Sarah Van Orman, director of University Health Services, will leave the university this week after 10 years of service, UW-Madison announced Tuesday.
Van Orman will become the associate vice provost for student affairs and chief student health office at the University of Southern California. She will initially be replaced by UHS associate directors Bill Kinsey and Arnie Jennerman, pending a search for a new director.
In her time at UHS, Van Orman has dealt with issues ranging from high-risk alcohol use and sexual violence to mental health and campus-wide outbreaks, such as the presence of meningitis this past school year.
“It’s a balance, Van Orman said in a release. “It’s important to respond to people, whether that’s people who are sick and need to come in, people who are experiencing a mental health crisis who need care, or an outbreak that needs attention, you absolutely have to take care of people.”
Van Orman cited work in mental health services and sexual violence prevention, significant decreases in high-risk alcohol consumption among first-year students and improvements in “occupational health and medicine services” as major strides made during her time with UHS.
“You always need to make sure you have resources and are keeping an eye on the longer-term issues. That is a challenge,” Van Orman said in the release . “How do you respond to the short-term needs while really keeping your eye focused on the longer-term work? Otherwise you always stay in a reactive mode and you don’t actually make progress. That’s one of the things we’ve tried to build here.”
