Northeastern University Spring 2012 : Page 19P O V 2020 VISION 2020 VISION ASSESSING THE DECADE AHEAD CBS executive Bruce Taub, LA’71 OUT FROM THE SHADOWS Twin sisters Alaa and Dalal Alhomaizi are resetting the way people in Kuwait think about mental illness. ON TV PROGRAMMING “Programming won’t change. There will always be great com-edies, excellent dramas, and new kinds of reality shows. Content is king; it’s what makes networks money. But you’re going to fi nd this content on modes of distribution that haven’t even been developed yet. “Ten years out, network news will still be around. At CBS, our news ratings are 5 or 6 percent higher than they were last year. Americans have a newfound interest in being home to watch the six-thirty evening news. “Reality TV might morph into a different form. If it does, as a network governed by the FCC, we’ll continue to ensure that our programming is consistent with our values and the American public’s expectations.” Bruce Taub is executive vice president/chief fi nancial offi cer, executive vice president of operations at CBS Television, in New York City. IN KUWAIT, MENTAL ILLNESS STILL CARRIES A serious social stigma, which even extends to a disdain for mental-health professionals. “We were told that psychology is not a real fi eld, and that we would turn crazy like our clients if we studied it,” says junior Dalal Alhomaizi. Mentally ill people are often kept isolated from the outside world, explains her twin, Alaa, also a junior. “It’s like they don’t exist,” she says. But the Alhomaizi sisters, who grew up in Kuwait and came to Northeastern to study psychology, are deter-mined to change this way of thinking. They’ve created an organization that seeks to erase negative perceptions of mental illness in the Middle East and underscore psychology’s value as a scientifi c discipline. Known as SPEAK (Standing for Psycho-logical Education and Awareness in Kuwait), the campaign includes print and TV ads, social-media outreach, and a website with a discussion forum. SPEAK even caught the attention of Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, which offered the Alhomaizis co-op posi-tions tailored to suit their expertise. This spring, the sisters are research assistants at MGH’s Ches-ter M. Pierce, MD, Divi-sion of Global Psychiatry, working on studies whose results will inform mental-health policy and practice in low-and middle-income countries. Alaa and Dalal believe the timing for SPEAK couldn’t be better. “People are becoming tired of the same old way,” says Alaa. Spring 2012 Northeastern Magazine 19 Publication List Using a screen reader? Click Here |
