I am pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Rita Chou as the Director of the South Carolina Center for Gerontology, effective August 16.

The South Carolina Center for Gerontology is a consortium of state-supported institutions of higher education that presently includes Clemson University, Coastal Carolina University, Lander University, the Medical University of South Carolina, South Carolina State University, the University of South Carolina, and Winthrop University. The Center was recommended by the Committees of Health and Medical Education and Academic Affairs of the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education and approval was granted on November 1, 1984. The general purpose of the Consortium is to use the expertise of gerontology and geriatrics faculty from a variety of academic disciplines to assist in furthering the quality of life for older South Carolinians.

Dr. Chou brings teaching experience as both an anthropologist and as a social work graduate. She taught undergraduate and graduate level courses as an assistant/associate professor at the Department of Anthropology for the National Taiwan University (1989-1995). She has additional teaching experience in social work as a teaching assistant and adjunct faculty for various social work courses including human behavior and the social environment, social work research methods, social work with ethnic and racial groups, and introduction to social work.

Dr. Chou has conducted multiple studies on aging, health, long-term care, and caregiving in both the U.S. and Taiwan. For her dissertation in anthropology in 1987, she studied health and socio-cultural factors related to life satisfaction of older Chinese-Americans in Oakland, California. She has recently completed her doctoral study in social welfare at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on institutional and social support at work and job satisfaction of direct care workers in assisted living. Dr. Chou has an MSSW in aging and is a Hartford Geriatric Social Work Doctoral Fellow as well.

Please welcome Dr. Chou to our community when you have the opportunity.

Dean Dennis Poole

Links:

South Carolina Center for Gerontology

Dr. Rita Chou