NSU CDM Lasting Impressions Fall 2018

NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY | 15 Ines Velez, D.D.S., M.S., said her husband, Guillermo, always teased her that she was the only person who woke up on Monday mornings happy to go to work. “It’s true. I love going to work,” Velez said before she retired after 18 years with the Nova Southeastern University College of Dental Medicine. “My work is my passion. The students have been my passion. NSU is the best institution in the world. I have been to several different universities around the world, and I cannot compare any of them with my experience at NSU. This has been like home for me,” added Velez, who was a professor and director of oral and maxillofacial pathology at the CDM. You would never know from the gleam in her eyes and the smile on her face that Velez was leaving her duties at NSU because the cancer she was diagnosed with in 2006 had finally caught up with her. She left the CDM in April 2018, passing away July 19, 2018. She truly believed that was just “the next step” for her, and that is what she told her students. When she made the decision to retire, Velez plainly addressed her classes, telling them she was leaving be- cause she had stage four cancer. When they gasped, she told them, “Don’t worry, it’s a step, it’s OK, we will see each other over there. Now, we are going to have class.” Still, Velez was amazed by the outpouring of love and support she received from her students, as well as the faculty and staff members. “You cannot imagine all the love the students have shown me. They stopped traffic for me outside and brought me fruits and flowers. One day, they handed me something and told me it was a 50-question test, true or false, about me, and they all wrote such beautiful things,” she said. (See story on page 16) “I never thought I would receive so much love from faculty, staff, everyone. I was right: The CDM is my real home in this world.” Velez arrived at her CDM home in 2000. Prior to that, she already had fallen in love with pathology through her postgraduate studies in oral and maxillofacial pathology at the University of Florida and the work she did as director of pathology and biopsy services at several universities in her home country of Colombia. In 1999, when the political and economic situation deteriorated in Colombia, she and her family came to the United States. “We came here almost as refugees. We were not, since my husband is American, but things were pretty bad,” she remembered. Velez said the first thing she did was contact the new dental school at NSU. The CDM hired her the next day, and she started her new position in January 2000. BY ELLEN WOLFSON VALLADARES continued on page 17 Ines Velez, front row center, shows her shark spirit with CDM professors, including Dean Linda Niessen, right, and dental students during her farewell ceremony.