Gerontology Pioneer To Speak At WestConn

DANBURY — As Western Connecticut State University launches its first graduate-level certificate program to educate professionals who provide services for the aging members of society, the university also is bringing in a pioneer in the field to share her views.

Dr Rose Dobrof will discuss “Effectively Educating Health and Human Service Professionals for the Growing Older Adult Population” at 7 pm on Wednesday, October 22, in Warner Hall on the university’s Midtown campus, 181 White Street. The lecture will be free and open to the public.

The School of Professional Studies, the home of WestConn’s advanced certificate program in Interdisciplinary Gerontological Studies, is sponsoring the event.

“We are thrilled to have Dr Dobrof present this lecture to kickoff the implementation of the university’s certificate program,” said Dr Lynne Clark, dean of the School of Professional Studies. “Dr Dobrof’s lecture will be highly informative; she serves as an inspiration to many in the field of aging.”

Over the course of three decades, Dr Dobrof has earned her reputation as a nationally known and respected pioneer in the field of aging and gerontological education, serving as an advocate for the promotion of national health and social welfare policies and services for older adults.

Dr Dobrof, the founding executive director of the Brookdale Center on Aging, is Brookdale’s professor of gerontology at Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY). She became the founding executive director of the Brookdale Center in 1975. For the following 19 years, she served as the vital force in making the Brookdale Center a leading research, educational, and clinical center.

Dr Dobrof served from 1985 to 1994 as co-director of one of the federally supported geriatric education centers, the Hunter/Mount Sinai Geriatric Education Center. In 1995, then-President Bill Clinton appointed Dr Dobrof to serve as a member of the Policy Committee for the 1995 White House Conference on Aging, and as a member of the Federal Council on Aging. She was chosen in 1997 as the co-chair of the US Committee for the Celebration of the United Nations Year of Older Persons. Dr Dobrof was selected in 1999 to serve on the National Advisory Council on Aging of the National Institutes of Health for a three-year term.

For more information about Dr Dobrof’s lecture or the gerontology program at WestConn, call the School of Professional Studies at 837-8576 or the Office of Public Relations at 837-8486.