The Shepard Broad Law Center’s PULSE! Health Law Society is working with the Movember Foundation to raise awareness of men’s health and fundraise for men’s health programs throughout November.
PULSE! will host a competition between the Health Professions Division and the Shepard Broad Law Center to see who can raise the most money for the Movember Foundation. The winning school will receive a trophy with a mustache on it.
Since 2003, the Movember Foundation, an international organization, has worked with communities, individuals and college campuses to host events and raise money to support men’s health programs. The programs focus on awareness, research and education on prostate cancer, testicular cancer and mental health challenges.
Carisa Champion-Lippman, a graduate student in the dual program with the medical and law schools, said that Movember is an important month to follow October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
“It’s very important that we also are aware of the staggering numbers of men whose lives are impacted and whose family’s lives are impacted by men’s health issues,” she said.
Each of HPD’s seven colleges, along with the law school, will raise money and awareness in a different way. Most schools will sell T-shirts and urge their students, faculty and staff to grow mustaches, a Movember tradition.
PULSE! President Sylvia Cobo, third-year law student, said the law center will hold a Mr. Movember contest. Men who want to participate will donate at least $5. In addition to students, the organization is trying to also get professors to join the contest. Law students will vote on whom they believe should be named Mr. Movember. Each vote will cost $1 and students can vote as many times as they want. The competitors with the most votes will be crowned Mr. Movember.
Champion-Lippman said winners will receive shaving kits and gift cards and all voters will receive small gifts, such a pencils, stamps and stick-on mustaches, as thanks for their support.
HPD and the law center are working together to join different professions and help raise awareness on current issues because a lot of medical students are interested in law and policy. Cobo said many of the issues that impact the HPD students also impact law students who want to work in health law.
Champion-Lippmann said, “NSU in general values everybody working together from their different professions to tackle hard, serious issues and this is our way of doing that.”
Cobo said it is important for the law students and the HPD students to network and host events together.
“These are the professionals that we’re going to be working with in the future, and these are professionals that we can help in the future,” Cobo said. “We think it makes sense to get involved with each other as much as we possibly can.”
