As a part of the healthcare community, Ross Medical Education Center campuses are always excited to help raise awareness for various populations and health research. Each year, April is recognized as Autism Awareness Month and many campuses join in the venture to promote autism awareness in their personal and professional lives and spheres of influence. One way that our Ross campus in Roosevelt Park, Michigan and our Ross campus in Portage, Michigan both chose to increase awareness for students, staff, and faculty this year was through inviting guest speakers to their respective campuses.
Our Roosevelt Park campus welcomed guest speaker Dr. Emile Mulder for National Autism Awareness Month. Dr. Mulder offers a variety of services for individuals with all types of autism at The Shoreline Center located in Grand Haven, MI. Information on varying symptoms of autism and medical terminology as it relates to autism was shared.
Students were able to participate in open discussions related to how autism may have an effect on both their personal and professional lives. Many students inquired about volunteer opportunities as well! Roosevelt Park’s Assistant Director of Education, Rhiannon Daszko, took this opportunity to let students know about mentoring programs offered by local schools. Rhiannon’s son is an active member of the Links program and stopped in to share some of his experiences. The Links program offers children on the spectrum to be matched with another student for peer mentoring. The Roosevelt Park staff and faculty was very thankful to Dr. Mulder and all of the insight he shared!
The Portage campus also brought autism awareness to their classes by welcoming two guest speakers from the Autism Society to their campus. Their presentations were powerful which sparked a lot of interest in learning more about autism! Then the campus furthered their efforts by participating in the Walk About Talk About Autism event at the Portage Celery Flats! The students organized the creation of t-shirts and worked together to be able to make a donation to the Autism Awareness Society. It was beautiful and sunny on the day of the walk and everyone had a great time!