Approval of minutes. The minutes for the meeting of February 5, 2003, were approved as submitted.

Remarks by the Secretary. Professor Kingsland said that the question of what the impact of new tenure regulations might be on Council was suggested for discussion at the evening meeting on May 13. She asked Council to e-mail her other suggestions if they had any.

Open Discussion. Professor Naiman asked about the external review of The Whiting School. Provost Knapp said that the search for the Deanship is drawing to a close. The chair of the external review committee is circulating final revisions and it should be coming back to Hopkins in the next few days. The APL/Whiting School Task Force will be meeting with President Brody in about a week to present their findings. Once that happens there will be a meeting with the Dean and the Director of the Laboratory to talk about what parts of the task force could be implemented. There are some changes proposed that should make it easier for the APL staff to be present on this campus and participate in directing graduate students. There is also talk about ways to make the laboratory more accessible to students. Dean Douglas was a member of the task force and very much involved in formulating these recommendations along with seven others. Five areas for investment and collaborative research have been identified. A lot of this work was based on surveys of similar partnerships with other institutions around the country like MIT and Lincoln Labs, Georgia Tech and GTRI, and Caltech and JPL.

Professor Naiman asked if there was a plan to disseminate the external review report. The Provost said that it will be disseminated to the faculty. He said that in terms of actual collaboration at some of the other institutions there is less there than meets the eye. The strongest relationship is between Caltech and JPL, where in effect the laboratory is actually run by the faculty.

Professor Lattman said that he had received an e-mail about a new software suite called an enterprise resource planning system (ERP) that is going to be implemented University-wide over the next few years. Provost Knapp said that there has been a consultant in here for quite a few months. What is being proposed is much more than a computer system. It is a reform of business practices. What is motivating this is that the current systems are now obsolete. The risks of not proceeding are now greater than the risks of proceeding. The implementation of something like this is a multi-year project. It will require a major reform in the way departments and in some cases individuals go about doing their business so that information can be shared in an efficient way. The business practices reform aspect of this will be the real challenge. One of the unusual features is trying to do this for both the Health System and the University.

Dean Busch-Vishniac added that the aim is to create an umbrella structure that will integrate the various functions, put firewalls where they need to be and remove them where they don't need to be. Originally it was proposed that the student information system be part of this same system. The Provost added that down the road a bridge can be built between the two systems. He added that patient records have also been an issue because of the HIPAA legislation. The Provost said that HIPAA has also been a research issue. Because so many patients are participating in clinical trials it is difficult to make a clean break between the research data and clinical data. He said that the tricky thing is that making standards too tight and insisting that everyone conform can drive people out of the system, thereby exacerbating the problem. That is why this has to be implemented with a great deal of care, sensitivity and institutional commitment, and the faculty need to be included in the process.

When a Council member asked about best business practice, Provost Knapp said that accounting clean-up in the research area tends to occur at the back end. Submitting it in the correct form saves a lot of duplicate labor. Retrospective adjustments can cause trouble given how compliance conscious the government has become. The Provost said that his mission in this whole process is to make sure that there aren't a lot of unanticipated consequences. The only way to do that is to have enough people involved in the process all along.

Professor Hobbs reported that the Graduate Board approved a new statement on academic integrity and student conduct that had been reviewed by the Academic Affairs subcommittee. The information is a lot more specific about issues such as harassment, intimidation and so forth. The promotion of Dr. Trac Tran to Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering effective July 1, 2003 was approved.

The promotion of Dr. David Yarowsky to Professor in the Department of Computer Science effective July 1, 2003 was approved.

The appointment of Dr. Stephen Barker as Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy effective retroactive to July 1, 2002 was approved.

The appointment of Dr. Jerome Schneewind as Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy effective July 1, 2003 was approved.

Professor Lattman, Chair of the Appointments and Promotions subcommittee reported that the following appointments were approved: 1) Lian Shen as Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering effective 1/1/04; 2) Lisa Feigenson as Assistant Professor in Psychological and Brain Sciences (effective date to be determined); 3) Justin Halberda as Assistant Professor in Senior Lecturer in English for 7/1/03 - 6/30/04; 5) Michael Krause as Visiting Assistant Professor in Economics for 9/1/03 - 12/31/03; 6) Satoko Katagiri as Lecturer in the Language Teaching Center for 7/1/03 - 6/30/04; 7) John Maina as Lecturer in the Language Teaching Center 7/1/03 - 6/30/04.

The Council discussed department reviews and the Deans' suggestions for 2003/04. Dean Weiss suggested the following departments to be reviewed: Anthropology, Biology, Biophysics, the Humanities Center, and Writing Seminars. Dean Busch-Vishniac suggested Civil Engineering, Geography and Environmental Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering. Dean Weiss asked if there were any changes to the letter that will be sent to the Department Chairs. Dean Douglas said that Council had talked about asking for some more information about the undergraduate program and that would fit well with the upcoming Middle States accreditation. The Council approved the list of departments to be reviewed.

Remarks by the Chair. Provost Knapp reported on the SARs situation. Questions have arisen about a number of events. A University-wide policy may be formulated. Some institutions such as the University of California have cancelled summer school.

The Provost said that another concern is the use of social security numbers. Privacy and identity theft are issues. Social security numbers are supposed to be kept confidential. The Provost said that it is illegal to leave graded papers in a stack where social security numbers and/or grades are visible. For posting grades, the safest way to do it is to randomly assign everyone in the class a number. The Provost said that a system of ID numbers is being developed.

Remarks by the Deans. Dean Weiss reported that Professor Ng in the Department of Economics is leaving to go to the University of Michigan. This year two tenured women have left, both from departments where they were the only women -- Professor Doherty from the Department of History of Art and now Professor Ng. It is a very troubling setback for diversity of the faculty.

Dean Busch-Vishniac announced that, pending approval from the Board of Trustees, the Cedar Endowed Chair in Biomedical Engineering will be filled by Dr. Michael Miller from the Center for Imaging Science. She also announced that with the appointment of Professor Leon Cheng in Civil Engineering, Hopkins is now truly regarded as one of the leaders nationwide in fluid mechanics. Professors Miller, Eyink and Su head up the group.

Dean Douglas reported that because there are 1050 beds the goal was to enroll 1050 undergraduates. John Latting, Director of Undergraduate Admissions, has done a great job. Currently there are 999 students enrolled which is within 5% of that target. It was important not to overshoot the goal. There is a strong wait list from which to fill the remaining spots. The biggest loss schools for Homewood were Cornell, Duke, MIT and Columbia.

The meeting adjourned at 5:30 p.m.

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Last updated 25Sep03 by dgips@jhu.edu