Michael J. Cole of Holden, Mass. appointed director of admissions for operations

HAMDEN, CT (10/19/2012)(readMedia)-- Michael J. Cole, of Holden, Mass., has been appointed director of admissions for operations at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University.

In his new position, Cole, who works under the associate dean for admissions, is responsible for the supervision and management of all of the day-to-day operations of the admissions office. Before coming to Quinnipiac, Cole was director of recruitment and admissions at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Mass.

"I am thrilled to join Quinnipiac and the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine, and excited at the opportunity to work with such talented and passionate colleagues in building a new medical school," Cole said.

Cole will be among those responsible for recruiting the first class to attend the Frank H. Netter School of Medicine, which is scheduled to open in the Fall of 2013. The Liaison Committee on Medical Education recently granted the school preliminary accreditation and the Connecticut State Board of Education approved the school's medical degree program.

The Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine is aiming to become a national model of interprofessional health care education and improve the way patient care is delivered. Medical students at Quinnipiac will be part of a learning environment where they will interact with students from Quinnipiac's School of Health Sciences and School of Nursing to learn to become effective members of a primary health care team.

The medical school, which will become the third in Connecticut, has already received widespread support from the state's medical community.  St. Vincent's Medical Center was named the medical school's primary clinical partner last year. The affiliation with St. Vincent's is especially important because it establishes a medical school-hospital affiliation in the state's largest city whose residents will have more access to health care as a result of the collaboration.

The medical school also has affiliations with MidState Medical Center in Meriden and Middlesex Hospital in Middletown.

The first class at the medical school will have 60 students. That number is expected to grow to 125 students per class by 2017. When the medical school begins offering classes, Quinnipiac will be among approximately 100 of the nearly 4,500 public and private universities in the United States to have both accredited medical and law schools.

The Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine is named in honor of the noted surgeon and world's most prolific medical illustrator. A major gift from Barbara and the late Edward Netter makes possible this tribute to Edward's first cousin. Beginning in the late 1930s, Dr. Frank Netter began illustrating the entire anatomic and pathologic character of the human body, system by system.

Cole holds a bachelor's degree in communications and a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University. He also holds a master's in higher education administration from Boston College.

Quinnipiac is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian institution located 90 minutes north of New York City and two hours from Boston. The university enrolls 6,200 full-time undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students in 58 undergraduate and more than 20 graduate programs of study in its School of Business and Engineering, School of Communications, School of Education, School of Health Sciences, School of Law, Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine, School of Nursing and College of Arts and Sciences. Quinnipiac consistently ranks among the top regional universities in the North in U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges issue. The 2013 issue of U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges named Quinnipiac as the top up-and-coming school with master's programs in the Northern Region. Quinnipiac also is recognized in Princeton Review's "The Best 377 Colleges." For more information, please visit http://www.quinnipiac.edu. Connect with Quinnipiac on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/quinnipiacuniversity and follow Quinnipiac on Twitter @QuinnipiacU.