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Three 51С�Ƴ�representatives recently served as keynote speakers at a regional conference on interprofessional education.

Shelley Cohen Konrad, Ph.D., LCSW, FNAP, director of the Center for Excellence in Collaborative Education (CECE), Kris Hall, M.F.A., CECE program manager, and Nancy Jo Ross, Ph.D., RN, assistant clinical professor of nursing, gave the keynote presentation at the Interprofessional Education for Collaboration Event, hosted at Salem State University (SSU) on May 16.

The event was presented by the Maguire Meservey College of Health and Human Services (MMCHHS) at SSU in Salem, Massachusetts.

The group presented a lively, interactive, and experiential workshop on collaborative competencies and skills, which engaged an array of cross-disciplinary faculty and staff.

Sami Ansari, Ph.D., dean of the MMCHHS, commented that the presentation was “one of the most valuable and engaging professional development sessions [our faculty] had attended in a long time.”

Jeramie Silveira, OTD, MSOTR/L, chair of Salem State’s occupational therapy program, remarked that the workshop helped achieve encouraging outcomes toward building an IPE center in their college.

“We have already had seven faculty indicate they would want to be IPE champion,” Silveira said.

The interdisciplinary presentation is one example of how CECE has developed several cross-institutional interprofessional collaborations, in which health education professions are sharing projects to strengthen knowledge about and production of collaborative learning methods. 

“It was a very gratifying experience” noted Cohen Konrad. “We had a room full of people who knew little or nothing about IPE who emerged eager and ready to embark on learning culture change.”