1. Dennis Thombs
2. Mohammad Torabi
3. Robert McDermot
4. Cheryl Dye
5. Patricia Mail
6. Robert Weiler
7. Terri Manning
8. Mark Kittleson
9. Molly Laflin
10. David (Randy) Black
11. Chudley Werch.
As most of you now know, I wish to acknowledge Terri Manning, who is currently Associate Vice President for Institutional Research at Central Piedmont Community as the new Executive Director for the American Academy of Health Behavior. She is highly organized, extremely enthusiastic, and will be a wonderful Executive Director. Most of what you see around you was put into place by Dr. Manning.
I would like to briefly introduce our current President-elect, who by the end of the meeting will be the new president of The Academy, Chudley Werch.
Werch, Chudley:
At this time, it is my pleasure to present awards to the following Academy members who have served with distinction on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Health Behavior. When I call your name, would the recipient please step forward to receive the award and stand for a group picture. Please hold your applause until all of the awards have been presented.
1. Jim Eddy for honorable service as the first Chair of the Resource, Development and Public Policy Council
2. Nick Iammarino for honorable service as the first Chair of the Publications and Communications Council
3. Molly Laflin for honorable service as the first Treasurer
4. Mark Kittleson for honorable service as the first Chair of the Membership & Development Council
5. Terri Manning for honorable service as the first Chair of the Program, Publicity and Training Council
6. Robert McDermott for honorable service as Delegate 2
7. Pat Mail for honorable service as Chair of the Resource, Development and Public Policy Council.
Please join me in thanking these selfless individuals for their admirable service to The Academy.
At this time, I would like to have the new officers of the American Academy of Health Behavior stand and be recognized: Robert McDermott, President-elect and Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee; Mary Dinger, Treasurer and Chair of the Finance Committee; Jim Price, Chair of the Membership and Development Council; Dennis Thombs, Chair of the Program, Publicity and Training Council; Bruce Simons-Morton, Chair of the Resource Development and Public Policy Council; Robert Valois, Delegate 2; Bradley Boekeloo, Chair of the Program Planning Committee for the St. Augustine Scientific Meeting; and Karen Liller, Chair of the Program Planning Committee for the Sedona Scientific Meeting.
Please join me in welcoming our new Board of Directors of the American Academy of Health Behavior.
Glover, Elbert:
Many organizations have fellows; however, when the fellow category was developed, I wanted the fellow in The Academy to be a prestigious honor based on a meritocracy, meaning that the honor should be void of politics and should be based on the “work”.
The criteria for fellow are intended to be rigorous; however, if the criteria are met, individuals are entitled to the designation of FAAHB after their degrees that would identify them as Fellows of The Academy. Every fellow applicant must have authored or coauthored at least 50 research refereed publications (author or coauthor) in academic journals (national or international). Fellow applicants must also meet a minimum of one of the following categories:
1. presented 75 or more research presentations at state, regional, national, or international professional meetings;
2. received 25 or more external research grants as a principal investigator;
3. received in excess of $1,500,000 (or US dollar equivalents) in research grants as a principal investigator;
4. contributed significantly to the advancement of knowledge in health behavior, health education, or health promotion through research conducted and disseminated. This category is intended to apply to the rare individual whose research has "changed the face" of the discipline.
Being a relatively new organization, we wish to set traditions and include the induction of fellows on a yearly basis; however, first, we need to recognize past inductees. When your name is called, please step up to the podium so that Dr. Werch can award your fellow pin.
The initial 1998 fellow inductees consisted of 15 members:
1. David (Randy) Black
2. Mark Dignan
3. David Duncan
4. James Eddy
5. Elbert Glover
6. Robert Gold
7. Lawrence Green
8. Robert McDermott
9. Ian Newman
10. Thomas O’Rourke
11. Cheryl Perry
12. Paul Sarvela
13. Mary Sutherland
14. Chudley Werch
15. Michael Young.
The class of 1999 had 6 inductees:
1. Jennie Kronenfeld
2. Ken McLeroy
3. James Price
4. David Sleet
5. Stephen Thomas
6. Mohammad Torabi.
The class of 2000 had 4 inductees:
1. Ken Beck
2. Brian Flay
3. Mark Kittleson
4. Steve Sussman.
The class, of 2001 had 8 inductees.
1. Bradley Boekeloo
2. Chwee Lye Chng
3. John Elder
4. John Lowe
5. Mary Nies
6. Donna Richter
7. Herb Severson
8. Skip Valois
In pulling together The Academy, I have learned a great deal about myself. The personal and professional growth I have experienced has been phenomenal. The Academy is on the verge of becoming a major force in the profession; however, what I am truly proudest of are the relationships that I developed in the process. It has allowed me to connect with people that I admire greatly. Just knowing them has made me not only a better researcher but also a better person. You can’t help but grow professionally and personally when you interact with the likes of Werch, Black, McDermott, Laflin, Kittleson, Manning, Weiler, Mail, Dye, Torabi, Eddy, Liller, and Thombs. I want to personally thank you for giving unselfishly of your precious time to make The Academy a reality. This is a legacy that will always be a part of your professional career.
