In honor of the retirement of Dr. Greta Yoder Slater, Dean Scott Edward Rutledge will pledge $500 for 15 gifts to the Department of Social Work. Please consider donating to this challenge.
The College of Health and our students are dedicated to making a difference. Our Interprofessional Community Clinic, which features services in Audiology, Speech Pathology, Counseling, and the Healthy Lifestyle Center, has had nearly 17,000, patient appointments booked in the last two years. The ICC partnered with the Second Harvest Food Bank to provide vital health screenings at their food distribution events, reaching patients in underserved and rural populations around East-Central Indiana. Your gift to Interprofessional Community Clinic, keeps programs like this running to provide opportunities for students to impact their communities. Donations to the ICC Fund on One Ball State will count towards our Giving Tree Program.
Because of Ball State Donors students benefit from scholarships, from emergency aid, and from gifts that support our technology advances to support our Simulation Center as well as our various research labs. One story recently stood out to us, an international student was struggling to make ends meet over the Summer. As you may know, international students are not permitted to work off campus, unlike many of us who relied on summer jobs to help pay tuition and housing costs. This student chose Ball State to study in a specialized discipline, one with only a small number of similarly trained professionals in her home country. Thanks to a proud alumna and her family who set up an emergency aid fund in one of our departments, this amazing student was able to stay in the program. She plans to return home after graduation to advance clinical care in ways that will have a profound and lasting impact.
Your gift to the college of health general fund makes a difference in the lives of our students. This fund supports around 3,000 students enrolled in majors within the College, as well as another 4,000+ students taking service courses within our academic areas. Our faculty, staff and students are making big things happen, like:
- The School of Nursing created an escape room simulation for their Nursing 430 students. This project, Codes, Clues and Cognitive Gains: A Cardiac Escape Room to Transform Future Nurses, was chosen as a podium presentation for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing TRANSFORM 2025 conference
- Cardinal Wellness is getting folks in the Community up and Moving with a variety of fitness classes. They have expanded from their original Cardinal Zumba offering, to include chair stretching, resistance training, line dance, yoga with locations all over East Central Indiana.
- COH Ambassadors, along with Dr. Justin Tobyas, Director of Interprofessional Education and Practice, and Theresa Mince, Director of the Office of Field Education and Community Outreach, represented the College at the Indianapolis Statehouse, talking with politicians about the newest projects in the Interprofessional Community Clinic, which include Baby and Me with the Delaware County Health Department, The Parkinson’s Support Group of East Central Indiana, and The Falls Prevention Program.
- We are so proud of Dr. Larry Gerstein, George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Psychology-Counseling and Director of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, who travelled to Islamabad, Pakistan in October, 2025 to complete his Fulbright Specialist Project, the Psychology of Prevention, Understanding and Countering Violent extremism. He was hosted by QAU Area Study Centre for Africa, North & South America, where he presented to the United States Embassy, QAU Department of Defense & Strategic Studies, Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology Psychology Department and more.
- October 2025 brought the first Sport Administration Combine, hosted by the Undergraduate Sport Administration (SPTA) Program on the campus of Ball State University. The SPTA Combine was designed to provide high school juniors and seniors an opportunity to learn about career opportunities within the sport industry while marketing the benefits of Ball State’s Sport Administration program. Through faculty presentations, an interactive assessment activity, guest speakers, guided tours, and student-led discussions, prospective students were able to participate in discussions that allowed SPTA faculty to gain high school students’ perceptions of their sport career interests. In its first year, 66 students, along with four teachers and 30 parents/guests, registered for this program.
The College of Health is a vital health resource for Indiana and beyond for preparing health professionals and researchers through interprofessional education. Ultimately, our goal is to equip our students to become health care providers, social service professionals, researchers, and educators who believe in the power of compassionate and evidence-based patient care. Our generous donors are key partners in ensuring students continue to have impactful experiences both in and out of the classroom. Together, We Fly.
