The Dane County Almanac Weblog: Stem Cell Research “gold standard” resource in Wisconsin

Biographical Sketch

William Robert Benedict

Upon graduating from Earlham College in 1959 with my political science BA degree I accepted a job offer at the Oesterlen Youth Center, a residential treatment center for emotionally disturbed adolescents. Oesterlen is located in Springfield, Ohio.

While at Oesterlen I met and married Patricia Sue Orsborn from East Liberty, OH and received my master of social work degree from Ohio State University, College of Social Work. I served as both a social group worker and later as the Director of Residential Services.

During the ten years at Oesterlen we had three of our four children. I earned a comprehensive social studies certificate from Wittenberg University and a teacher’s license from the state of Ohio. I also completed a year of clinical supervision as a certified group psychotherapist by the Group Psychotherapy Association. I resigned from Oesterlen to accept a position as Instructor at Ohio State University School of Social Work. After just a little over one year I resigned to become a psychotherapist at the Clark County Comprehensive Mental Health Center in Springfield.

Our family moved from Springfield to Edgerton, WI and lived on nearby Lake Koshkonong for one year before moving north about twenty miles to Stoughton, WI, in late 1972 near Madison, WI. Here our fourth child was born and I began what would turn into a thirty year job commitment to Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin & Upper Michigan, first as a clinical social work supervisor and group therapist before becoming a program planning and evaluation specialist and later Director of the agency’s Continuous Quality Improvement Program.

In this professional capacity a colleague and I developed and had copyrighted a goal-attainment scaling (GAS) case record management and program evaluation system called, Eval-U-Treat. This application was modeled after Dr. Thomas J. Kiresuk’s Goal Attainment Scaling methodology. See: Goal Attainment Scaling: Applications, Theory, and Measurement, 1994. I also had published the very first articles on how to use this methodology to evaluate a staff training program as well as a human service organization. During the 1970s Eval-U-Treat applications were installed in mental health and social service organizations across the United States and Canada.

I was divorced in 1994 and retired from LSS in 2003. I have been blessed with a new partner. Suzanne Ellen Bergen and I have been together for well over a decade and are now domestic partners. We enjoy tennis and traveling especially to visit my children and grandchildren. Prior to my retirement I wrote a book entitled “The Benedict Family 1830 – 2001: The Legacy of William Robert Benedict.” You can find a copy in the Earlham library.

Since my retirement I have pursued my political and social justice advocacy aspirations.

I presently serve on two boards: The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and the Wisconsin Coalition for Aging Groups. I now also write regularly and I have drawn from my favorite sociologist, Dr. Talcott Parsons, in a recent published article, “Clarifying values can help reform politics.” I spend most of my time advocating for campaign finance reform and for state funding for stem cell research. I have been extensively published in both these areas in the Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times. If you would like to read more about these issues and others you may explore these writings here in my blog. Your comments would be especially welcomed and appreciated.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Stem Cell Research “gold standard” resource in Wisconsin

Fall 2008
Advocate – Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups (CWAG)

Some of you may be aware of Dr. Jamie Thomson’s human embryonic stem cell (hESC) discoveries at the University of Wisconsin.

Wisconsin is now considered an international leader in bio-medical research throughout the world. Most health experts agree that Thomson’s discoveries will have a revolutionary impact on how medicine will be practice in the 21st century.

No one should underestimate the potential impact that these discoveries will have on Wisconsin’s economy and on the health and welfare of Wisconsin citizens. Regrettably, to date, unlike in the State of California, there has been little discussion about how Wisconsin should protect and use this lucrative multi-billion dollar resource.

For example, have you heard any discussion or speculation as to what impact our state’s good fortune could have in terms of our health care crisis and in making life saving and enhancing medications available to our elderly, low income and underserved population?

Isn’t this a situation where meaningful revenue sharing between Wisconsin taxpayers and the bio-tech and pharmaceutical industry should be considered beyond the simplistic promises of greater job creation? How should Wisconsin use this gold standard resource?

Wisconsin now holds three broad human embryonic stem cell patents. It should be used to help assure that citizens with chronic and debilitating diseases have access to affordable cell-based drugs and therapies.

Undoubtedly this issue will be the number one social and health care issue of the twenty-first century.

Fortunately, the Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups, Wisconsin’s leader in advocating for prescription drug reform, now has the opportunity to help spearhead this discussion in Wisconsin. At its recent annual meeting, CWAG adopted the following 2008-2010 Platform Priority: “Support legislation for federal and state funding of stem cell research, along with public healthcare safeguards, with benefits affordable to everyone.”

For more information on this issue and proposed policy see wiscellnow.org and citizensforcures.org.

Respectfully, William R. Benedict, ACSW
CWAG District 1

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Sunday, October 19, 2008

Stem Cell Research “gold standard” resource in Wisconsin

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