The Ernest Spaights Plaza award is named in honor of the late Professor Ernest Spaights and is dedicated to individuals who have made significant, enduring and campus-wide contributions to the growth and development of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ron Perez, former dean, Joseph J. Zilber School of Public Health, 1990-2020\u202f(posthumous)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ron Perez never shied away from volunteering to fill a leadership void.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When he took the role of interim dean of the Zilber School of Public Health, Perez was an outsider, an engineer with no public health training. But he was a leader so clearly committed to 51ÁÔÆæ and the school that the faculty asked for him to be named to the role permanently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perez joined the Zilber School after serving as associate dean of academic and student affairs, one of multiple roles he had at the College of Engineering & Applied Science. He brought with him a wealth of administrative expertise and experience in relationship-building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was because of Perez that the Zilber School successfully navigated its first round of accreditation; began building an undergraduate program, which was critical to its sustainability; and fostered a successful relationship with multiple donors, including the Zilber Family Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He played a significant part in forming Partners for Health, a health school consolidation effort that had previously failed at 51ÁÔÆæ. Partners for Health was jointly created by Perez; Ron Cisler, then dean of the College of Health Sciences; and Kim Litwack, dean of the College of Nursing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through Partners for Health, the colleges were able to advance research through shared administration, establish research groups in geriatrics and community\/population health and offer joint student-community experiences at a local public housing project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The strengths of the relationships formed through Partners for Health became the foundation of 51ÁÔÆæ\u2019s health Perez also co-chaired the 51ÁÔÆæ Restructuring Team, which helped bring together the Washington County and Waukesha campuses with UW-Milwaukee, a realignment mandated by the UW System. It was just one of the dozens of committees and task forces he served on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Ernest Spaights Plaza award is named in honor of the late Professor Ernest Spaights and is dedicated to individuals who have made significant, enduring and campus-wide contributions to the growth and development of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Ron Perez, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":2879,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[65,38,42,37,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-staff","category-news","category-partners-for-health-news","category-spotlight","category-zilber-in-the-news"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2014<\/s>school realignment involving the three schools becoming two new colleges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n