On Aug. 2, Steven D. Shapiro, MD, senior vice president for health affairs, announced Sarah Van Orman, MD, MMM, as USC’s new vice president and chief campus health officer, effective Aug. 1.
Reporting directly to Shapiro, Van Orman, who has overseen Student Health since 2017, will continue her roles as head of the program, associate vice provost for student affairs and division chief for college health at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. The Department of Athletic Medicine, which serves USC’s student athletes, will also continue under her oversight.
As the vice president and chief campus health officer, she will make sure that all aspects of campus culture will include optimized health practices. She’ll also work with senior leadership across USC on the best next steps toward becoming a health-promoting university.
Expanded responsibilities in her portfolio include the following:
- To build programs and policies that support campus-wide health promotion programs
- To manage the health-care-related aspects of risk, crisis and emergency response
- To lead the university’s occupational health programs
- To provide clinical direction for employee health care benefit plans
“Many at the university are already familiar with Van Orman’s calm, assured and tireless leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, for which she received the USC Presidential Medallion — the university’s highest honor,” Shapiro said in a statement.
“She continues to be a champion for student well-being and patient care, including her work on the development of new programs to address campus sexual assault and gender-based violence, student well-being, trauma-informed care delivery and mental health.”
Van Orman’s experience before joining USC includes serving as a junior faculty member at the University of Chicago, where she was eventually appointed medical director of the Student Care Center. She was later recruited to be the first the director of clinical services at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and soon became the program’s executive director.
National recognition for Van Orman’s expertise resulted in her becoming the president of the American College Health Association (ACHA). She is also a recipient of the Edward Hitchcock Award for Outstanding Contributions in College Health and the Ruth Boynton Award for Distinguished Service, both from the American College Health Association.
— Kate Faye