Veritas, Vol. 23, No. 12, June 1983

              For the Faculty, Staff and Friends of the University of Miami
Veritas.
Jniversitv of Miami
_
Voi. 23, No. 11 June 1983
by librici Health Organization
In 1972 a storefront operation began dispensing mental health treatment tailored to the needs of Dade County’s Hispanic community. Sensitive to Latin values and idiosyncrasies, UM’s Spanish Family Guidance Center quickly gained acceptance and impact.
Now, just 11 years later, the Center has been designated as a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center for Mental Health, Alcohol, and Drug Dependence. That designation is a capstone in a long list of achievements attained by the center, operated as a unit of the School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry.
Upon making the announcement UM President Edward T. Foote II said, “We are both honored and encouraged by this designation. Our faculty and staff have worked hard for a long time to help our community in improving mental health. Increasingly, our ‘community’ is far beyond the borders of Dade County and the United States. “We will do our best to justify the confidence of the World Health Organization.”
Functions of the Center will include:
•	Developing research programs in mental health, alcohol, and drug abuse in collaboration with Southern Hemisphere Centers.
•	Developing mental health care models for specific populations—adolescents, the elderly, and refugees.
•	Conducting research in areas of mental health in relation to migration, acculturation, and adjustment.
•	Training professionals in specific areas of research, both of a clinical and community nature.
•	Developing educational packages for mental health administrators, educators, and clinicians which will span a wide spectrum of programs, services, and treatments in alcohol, drug abuse, and mental health.
•	Organizing and conducting intera-merican conferences. The Center also
will coordinate a national network of satellite training sites in Washington, D.C.; New York; California; Texas; and Puerto Rico.
Jose' Szapocznik, Ph.D., director of the Spanish Family Guidance Center, will serve as director and senior scientist of the WHO Center and chairman of the Center’s executive committee, composed of James N. Sussex, M.D., chairman of the Department of Psychiatry; Raquel Cohen, M.D.; David San-tisteban, Ph.D; and Cristina de Falla, director of international affairs at UM. Dr. Cohen will also become the Center’s director of education.
“This is indeed a highly prestigious designation,” said Dr. Bernard J. Fogel, executive vice president for medical
affairs and dean of the School of Medicine. “The World Health Organization selected the Spanish Family Guidance Center because of the distinguished record the Center has achieved in the United States over the last 10 years.
It has received millions of dollars in research awards, compiled an impressive catalog of products in the areas of mental health, drug abuse, family care, aging, and emergency relief, and received several national awards.”
These include selection as the 1978 outstanding Hispanic agency in the United States and the 1982 National Leadership Award for Academic Excellence presented to Szapocznik, both awarded by the National Coalition of Hispanic Mental Health and Human
Services Organization.
The Spanish Family Guidance Center has the distinction of being the only World Health Organization Collaborating Center in the United States that has responsibilities in the areas of mental health and alcohol and drug dependency. The center joins an elite group of organizations in the United States which sponsors six other WHO collaborating centers in the fields of mental health, neurosciences, or drug abuse. These are the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Salk Institute, the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke, and Johns Hopkins University.
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Shigeyosfoi Matsumae (center), president of Japan’s Tokai University, visited the University in early June to receive an honorary Doctor of Education degree in a special ceremony Matsumae, a pioneer in electronic communication, served as director of the Ministry of Communication and as a member of theJapanese house of representatives for six terms.
He founded Tokai University, nowJapan’s largest, in 1943 and is currently chairman of the Japan Cultural Association with Foreign Countries Tokai University and UM signed a cooperative agreement for proposed programs of research and academic exchange last fall.
notes on U.S. newspapers
Visiting Chinese journalist and scholar Madame Zhang Li
Readers of the People’s Daily newspaper of the People’s Republic of China carry on a more personal relationship with newspapers than do their American counterparts, notes Madame Zhang Li, a Chinese scholar who recently completed a three-week visit to UM’s Department of Communication.
And those Chinese readers signal their approval — or the lack thereof — by sending more than 3,000 letters to the editor each day.
“The readers feel they’re masters’ of the new spaper and enjoy' expressing opinions,” explained Zhang, director of the w orld journalism section of the Institute of Journalism, Chinese Academy' of Social Sciences.
“On Saturday' a whole page is devoted to those letters; on Wednesday; a halfpage. Papers respect people's opinions, demands, and desires,” she continued, adding that the People’s Daily boasts a circulation of 5 million and carries far less advertising than that found in American newspapers.
Zhang, who is traveling in the United
States under the auspices of the Distinguished Scholar Exchange Program, spent most of May on campus studying U.S. mass communication practices.
During the course of her U.S. tour — her first visit here — she is studying audience research and the relationship between U.S. newspapers and then-readers as demonstrated through readership studies, polling, and letters to the editor.
The journalist conferred w ith a number of UM communication professors: Olaf Rankis in the intercultural area; F*aul Nagel on film; John Hohenberg in international new's; Sy dney' Head on broadcasting, and department chairman David Gordon, who planned her Miami itinerary;
She also met with Professor June Teufel Dreyer of the Graduate School of International Studies, an expert on China; Dean Arthur Brow n of the College of Arts and Sciences; and Professors Aaron Lipman and Melvin De Fleur of sociology; She spoke to a class on mar
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