The Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing expands its graduate programs this summer to include master’s degree offerings for aspiring nurse practitioners and physician assistants with a focus on preparing primary care providers for rural and underserved communities.

“The new curriculum offers a broad education in understanding complex problems and generating solutions, understanding how health systems and health care works as well as how to improve quality, lead teams and deal with the business aspects of care,” said Heather M. Young, associate vice chancellor for nursing and dean. “Graduates are prepared to work as leaders of health care teams.”

The School of Medicine previously offered both programs: a certificate program with no degree for physician assistant, and a joint program with California State University, Sacramento, for nurse practitioner — a program that required enrollment, and tuition, at both universities.

Now, at the School of Nursing, both programs come with master's degrees; the physician assistant program is 27 months long and the nurse practitioner program is two years long.

Applications are now open for summer 2014 enrollment. Read the complete news release.

UC Davis plans ‘showcases’ in Madrid

UC Davis has signed a new working agreement to increase intellectual, academic, scientific, business and cultural relations with the Comunidad de Madrid, the government of the Madrid region.

Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter and the comunidad’s president, Ignacio González, signed the agreement on May 28.

“Today, UC Davis and the Comunidad de Madrid enter into an important agreement to further the development of a ‘showcase’ in Madrid of UC Davis scientific research, new and emerging technologies, technology transfer opportunities and graduate education,” Hexter said at the signing ceremony in Madrid.

Madrid Network, an association of leading Spanish companies, will lead the comunidad’s participation. The companies are seeking to expand their businesses into new markets and forge partnerships with the scientific and business communities in other countries.

Harold Levine, dean of the School of Education, who has responsibility for UC Davis’ participation, said the effort will begin with planning for up to three annual, one- to two-day “showcase” workshops in Madrid.

The workshops will feature UC Davis faculty and graduate student research, and include speakers from UC Davis and from Madrid Network’s member companies. Later collaborations may include exchanges of scientists and other personnel, as well as student internships.

UCPath launches here Jan. 1, 2015

UC Davis and the UC Davis Health System will be in UCPath’s second wave, scheduled to launch Jan. 1, 2015. UCPath, an integrated payroll, benefits and human resources system to support staff and academic processes, is replacing UC’s 30-year-old Payroll Personnel System, or PPS.

The UCPath Center had previously announced Wave 1, due to go live July 1, 2014: UCLA, UCLA Health System, UC Merced, UC Santa Cruz and the UC Office of the President.

Now come the Wave 2 and 3 lists:

• Wave 2 — Launching Jan. 1, 2015, at UC Davis and the UC Davis Health System, UC Riverside, and UC San Diego and the UC San Diego Health System.
• Wave 3 — Launching July 1, 2015, at UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, UC Irvine Health, UC San Francisco and the UCSF Medical Center, and UC Santa Barbara.

With Wave 3 completed, some 190,000 employees will be using UCPath, which stands for University of California Payroll, Academic Personnel, Timekeeping, Human Resources.

With implementation in waves, the UCPath Center on the Riverside campus will have sufficient time to ramp up and provide the best level of service.

More information: The UCPath Project at UC Davis

Recycling tip

Did you know you can send old batteries and used plastic pens through campus mail for recycling? Just pop the old batteries (not leaking, please) or used plastic pens (actually, any plastic-encased writing device) in an intercampus envelope, address it to “Battery Recycling” or “Pen Recycling” and leave the envelope with your outgoing campus mail, and Mail Services will take care of delivering them to Materiel Management. 

Read more about the pen recycling program.

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