Backed by a grant from the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, Westchester Community College this fall will launch a continuing-education initiative for its students and financially challenged community residents through the college”™s newly formed Center for Financial and Economic Education.
College officials said the center, directed by financial education specialist Suzanne Matthews, will serve as a resource for financial and economic education through programs for students, faculty, educators, social service professionals and the community at large. It will be a component of the college”™s $40-million Gateway Center that opened in 2010.
Details about the educational center will be presented to the business community at a Sept. 16 launch event in the Gateway Center. It will feature guest speaker Beth Kobliner, a personal finance expert and author of the bestselling “Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties.” Kobliner is on the President”™s Advisory Council on Financial Capability, a bipartisan committee charged with tackling the problem of financial illiteracy on a national scale.
The college this fall will offer workshops on basic personal finance topics of planning, budgeting, saving and investing and practical financial issues for students. The school also plans a series of workshops for students in its English as a Second Language classes.
Schwarz named to MTA search committee
Thomas Schwarz, president of SUNY Purchase, has been appointed to a Metropolitan Transportation Authority search advisory committee that will assist Gov. Cuomo in selecting candidates to succeed Jay Walder as MTA chairman and CEO.
Walder recently announced he will leave the MTA in October after a little more than two years in the post to head the MTR Corp., an international rail service company based in Hong Kong.
Cuomo in announcing his committee appointments said they will help conduct a national and international search to find and recommend the most talented candidates for the job. “I am committed to appointing a new chairman who will put straphangers first and who will continue to reform the MTA by reducing costs and waste while improving efficiency and service,” he said. The governor”™s appointment is subject to confirmation by the state Senate.
The advisory team includes public transportation experts and management professionals in the public and private sectors. An executive search and recruitment firm, Krauthamer & Associates, will assist in the process.
A retired law partner at Skadden, Arps, Meagher & Flom L.L.P., Schwarz has led the state college in Purchase since 2003.
Somnia tapped for patient-care programs
Somnia Anesthesia in New Rochelle has received distinctions as the first anesthesia-only national practice management company to participate in two nationwide programs dedicated to improving patient care.
Somnia will contribute data on anesthesia clinical outcomes to the National Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes Registry in a new partnership with the Anesthesia Quality Institute. The institute will use aggregated data from medical practices and hospitals nationwide to identify best practices in anesthesia and improve the overall quality of patient care.
In return, Somnia and other participants will receive periodic benchmarking reports comparing their data to the registry”™s national aggregate data and eventually with a peer group of similar anesthesia practices.
Somnia also is the first anesthesia-only management company to be designated a Patient Safety Organization (PSO) by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
PSOs are designed to help clinicians, hospitals and health care organizations improve the care they deliver to patients by encouraging them to conduct quality and safety analyses and thereby reduce risks and hazards.
Somnia is one of only 81 organizations in the nation currently participating in the voluntary program, said Dr. Robert C. Goldstein, the company”™s executive vice president and chief medical officer.
Founded in 1996 by practicing anesthesiologists, Somnia Anesthesia provides locally recruited anesthesia teams and anesthesia support services to hospitals, surgery centers and office-based surgical facilities. The company is headquartered at 10 Commerce Drive.
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