NC*AGING e-newsletter #77 | a service of the UNC Institute on Aging Information Center | January 2008

A Note From:
IOA Associate Director for Research Jennifer Craft Morgan

As the IOA Director, Victor Marshall, noted in his column in the June 2007 issue of NC*Aging, most of our research activities are specific to our home campus of UNC-Chapel Hill. As an inter-institutional program of the University of North Carolina, it is important that we continue to reach beyond our campus to include each of the 16 constituent universities, as well as North Carolina's independent colleges and universities, through the North Carolina College Aging Network. Motivated by suggestions from our newly reconstituted Statewide Advisory Council, we are seeking to implement strategies that reach beyond our home campus to identify noteworthy aging research projects across the state.

To this end, I am beginning to edit a regular column in NC*Aging that will showcase research in aging across the state. We are particularly interested in:

  • research that has local or statewide implications;
  • research that informs gerontological education or service provision for aging populations;
  • aging research that is multi-disciplinary or interdisciplinary;
  • aging research that bridges the university and community divide.
If you are a researcher whose work has an aging focus and you are employed by one of the 16 constituent universities of the University of North Carolina system, or at any independent college or university in North Carolina, please submit a short profile of your research in two single-spaced pages or less. I will review these profiles monthly and choose profiles to highlight in the newsletter. Please submit these profiles to me, Jennifer Craft Morgan and cc our program assistant Melissa Mann .

We hope that this column will build awareness of aging research across the state. This small endeavor in concert with our larger endeavors, such as the North Carolina Conference on Aging, seeks to strengthen our collaborative researcher, practitioner and policymaker statewide network. This network, by sharing information, best practices and building new models together, has great potential to contribute to our mission: “To enhance the well-being of older people in North Carolina by fostering statewide collaboration in research, education, and service.” We also hope that new collaborative, inter-campus research projects might be stimulated if we all know more about the research interests and strengths of our colleagues across the state.

Please take the time to submit a short profile of your research in aging. I look forward to showcasing North Carolina’s aging research.

If you have additional ideas as to how universities in the UNC system, and other colleges and universities in North Carolina, might better collaborate in our research efforts, please send me an email with your suggestions.
© 2008 UNC Institute on Aging