RONALD DAVIS, AM’81

Throughout his career, Dr. Ronald Davis has focused on protecting the health of the public. “As a preventive medicine physician, much of my work is targeted to the public at large. In essence, we treat the community as our patient,” says Davis of his responsibilities as Director of the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the Henry Ford Health System.

“We work to protect the population from bioterrorism threats or new infectious diseases such as SARS; we educate the public through the mass media about immunization and wearing safety belts and getting mammograms; and we support legislation that increases the tax on cigarettes, bans the sale of sugary soft drinks in schools, or funds the construction of new bike paths,” Davis explains.

From an early age, Davis wanted to be a physician. While in medical school at the University of Chicago, however, he became frustrated with the tremendous cost and effort involved in treating chronic diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure that are often preventable through lifestyle changes. Davis was inspired not only to specialize in preventive medicine, but to take time off from medical school to pursue a master’s in public policy studies with the Committee on Public Policy Studies (now the Harris School). “I thought that a grounding in public policy would be helpful in my work in public health, which depends so heavily on policy development in the public and private sectors.”

This grounding has proved critical for Davis, whose career has included four years as Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office on Smoking and Health. During his tenure, Davis oversaw the production of three landmark Surgeon General’s reports on the deleterious effects of smoking on health, an accomplishment he considers to be the principal one of his career. The 1988 report on nicotine addiction forever changed how smoking is viewed from the standpoint of public policy and treatment of tobacco dependence.

Davis continued his efforts to counter the public’s susceptibility to the dangerous effects of cigarettes through his work at the Michigan Department of Public Health, where in March of 1994 he successfully led the campaign for the passage of a ballot initiative that tripled Michigan’s cigarette excise tax, giving Michigan the highest state cigarette excise tax in the nation at that time.

Davis’s active involvement in policy debate and development goes beyond his livelihood. He currently serves for a number of professional organizations—including as a member the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association.

Davis credits his education in public policy for providing him with the theoretical underpinning to incorporate sound public policy in his day-to-day work “to improve the health of millions of people.”

Barbara Ray

ALLISON SLADE, MPP’02

Tugged in two directions by the interest in education policy that brought her to the Harris School and an “itch” to be in the classroom, Allison Slade says she has found professional centeredness as cofounder and Principal of the Namaste Charter School, a year-old Chicago public school that emphasizes nutrition, health, and fitness.

Named after a yoga pose in which one’s hands are pressed together to achieve balance and renew energy, the school offers an hour of physical education daily, a salad bar and fresh fruit at lunch, and yoga instruction throughout. “Movement and physical education permeate the whole school curriculum,” says Slade, a yoga aficionado.

Prior to cofounding Namaste, Slade taught for five years in Houston and Highwood, Illinois, and worked as a literacy specialist for two years at the Center for School Improvement (now the Center for Urban School Improvement). She drew upon best practices at all of the above and gathered with friends—including fellow Harris grads Allison Jack (AM’96) and Jay Young (AM’96) to write the school’s charter in 2003.

They faced the same odds as any would-be charter school, with an additional twist: “One of the main concerns was that we were all really young and relatively experienced,” Slade says. But the accomplishments and caliber of the group impressed CPS, “and our idea was pretty well developed, and the need [for greater nutrition and fitness] was pretty well documented.”

Upon their selection—as one of two successful proposals out of twenty-five—Slade and her team had eight months to find a suitable building, hire staff, recruit families, and raise money. “It’s amazing,” she says. “Sometimes you’ve just got to take a step back and take a walk around the school, and realize everything that you’ve been able to put into place.”

Namaste has had two classrooms each of kindergarten and first grade during its first year and will add second grade in the fall. Then, it will need to find another building as it builds toward a K–8 school. “The small business side of the school is the most difficult,” Slade says. In addition to operating a building, doing its own purchasing, and negotiating its own contracts, Namaste must raise about 40 percent of its budget.

But she refuses to become completely immersed in the business side. “I do have a sacred time in my day when I’m in the classroom every day, from 10 to 11 a.m.,” Slade says. “And that’s just kind of how it is.”

While filling the student slots proved a challenge the first year, positive media attention and word-of-mouth have built a waiting list for next year, she says. She hopes—and expects—that the “leap of faith” by first-year families who could not actually see the school in action will pay off for their kids.

“It’ll be interesting to see, for these kids—once they’ve had so much movement, and health education, and nutrition education and character education—where they end up in relationship to [students attending] other neighborhood schools,” Slade says, adding that half of this year’s kindergarteners were reading by mid-March. “It’s definitely really exciting to see where the kids are.”

Ed Finkel

For more information about Namaste Charter School, visit www.namastecharterschool.org.