PROVOST NAMED PRESIDENT-ELECT OF CANCER EDUCATION GROUP

Dr. Charles Kupchella, Southeast Missouri State University provost, has been elected president-elect of the American Association for Cancer Education.

Kupchella will serve a one-year term in the post followed by a one-year term as AACE president.

The American Association for Cancer Education was founded in 1947 as the Cancer Coordinators, an association of cancer educators from U.S. medical and dental schools that met annually to discuss problems and methods of mutual interest.

The AACE is designed to foster cancer education throughout the world.

The association provides a forum for health-related professionals concerned with the study and improvement of cancer education.

Kupchella joined the AACE in 1976 and has served as treasurer for the past four years.

"Cancer education is a long-standing career interest of mine, and it's really nice to have been recognized by my peers in this way," he said.

Kupchella said the AACE is looking for better ways, through education, to get people to change from bad to good health behaviors.

Southeast's provost said his professional interest in cancer education took hold more than 20 years ago when he became deeply involved in cancer research and medical, dental and nursing cancer education at the University of Louisville.

He worked as an associate director of the Cancer Research Center at the University of Louisville from 1973 to 1979.

In 1987, he published, "Dimensions of Cancer." He served on the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Education Review Committee from 1993 to 1997 and on the American Cancer Society's Institutional Research Grant Program Review Committee from 1993 to 1997.

He said his interest in cancer education dovetails with his long-standing interest in the environment, specifically the relationship between cancer and the environment. In 1986, he published an environmental science textbook, which is now in its third edition.

"I have found that cancer educators have been at the forefront in measuring learning, designing curriculum and measuring behavioral changes linked to teaching and learning -- all very relevant to my work in more recent years," Kupchella said.