Dr. Afeez A. Hazzan served as the Associate Director of SUNY Brockport’s Honors College in the 2024-25 academic year and will chair the Department of Healthcare Studies starting in Fall 2025. He earned a BS in Biology with a minor in Chemistry from Lincoln University. He
continued on to complete a dual-title master’s degree in Health Policy and Administration and
Demography from Penn State. Finally, he earned his doctorate degree in Health Research
Methodology from McMaster University. All these achievements led to his current position and research and teaching specializations. As Dr. Hazzan has explained of his interests in healthcare: “No matter what you do, if you don’t have good health, you’re not going to do well. So, health is fundamental. It’s very important, and it’s very critical.”
As the Associate Director of SUNY Brockport’s Honors College, Dr. Hazzan enjoyed his role, explaining that it gave him more opportunities to engage students. He enjoys helping students achieve their personal and career goals, while also improving the quality of their experiences. While excited about contributing to the Honors College’s mission of engaging students and empowering them to become independent thinkers and innovative problem solvers, he was called to lead his own department and so only served as Associate Director for one year.
Even with the responsibility of serving as the Associate Director of the Honors College, Dr.
Hazzan continued to teach and do research as an Associate Professor in the Department of
Healthcare Studies. His research involves studying vulnerable populations, such as people with chronic illnesses, disabilities, and senior citizens. He also researches health disparities and ways to improve all members of the population’s health and quality of life. Dr. Hazzan taught an HON 380 course titled “Aging and Health,” in which he discusses with students the process of aging and its impacts on mental and physical health. He covers most topics that come with aging, so the course can be very informative for every student, especially those interested in healthcare.
As mentioned above, Dr. Hazzan enjoys helping students, and he does this by providing
mentoring to students who are conducting research on health-related topics and for their senior thesis projects. He offers them guidance and also worked on an initiative to help students become more competitive for external scholarships and educational programs. He also advises students on career paths and graduate school and, though no longer administering the Honors College, will continue to be involved as an Honors faculty member and mentor.
Dr. Hazzan advises all his students to have a clear idea of what they want to achieve and why.
They should be determined, focused, and passionate about their goals. “They need to have a
sincere desire to really want to do that,” he explains. “Be passionate about it,” he tells them,
“and work towards getting it done.”