To ensure that occurs, the Prochaskas have pledged $250,000 to URI’s Making A Distinction marketing campaign to determine the Prochaska Most cancers Prevention Analysis Middle Management Endowment. Moreover, the couple’s present is a problem grant, which suggests they’ll match different donations to the endowment dollar-for-dollar.
Robert Beagle, vp for development who labored with the Prochaskas on their endowment notes that such presents from school and pals can set the stage for extra campus neighborhood help. “Jim and Jan are extremely regarded effectively -liked professionals,” says Beagle. “Others will see the dedication and the love that the Prochaskas have for URI and might be motivated to offer. Non-public help for famend areas like our habits change programming is important.”
Glen Kerkian, president of the URI Basis, which manages the college’s fundraising actions and investments, provides: “Items like this one, and particularly, the dedication and devotion the Prochaskas have demonstrated, mirror the excessive worth alumni, school and pals alike have positioned on supporting the college and sustaining and enhancing its aggressive edge. The generosity of this couple will most undoubtedly safe optimistic long-term outcomes for each the Most cancers Prevention Analysis Middle and the college at massive.”
The first function of the endowment is to assist the College entice a nationally acknowledged director for the Middle when Jim steps down and to offer help for graduate college students who examine and work within the Middle. A lot of these college students have gone on to make main contributions to boost well being.
Jim, a professor of scientific and well being psychology, is among the world’s most revered well being psychologists who developed a revolutionary stage mannequin of habits change at URI referred to as the Transtheoretical Mannequin of Conduct Change. The mannequin has been utilized to greater than 50 behaviors and is probably the most cited mannequin in well being habits change.
Main causes of ailments similar to most cancers, diabetes, and coronary heart illness consequence from behaviors like smoking, sedentary life, unhealthy diets, substance abuse, and stress. In actual fact, ailments ensuing from these behaviors account for greater than 60 % of well being care prices.
URI’s mannequin –developed from greater than 30 years of analysis, greater than $70 million of funded grants, and greater than 120,000 members — understands that change isn’t an occasion, however a course of. The five-stage mannequin –precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, motion, and upkeep–targets every particular person’s stage after which guides her or him by way of the levels of change.
When requested if he deliberate to retire, Jim responded with a smile: “I’m within the precontemplation stage.” Precontemplation is the stage during which persons are not meaning to take motion within the foreseeable future. “That doesn’t imply I’m not prepared to show over management of the CPRC to a youthful particular person.”
Jim was the primary psychologist to win a Medal of Honor for Scientific Analysis from the American Most cancers Society. He’s a recipient of an Innovator’s Award from the Robert Wooden Johnson Basis, and was named one of many High 5 Most Cited Authors in Psychology from the American Psychological Society.
Jan Prochaska is president and CEO of Professional-Change Conduct Programs, Inc., an 11-year-old privately held analysis and product improvement firm positioned on campus. Professional-Change expands the stage change mannequin by creating and delivering revolutionary packages for dissemination companions. Professional-Change has developed quite a few packages together with home violence prevention, stress administration, weight administration, medicine adherence, changing into a proactive well being shopper, readiness for adoption, bullying prevention, weight problems prevention, and organizational change. The corporate employs 20 workers members of which seven are doctoral stage psychologists and two are doctoral candidates. All however one of many Ph.D’s are or might be URI graduates.
Different increased training establishments, particularly Ivy League faculties, have tried to lure Prochaska with beneficiant presents. He has refused all of them.
“I’ve at all times believed in public training,” he says. “Each Jan and I have been the primary in our households to go to school. Our fathers labored in factories.”
The couple met within the band room of Fordson Excessive Faculty in Dearborn, Mich. He was a soccer participant, she a majorette. They’ve two youngsters; one is an astrophysicist and the opposite a scientific well being psychologist.
The couple visited URI earlier than Jim joined URI’s Psychology Division. “Identical to with Jan, it was love at first sight,” Jim says. “The College is sufficiently small to be appreciated and large enough to have great collaborators. And the College has at all times inspired entrepreneurship.”
URI’s Making A Distinction Marketing campaign seeks $100 million to recruit and retain excellent school, improve the student-centered campus expertise, present undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships, and fund cutting-edge educational and analysis initiatives. Anybody wishing to answer the Prochaska problem ought to contact Tom Zorabedian, affiliate dean, School of Arts and Sciences, at 401-874-2853 or zman@basis.uri.edu. For extra data on the marketing campaign, click on www.urifoundation.org.
