After 11 years, Bowen resigns as director of health services

The University announced Friday that Director of Health Services Pamela Bowen will resign at the end of the academic year. Bowen has spent 11 years in the position.

Bowen said she is leaving to pursue a new project focusing on health topics for college students from around the world. She added that she hopes the program will specifically address those health concerns faced by students from foreign cultures.

"I want to give back to the college health community in a new way that will benefit college students nationally," Bowen said in an e-mail.

Bowen said she looks back fondly on her career at Princeton.

"It has been very special to me to have Princeton students as patients and to work with them on committees, especially the Student Health Advisory Board," she said.

Bowen added that before she leaves, she hopes to convince the administration to fund a new or fully renovated health facility "to serve the student body well into the 21st century."

Bowen informed the health staff of her plans in early November, and the student board shortly after, she said.

Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson, who is in charge of finding Bowen's replacement, said she has appreciated Bowen's contributions to health services and the University.

Dickerson said the University has just begun its search for a new director by "posting a job description and inviting selected faculty and administrators to serve on a search committee." Dickerson added that she is not sure whether the position will be filled by September.

The administration plans to begin reviewing applications by March 15, Dickerson said.

Though Bowen's resignation comes shortly after the anthrax scare in the Princeton area, she said the anthrax situation was not a factor in her decision.

She highlighted the new programs that she helped add to health services.

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"The changes that I have been implementing at health services make me confident that I am leaving PUHS in good hands at a good time," she said.

A member of the board of directors of the American College Health Foundation, Bowen previously was a staff physician and medical administrator at the University of Pittsburgh. Before that, she served as a physician at Rutgers and Carnegie Mellon universities.