Remarks by the Secretary. Professor Feldman reported on the dinner meeting on September 11. There were 3 agenda items: Academic Council restructuring, the reorganization of the Graduate Board, and diversity issues.

The next dinner meeting will be October 9. The Deans will present synopses of the departments that Council is reviewing. Council will invite Provost Johnson to the dinner meeting on November 13 or December 18 depending on her schedule.

Continued discussion of Graduate Board reorganization proposal. Dean Douglas said that he, Dean Bell and Dean Lattman worked on this issue over the summer. Currently the Graduate Board consists of five Homewood members, four East Baltimore members and one SAIS member. Krieger and Bloomberg award about 30% of the doctorates, Medicine 23%, Whiting 16% and SAIS and Nursing less than 3%. The role of the Graduate Board is to oversee the university-wide Ph.D requirement. The most challenging thing is that Medicine, Nursing, Public Health and SAIS all need to come to this body for approval of any of their Ph.D. programs. Because this is a trans-divisional issue, President Brody suggested delegating it to Provost Johnson.

Remarks by the Chair. President Brody reported that for the year Hopkins raised $502 million which puts us number 3 among all universities behind Harvard and Stanford.

President Brody turned the meeting over to Provost Johnson at 3:35 p.m.

Further discussion of diversity issues. A Council member summarized Council's various discussions last year about diversity. Council had the results of a climate survey that was sent out to the entire University, and about the same time the Vision 2020 report on the status of women at Hopkins came out. Both reports were both fairly negative, indicating that women and minorities have a different experience working at Hopkins than white males for example. President Brody came and talked to Council about the issue, and Council invited Ray Gillian, Vice Provost for Institutional Equity to a subsequent meeting.

A discussion ensued about how Council might have influence on departments with respect to issues of diversity, civility, and collegiality. Provost Johnson intervened, saying that once in a while she would like to lend her perspective in the Council meetings. She thought that the culture of the university should be welcoming and supportive, so as to let people do their best. She suggested that every day Council members continue to push the agenda of making Hopkins the highest quality, most civil, most inclusive, and most welcoming environment. Beyond that, Provost Johnson said that some real strategies need to be formulated. She added that as Provost she will do anything she can to help support and recruit outstanding faculty and she is particularly sensitive to the need to hire, promote and retain women and minority faculty.

It was reported that the appointment of Dr. Thao Nguyen as Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering effective October 1, 2007 was approved over the summer.

The Council approved the appointment of Nick Kreston to serve as a student member of the Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee for 2007 - 2008.

Professor Dagdigian reported on the first meeting of the KSAS Curriculum Committee, on which he serves as a member, and as the Council liaison. At the meeting there was a presentation by the student advocacy board of the Center for Social Concern. They were interested in exploring the option of having a service learning component added to courses. The committee was interested in their proposal.

The outside members of the Departmental Review Committees were approved as assigned.

The meeting adjourned at 4:47 p.m.

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Last updated 30Oct07 by dgips@jhu.edu