 12/19 2-4 p.m. by zoom

·         Faculty Spotlight:  Vivian Chavez Retires

·         Preview of MPH Fellowship Opportunity

·         New PH 800 course a great success!

·         MPH Scholarship Opportunity – John Blake West due 1/09/2026

·         Public Health Courses offered in winter session (January 2-20, 2026)

·         Improving Dreams, Equity, Access, and Success (IDEAS) Fundraiser 12/19, 6-8:30 p.m.

·         Professional Degree Programs Draft Op-Ed

 

Dr. Vivian Chavez retires at the end of this semester – We will miss her!

El Adios --

El Adios is an old Spanish song that tells the story of saying Good Bye and of what happens when an old friend leaves.  The lyrics and melody of this song start out with: Algo se muere en el alma cuando un amigo se va…

I first heard this song in the 80’s dancing in Madrid as an undergrad coming from SFSU’s study abroad program. I was saying hello to Spain and laughing at the paradox of saying goodbye and greeting at the same time! Now, the melody echoes within delightfully tugging at my soul and making me smile remembering many years teaching Community Organizing, Global Health, Health Promotion, Women’s Health and even Program Planning. 

Ohhhhhhh so much love over the years!

You can see it in the photo of me (above) with flowers given by students at the end of a semester.  You can see it in the Medicine Wheel used to prepare my bodymind to show-up with my full SELF each time I step into a classroom or a meeting with faculty, students and staff colleagues.

At the threshold of 2026, I see this spiritual aspect of me longing to dance with gratitude to this beautiful SFSU Health community. Remembering the path walked and made together.

-Vivian Chavez

 

Preview of MPH Fellowship Opportunity

Bright Research Group located in downtown Oakland invites our MPH students to apply for the Perez Research Fellowship beginning in March 2026. Applications will open in January, but you can view last year’s opportunity here. We will share more information as it becomes available. This opportunity could possibly serve as a student’s applied practice experience (APE) if we determine it meets all of our and CEPH’s requirements.

 

New MPH Course, PH 800 (Public Health Systems) teaches students about systems thinking

 

David Rebanal, associate professor in our department, taught our new class, Public Health 800, Public Health Systems, for the first time this fall and, although it is always a challenge to teach a class for the first time, especially with a lot of students (both first and second year students were in this class together).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below is a photo of all the MPH students enrolled in the class.

 

 

One of the new critical competencies Dr. Rebanal covered in this class was “apply a systems thinking tool to visually represent a public health issue in a format other than standard narrative”. A systems thinking tool helps to illustrate complex relationships. Dr. Rebanal said he was very pleased with the work of the MPH students, especially their systems thinking demonstrated by their causal loop diagrams.

 

See Cleo Yang’s example to the left on her project about vaccine hesitancy in the Central Valley.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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MPH Scholarship Opportunity:  John Blake West

John Blake West received an MPH from SF State posthumously in 2001. He was devoted to the public health needs of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual (LGBTQIA+) individuals and communities, and upon his death, bequeathed a portion of his estate to SF State’s then Department of Health Education (now Department of Public Health) to create ongoing scholarships for MPH students who demonstrate a commitment to LGBTQIA+ health issues. The scholarship will be awarded to an MPH student in spring, 2026 to provide $5,000.00 financial assistance for the awardee’s study. The application opens today and closes on 1/09/2026. Minimum GPA requirement:  3.5. See here for more information

 

 

Register for a class in the winter session (January 2-20, 2026)! See below for more information about our offerings:

 

 

 

 

I.D.E.A.S. (IMPROVING DREAMS, EQUITY, ACCESS, AND SUCCESS)

FUNDRAISER DEC 19 6-8:30PM: 518 VALENCIA STREET, SF, CA 94110

 

I.D.E.A.S. is a SFSU student organization dedicated to encouraging and empowering immigrant students to continue higher education. Please support if you can!

 

 

 

This op-ed template is a tool for ASPPH members to use in crafting op-eds to share with local media about the professional degree program designation under the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) Act.

We encourage you to collaborate with your school's communications team to select the approach that best suits your local context. You can also draw on the additional ASPPH talking points provided for more content.

Op-Ed with Example Content

 

Argument	The Department of Education’s Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) Committee last week reached preliminary consensus on a proposed definition of “professional degree programs” under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, excluding public health programs as well as several other health professions. This development is not just shocking; the exclusion risks significantly damaging the nation’s ability to prepare and educate the next generation of public health practitioners and leaders responsible for keeping us healthy.
“So what?”	·                     The proposed definition change, which would exclude the MPH and DrPH from the “professional degree” category, could restrict students’ access to higher federal loan limits, making public health education less financially attainable and weakening the future workforce pipeline. The proposal also overlooks decades of precedent recognizing these degrees as professional credentials essential to protecting community health and advancing health equity. This is happening at a time when public health is already facing massive workforce reductions and funding cuts, putting entire communities at risk.
“Why now?”	Threats against public health are escalating. If the Department of Education moves forward with this plan, these critical degrees, which demonstrate that our frontline leaders are prepared, will become extremely difficult to attain, if not impossible. A future with fewer trained public health professionals would certainly mean decreased health and well-being for millions, even threatening the longevity that effective public health policies and practices have helped achieve over the last 100 years.
Evidence	·                     Public health graduates fill essential roles in state and local health departments, hospitals, federal agencies, and community organizations. In our community, for example, INSERT how local public health departments work to keep your food, water, and air safe, and how they work to reduce chronic conditions and improve health for entire communities.   Public departments are now being forced to choose which areas to prioritize: combating obesity, providing prenatal care to reduce infant mortality, or overdose prevention. Sadly, many health departments can’t do them all.
Counter-argument	Some may argue that the nation’s public health system needed an overhaul. And that may be true. But making public health degrees harder to earn – especially for those dedicated to keeping us healthy – amid widespread workforce reductions and drastic funding cuts, is not the way to fix it. Millions will be significantly hurt if those who seek to help us are prevented from doing so.
Call-to-action	·                     Public health is a calling. Those who seek out the profession need our full support. This is not the time to make earning a public health degree nearly impossible. Congress must examine the Department of Education’s proposal and the harm it will cause to the public health workforce. We urge the Department of Education to revise its definition so that public health professional degrees are appropriately included and treated consistently with other professional degrees. This is not about credentials on a sheet of paper. This is about the health and wellness of our families, our friends, and our loved ones. Our nation’s health is on the line. And that’s worth fighting for.