The Council discussed the proposed revision to Section XI of the bylaws, Procedures of the Academic Council. Dean Falk said that this was a follow-up to a discussion about the elimination of the Advanced Academic programs committee in the Krieger School and the recognition of the fact that there is now a structure, the Advanced Academic Programs Governance Committee, charged with reviewing new programs and reporting directly to the Academic Council. Council was sympathetic to this idea at the last meeting with the provision that there should be an Academic Council liaison who would meet with the Governance Committee whenever there was discussion of a proposal for a new degree. He referred to the proposed modification of the bylaws which consists of striking section XI.D and replacing it with a new section XII that explicitly identifies that a liaison will be appointed. A motion was made to approve the proposed revision. Dean Douglas said that there are four categories of graduate students - the first is the Ph.D. doctoral student whose programs are approved by the Graduate Board which is a formal subcommittee of the Academic Council. The second group is being addressed by this particular change which is the graduate students in Advanced Academic programs. The third are those in the MFA program and there is a question of how Academic Council rules on those. The fourth are the people doing the M part of a BA/MS. Dean Douglas asked how the third and fourth categories report to Council. Dean Falk said that the MFA program is new and was to be considered in the way that a Ph.D. program would be considered as it is much more analogous to a Ph.D. than to an M.A. As far as BA/MA programs, Dean Falk commented that he thought that was an interesting question and that other than the MFA, there were no KSAS master's programs that students were admitted into as graduate students that are not connected to a BA. This is different than in the Whiting School. A Council member noted that these programs were reviewed by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee. Council unanimously approved the proposed revision.

Professor Rugh, Chair of the Appointments and Promotions subcommittee reported that the following appointments have been approved: 1) Mr. Virantha Ekanayake as Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering effective 7/1/05. 2) Dr. Lester Spence as Assistant Professor in Political Science effective 7/1/05. 3) Dr. Belita Koiller as Adjunct Professor in Physics and Astronomy for 1/1/05 - 12/31/05.

President Brody spoke expansively about recent events, focusing on the mood of the nation and on the recent death of an undergraduate student. He expressed concern about the growing anti-intellectual bias in the country which he sees manifesting itself in a variety of ways. The pressure has been there a long time, mostly aimed at public institutions that have become overcrowded and under-funded and have been raising tuition, leading to much dissatisfaction that he expects will spill over to the private institutions.

President Brody tied this to the fact that the sticker price for tuition is going up dramatically and that as families are forced to bear an increasing financial burden they are increasing their expectations about what the University is supposed to provide, whether it is a student union, better food, counseling, or a job. The President noted that there are a series of issues that need to be addressed head-on about the quality and type of education that we are delivering, some of which may be good, and some not so good. He said he thought the faculty needs to realize that it is a different ball game and that it's not like it was ten years ago, certainly not like it was twenty years ago. He said that he was talking about higher education in general, although he does not feel that Hopkins is any different.

President Brody noted that security has arisen as a huge problem. He asked who is responsible for student safety and then said that the answer should be that we're all responsible. The University is held accountable even though it does not have all the tools to control the environment. He then discussed some specific actions being taken in response to these issues. The President apologized for being a bit gloomy in his outlook, but said he wanted to be honest in his appraisal of where things stand. He added the good news that we have gotten much stronger support from the Governor and his staff as well as from the legislature. Assuming that the things are where they are now, it looks like we will be in reasonably good shape relative to State aid and with regard to building support.

The President returned to the issue of security and commented on the wide range of student reaction in response to recent events. He noted that violent crime in the City and in Charles Village is down, but burglaries and petty crimes are up so that students don't feel safe. The University is working on a variety of fronts to improve the sense of security. The President concluded by saying that he welcomed comments.

The meeting adjourned at 4:53 p.m.

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Last updated 22Feb05 by dgips@jhu.edu