I am confident that our next president, Chudley Werch, and the new president-Elect, Robert McDermott, will lead The Academy to places I only dreamed about. All that I ask is that both of you remain focused on the mission of The Academy, and that is research. It is what separates us from other organizations. It is what we value and it should always remain our currency. The Academy should be about the work, not personalities.
There is one final person I wish to acknowledge, and that is my wife, Penny Glover, who has allowed me to dream without restrictions and has supported me thorough every endeavor I have ever attempted. For when I get involved in a project, I become passionately involved and that takes away from our time. Penny is my best friend, colleague, wife, and foremost, my greatest supporter and critic. Penny, thank you for loving me just the way I am. Thank you…
When I conceived the laureate medallion, I wanted the award to be the highest honor that could be bestowed in the profession, the one honor or award that every health researcher would covet. I wanted it to be how fame would come to those that had attained research greatness. The list of names will one day be the who’s who of health behavior research.
Larry Green needs no introduction to the health profession for everyone knows his contribution to our field. The greatest acknowledgment The Academy can bestow upon Larry Green is that he was the first recipient of the laureate medallion awarded by The Academy. Lawrence W. Green will introduce the second recipient of this award.
Green, Lawrence:
With this award we declare without qualification, hesitation or fear of contradiction that UIC Distinguished Professor Brian R. Flay stands in the highest ranks among the investigators in our field, not only in the United States, but with international recognition as well. Brian’s roots in New Zealand and his experience in Canada give him a broader than usual perspective on the application of behavioral and social sciences in public health and education. His work spans such applications in institutional settings as well as in the mass media and in community-wide efforts, with particular attention to the health and related problems of adolescents and increasing emphasis on the necessity of combining the institutional and community components in comprehensive, integrated, and coherent programs. His scholarly courage and imagination in tackling such complexity systematically and with rigor has been an inspiration to a field struggling both with the eclectic theoretical requirements and the methodological challenges of such systems.
Professor Flay’s doctoral studies in New Zealand and his postdoctoral studies with Thomas Cook and Donald Campbell at Northwestern University, under a Fulbright Fellowship, prepared him for his collaborative role with Allen Best in developing the program in health behavior studies at the University of Waterloo. Generations of students from that pioneering program for Canada now populate the fields of public health, health education, and health promotion across that country. The international recognition of Canada’s contribution to global health promotion owes much to the Waterloo program for grounding it in behavioral and social sciences. His subsequent collaborative role in developing the Institute for Behavioral Research at the University of Southern California further prepared him for the enormous undertaking he led at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The school health projects developed at USC were followed closely by government agencies and foundations as a model to be replicated elsewhere.
At the University of Illinois at Chicago, Brian took responsibility for starting a prevention research center, and organizing the grant application from their relatively small school of public health to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for one of the Congressionally mandated centers for health promotion and disease prevention research (PRC). The application put their school of public health ahead of some of the more established schools of public health and departments of preventive medicine in medical schools, as one of the handful of funded PRCs at that time. After 10 years as director of the UIC Prevention Research Center, from 1987 to 1997, he became director of UIC’s Health Research and Policy Centers, a group of research centers within and beyond the School of Public Health. In 2001 he stepped down from this position and was appointed UIC Distinguished Professor. He remains today director of the NIDA-funded Prevention Research Training Program, co-principal on the $2.9 million PRC continuation grant from CDC, principal investigator on grants from NIDA for the Aban Aya
African-American Youth Health Behavior Project and the Positive
Action project, and co-investigator on many others.
Brian’s
study of the progression of antismoking initiatives and
interventions over the several decades reported in Advances in
Health Education and Promotion was a brilliant analysis of the
history and scientific development of this field. His review of
mass media applications reported in the American Journal of Public
Health was a major contribution to identifying both the
limitations and the untapped potential of the media. He has
reported further on the practical applications of the media and of
school health initiatives at conferences sponsored by national and
international organizations, including foundations and government
agencies for which he has become a trusted consultant and
perennial grantee.
Professor Flay’s
publications span intervention and etiology research, reviews,
theory development, and methodology, in more than 25 chapters and
150 empirical articles in peer-reviewed journals in psychology,
public health and health education. He has been recognized and
honored for these significant works with awards of distinction
from the American School Health Association Research Council and
the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (John P.
McGovern Award in Health Promotion). He has been elected a Fellow
of two professional and scientific societies in addition to this
one.
On behalf
of the American Academy of Health Behavior, it gives me great
pleasure to present the 2002 Research Laureate Medallion to
Professor Brian R. Flay and to thank the Board of the Academy for
this privilege and for putting me in such distinguished company.
Am J Health Behav 2002;26(6):403-406
