University of Mary Washington - Index

University of Mary Washington - summer08 - Index

Karen Pearlman
Program Developer Boasts a Healthy Collection of Credentials
Elaine M. Asper’s résumé includes such titles as medical
research technician, medical center administrative director,
financial analyst, senior manager, entrepreneur, university
professor, and college administrator. Those credentials make
Asper an apt choice as the key faculty member for a program
that gives students a foundation of business skills with focused
studies in health care management.
“I enjoy new challenges, and I like the opportunity to build
on my prior experience,” said Asper, who was hired in 2007
to help the University of Mary Washington develop a health
care management concentration in the Master of Business
Administration (MBA) program as well as a health care
management certificate.
“I know from first-hand
experience that combining health
care with a traditional business
background has enormous
advantages,” Asper said during
a recent interview in her office at
UMW’s College of Graduate and
Professional Studies.
A lover of animals and science,
the New Jersey native began her
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Elaine M. Asper
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promoted into a managerial position at Mary Washington
Hospital several years ago and urged by her employer to
finish her degree. With crucial support from the hospital’s
tuition reimbursement program, she returned to college,
completing the Bachelor of Professional Studies program
at UMW’s Stafford campus.
Last year, when she met with a professor one evening,
the “health care management” sign outside an empty office
caught her attention.
“I really enjoy working in a health system, but it’s difficult
if you’re not a clinical person, like a nurse,” said Reynolds,
who divides her time between the hospital, where she’s
worked for 19 years, and its outpatient geriatric clinic at
Fall Hill Avenue in Fredericksburg. “I’m hoping health care
management will give me the expertise I need to advance
into hospital administration.”
Mark Foust, vice president of communications for the
MBA student Jennifer Reynolds hopes to advance her career
at Mary Washington Hospital by taking advantage of the
University’s new concentration in health care management.
career at a teaching hospital. With a newly-minted bachelor’s
degree in zoology from the University of Minnesota, Asper
took a job in research at the New York University medical
center. “I started in health care, and my career has returned me
to the health care field again and again,” she said.
Asper eventually pursued a master’s degree at New York
University, balancing studies and career, much the same as
employed adults enrolled at UMW’s Stafford campus. Her
MBA in finance opened the door to new possibilities, and
she signed on as a financial analyst with Ford Motor Co. in
Michigan. She later joined Federal Express Corp., working as a
financial analyst near Chicago and afterward as a FedEx station
service manager in Lebanon, N.H.
There, Asper’s career brought her back to health care when
she began working as an administrator at Dartmouth College’s
teaching hospital, where she drew inspiration from on-the-job
frustration. “I saw a huge opportunity,” she recalled. “I could
see there was a place for business people to contribute to the
health care field, and I wanted to share what I knew with a
larger audience.”
Asper then earned a Ph.D. in administration-health
services from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, which
led to stints as a professor and department chair at three