Pediatric professor wins prestigious AAHE award

IUSM’s Keener wins national Lynton Award for Faculty Professional Service and Academic Outreach

By Joe Stuteville

That tireless dedication has earned her the prestigious 2002 Ernest A. Lynton Award for Faculty Professional Service and Academic Outreach. The award was presented to Keener at the American Association for Higher Education’s annual forum in Phoenix earlier this week.

Keener, an associate chair of the IU Department of Pediatrics and professor of clinical pediatrics, is director of the school’s Social and Community Contexts of Health Care and assistant dean for the Office of Medical Service-Learning. She has been responsible for originating or spearheading numerous programs including the Indianapolis Campaign for Healthy Babies, the Wishard Memorial Hospital Community Health Centers, the Hispanic/Latino Health Access Initiative, and the Hispanic Pediatric Clinic and Immunization Outreach.

One program created by Keener has had lasting international impact. In 1980, she started Safe Sitter, Inc. in Indianapolis as a resource for child-care/parenting education, and the program now operates at more than 800 sites in the United States, Israel and England with 4,000 trained instructors. An estimated 300,000 adolescents have learned first aid and airway rescue skills, in addition to child-care techniques and safety precautions through Safe Sitter, Inc.

An IUSM graduate whose career has spanned three decades, Keener’s most recent accomplishment was the publication of Caring for Kids, a book available free to parents and caregivers throughout Indiana.

“The thousands of students, peers, community organizations and individuals whose lives have been touched by Dr. Keener certainly is remarkable,” said Cathy Burack, associate director of the New England Resource Center for Higher Education at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. “She exemplifies the connection between teaching and sharing knowledge to improve society and to motivate her students to follow her lead,” said Burack, whose office oversees the Ernest A. Lynton Award for Faculty Professional Service and Academic Outreach Award program. Keener was nominated for the award by Gerald Bepko, chancellor of IUPUI.