Adjunct Instructor Bridges Gaps Between Health Professionals

As the corporatewide business analyst manager at Intermountain Healthcare, Robert Selman has plenty to do. On top of that role, though, he’s performing a labor of love: teaching.
 
“I love the interaction with students, he said, “and I love the opportunity to share the things that I know with students who are eager to learn.”
 
An adjunct instructor for WSU’s eMHA and MHA programs, and for the university’s nursing program, Selman enjoys being surrounded by “a thirst for knowledge.”
 
He brings real-world experience to the information technology subjects he teaches. His duties outside WSU include acting as a liaison between hospital CEOs and IT teams.
 
“We do a lot of translating,” he said of him and his team. “They (CEOs and IT professionals) don’t always speak the same language all the time.”
 
He performs that same translation in the classroom, where students might not be familiar with IT terms. In the end, if students don’t gain a passion for IT, he hopes they at least realize the symbiotic role each healthcare team has.

He began teaching in the MHA program through a mentor, Mary Gathers, herself an MHA alumna and adjunct instructor who passed away. Now, Selman is seeking to carry her legacy forward.