UI&U Launches Promise Campaign

Inspired by what motivated UI&U students to finish their degree, billboards feature UI&U graduates


CINCINNATI – One promised her mother. Another promised her child, and another promised himself. Billboards promoting Union Institute & University (UI&U) that show UI&U graduates with the tagline “Because I promised…” will be featured in Cincinnati from March 1 until April 31 (and again in July and August) as a part of the university’s “Promise” campaign. The university will also run ads in print and on radio.

“As we talked to Union graduates about why they returned to school, we found a common thread: Many were motived by reasons other than improving their chances to get a better job,” said Jon Mays, Vice President for Enrollment at Union. “Our students are typically older and have lived lives. They are often motivated by something more personal. In many cases, the promises they made to parents, their unfulfilled dreams, and the example they want to set for their children kept them inspired as they balanced their educational pursuits with family and work responsibilities.”

UI&U’s Promise campaign will begin in Cincinnati, but Mays said the campaign could extend to the other centers. The university’s administrative headquarters are in Walnut Hills, and the private, non-profit university also has locations in Brattleboro and Montpelier, VT, Miami, and in Los Angeles and Sacramento, CA.

The billboards will be featured on roads and highways throughout Cincinnati, including I-75 northbound, I-71 southbound at the Smith-Edwards Road exit, and on State Route 747. For more information about UI&U’s Promise campaign contact PR manager Nicole Hamilton at Nicole.hamilton@myunion.edu or 513.487.1194.

UI&U Professor Travels To Australia to Assist Aboriginal Cooperative

Mehl-Madrona works to bring indigenous concepts of health and healing into the contemporary practice of medicine and psychology

Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona

CINCINNATI - Native American physician and psychologist Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona, who serves as faculty for Union Institute & University’s Doctorate in Psychology program, will travel to Australia for two weeks in March as part of a grant through the Gippsland and East Gippsland Aboriginal Cooperative and the Australian government. Mehl-Madrona will assist an aboriginal cooperative to explore how to incorporate their own culture into the health care they receive.


Accompanying Mehl-Madrona will be Dr. Robert Crocker, a Choctaw Family Physician who serves as an associate professor at the University of Arizona, and Barbara Mainguy, a creative arts therapist and art consultant from Concordia University in Montreal. Together, the three will explore and share stories about each other’s cultures with members of the aboriginal cooperative as a way to explore diversity and cultural exchange. This is Mehl-Madrona’s third year working with the Gippsland and East Gippsland Aboriginal Cooperative. He is funded for two more annual visits.

Throughout his career, Mehl-Madrona has worked to bring indigenous concepts of health and healing into the contemporary practice of medicine and psychology. He has found the narrative paradigm and social constructionism to be most exciting ways to bridge indigenous people and contemporary psychology. He is the author of five books in these areas, the most recent of which is Healing the Mind through the Power of Story: the Promise of Narrative Psychiatry. His article “Benzos to Berries,” was published this week in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.

Mehl-Madrona received his M.D. degree from Stanford University in 1975 and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the Psychological Studies Institute in Palo Alto, California, in 1980. He has a postgraduate diploma in narrative studies from Massey University in New Zealand and completed residencies in family medicine and in psychiatry at the University of Vermont. He completed post-doctoral studies at the University of California at Berkeley in alcohol research and at the Center for Recovery from Illness in neuropsychology. Mehl-Madrona is American Board Certified in Family Medicine with added qualifications in geriatrics and in psychiatry.

At UI&U, he teaches courses related to research methods, biological aspects of psychology, and narrative studies. He is especially interested in the brain as a social organ, its social construction, and the role of epigenetics and neuroplasticity in regulating mood and behavior.

For more information about Dr. Mehl-Madrona’s work to or to schedule an interview, please contact Nicole Hamilton, public relations manager, at 513-487-1194 or at Nicole.hamilton@myunion.edu.

Brattleboro Center Hosts Pie Making Contest February 26

BRATTLEBORO – Union & University’s (UI&U) Brattleboro Center will host a pie making contest from 5:30-7:30 p.m., February 26, at Union Institute and University’s Brattleboro Center at 3 University Way. The contest will feature pie tastings and hot drinks compliments of the university.


Pies will be will be accepted for judging the day before or the morning of the event, and although “snowy” meringue and whipped toppings are most appreciated, absolutely no pie will be turned away. The university will have plenty extra pies on hand and kids will be treated to a puppet show every half hour.

The top pie winner, chosen by surprise guest judges, will receive a $50 gift certificate to a Brattleboro business of their choice. Final judging will begin at 6:30 p.m.

For information about the pie making contest call 802-257-9411 or email brattleborocenter@myunion.edu. For directions, please visit our website: http://www.myunion.edu/about/locations/brattleboro/index.html.

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