Making the World a Better Place - Touro College

A Note from the President
The achievements of Touro’s outstanding graduate schools, highlighted in the current
issue of Touro Links, reflect the college’s mission of serving humanity, striving to make
the world a better place for all people.
Our graduate students serve community needs by devising creative solutions. Krina Patel,
a student at our Touro College of Pharmacy, proposed an innovative program for raising
awareness of prescription drug abuse in Staten Island to Senator Charles Schumer and the
program was born with his support. To address needs of the Harlem community, our Graduate
School of Psychology launched an anti-bullying program at a middle school that provides
counseling and presents educational events.
Serving humanity has no boundaries and some of our graduate students participate in
summer internships in underdeveloped countries. At Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine
(TouroCOM), Daniella Bannikov and three classmates traveled to Costa Rica where they met
with a local doctor and helped perform routine health checks at community soup kitchens,
churches and schools. Another TouroCOM student, Mike Erickson, assessed and treated
patients in Nairobi under a doctor’s supervision. He helped deliver babies, treated patients
with machete lacerations, and identified parasites under microscopes.
Touro’s commitment to making the world a better place is delivered through academic
excellence. At the Graduate School of Jewish Studies, Dean Michael Shmidman was selected
as one of only 25 distinguished scholars from around the world to receive a prestigious
fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania to study 13th century Judaism.
Among our many outstanding graduate students, Passi-Rosen Bayewitz exemplifies
serving humanity not only in her executive roles at Jewish philanthropic organizations, but in
her master’s thesis at the Graduate School of Jewish Studies. She researched the life stories
of four remarkable Jewish women who coordinated critical relief efforts during the Holocaust.
The stories in Touro Links reflect our achievement, compassion and creative thinking. They
describe Touro’s dedicated community involvement and exemplary scholarship. They are
stories that will continue to be told.
Dr. Alan Kadish
President and CEO
Touro College and University System
TOURO LINKS I SPRING 2013 1