Bloomberg School of Public Health
Advisory Board Meeting Minutes
Thursday, June 24, 2004 | 3:00 p.m. | 886th Meeting

Members Absent: Drs. William Brody, Marie Diener- West, William Eaton, Diane Griffin Edward Miller, Jonathan Samet, and James Yager.

Guests: Drs. Sharon Krag and Cecile Pickart; and Ms Diane Glover.

Meeting Convened: Provost Steven Knapp convened the meeting at 3:00 p.m.

Approval of the Minutes: Minutes of the 884th and 885th meetings on May 13 and May 18, 2004 respectively were approved.

Remarks by the Provost

Provost Knapp remarked that the search for the Dean of the School of Engineering is on the verge of completion, and that the next priority will be the search for Dean Sommer's successor. The faculty of the School of Public Health will be solicited to provide suggestions for faculty to serve on the search committee, and faculty from other divisions of the University also will be represented on the search committee.

Dr. Knapp then reported on a number of important issues regarding the University's relations at the local, state and national level. He noted that the number of international graduate student applications to the Homewood divisions dropped by a third this year, which has been attributed to difficulties associated with international student visa applications. The Maryland Congressional and Senatorial delegations have been supportive of the University's efforts to ameliorate this situation.

Remarks by the Dean

Dean Sommer reminded the Advisory Board about the retreat on June 28-30. He asked that the Advisory Board consider the priorities for the School in his last year as dean. He noted several recent exciting activities in the School, including Dean Yager's successful application to the Helwett Foundation to begin to develop the Open CourseWare collaboration.

Remarks by the Faculty Senate

Dr. Weiner noted that Dr. Links will complete his term as past-president of the Faculty Senate this summer, and a president-elect will be designated by September 2004. He then reviewed several of the recent activities and accomplishments of the Senate. Proposed revisions of PPM Faculty #1 will be reviewed and voted on by the Advisory Board. Dr. Diener-West is heading up the Senate's initial attention to the Open CourseWare project and will participate in its evaluation. The ad hoc Balance of Effort Committee will bring its recommendations to the July Committee of the Whole meeting.

Other Business

Faculty Reappointments for 2004-05

The Advisory Board voted to approve the list of faculty reappointments for 2004 -05 subject to the modifications circulated at the meeting.

Revisions of Faculty PPM #1 - Appointments, Promotions and Professional Activities of the Faculty

The Advisory Board considered the most recent set of changes in the PPM, which was revised after the May 13, 2004 Committee of the Whole meeting. After discussion, the PPM was approved with a few minor changes. Dr. Sommer will email all full-time faculty outlining the changes and referring faculty to the PPM on the School website. Members of the Advisory Board asked that the email explicitly indicate that the revised PPM change some faculty titles but that the responsibilities and expectations of positions will not change. A number of administrative modifications will need to be made to accommodate the title changes, however the Advisory Board did not wish to proscribe whether and when professorial faculty should identify themselves as tenure-track or non-tenure-track. The Advisory Board then briefly discussed the change at the divisions of Arts and Sciences and Engineering whereby faculty are now to be tenured at the associate professor level. This was done principally to enhance recruitment and retention and better compete with peer institutions where tenure at the associate professor level is the norm. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 4:20 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Robin Fox

© 2004 The Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore, Maryland. All rights reserved.
Last updated 27Jul04 by dgips@jhu.edu