MEMBERS ABSENT: Drs. William Brody, Ellen MacKenzie, Laura Morlock, and Scott Zeger.

GUESTS: Dr. Donna Strobino and Ms. Diane Glover.

Meeting Convened:

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

Approval of the Minutes:

Minutes of the 799th meeting on March 25, 1997 were approved.

Remarks by the Provost:

Provost Knapp congratulated the School on reaching the 800th meeting of its Advisory Board and on being rated the best school of public health by U.S. News and World Report. He noted that health care delivery and research are being better integrated across the divisions and that a recent meeting of deans and others will foster increased collaboration in teaching and provision of health care at Hopkins.

Remarks by the Dean:

Dean Sommer announced that Drs. Marie Diener-West and Henry Mosley have won the 1997 Golden Apple awards given by the students for excellence in teaching. He remarked that minutes of the retreat in early April have been circulated along with letters asking faculty to begin working on their interdisciplinary program committees and business plans, and that committee reports will be forthcoming in the next several months. Another faculty committee has been formed to examine intellectual property rights applied to digitized, distance learning and related products. He noted that Dr. Ellen MacKenzie is recuperating well from surgery.

The Gates Foundation has awarded the School funds to develop a family planning education and leadership program. The Population Center's NIH grant was also recently renewed. Dr. Sommer commented on the growing series of interactions with the School of Medicine, and updated the School on a number of other initiatives and issues. Dr. Groopman reported that a video developed by the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in conjunction with Maryland Public Television for science teachers recently won a New York Film Festival award. A number of concerns about the continuing delay in sponsored project financial reporting by the University were raised. Dr. Knapp requested that specific examples be forwarded to him.

Report of the Faculty Senate:

Dr. Scocca noted that the Faculty Senate continues to discuss the student academic ethics code and a number of issues raised at the April retreat.

OTHER ITEMS

Department of Population Dynamics Self-Study

Dr. Henry Mosley reviewed the Department of Population Dynamics Self-Study and the research and educational activities of the Department. He noted that the Department serves as the academic base across the University for demography and for reproductive biology. The Department is organized into program areas in demography and family planning, child survival and reproductive biology and is now moving into the area of aging from both the biologic and demographic perspective. Current research activities include: life course and family demography; child survival; sexual behavior; family planning; reproductive health; health communication; social determinants of health policy; and reproductive biology. Dr. Mosley remarked that the Department's activities are conducted domestically and internationally. The Department is the home to four centers and participates in a number of interdepartmental research and educational programs. Faculty searches are now underway in the areas of reproductive biology and reproductive health.

The question of how to best link and integrate related efforts which overlap across departments (e.g., in aging, fertility, sexual behaviors) was raised. After further discussion, Dr. Sommer thanked Dr. Mosley for his presentation and commented that a review committee will be constituted that will meet with faculty, students, and alumni. The committee will be expected to issue a report in approximately six months.

Draft of Summer Institute Resource Manual

Dr. Sommer circulated the draft table of contents for a manual to provide a common set of information for faculty developing summer institutes, programs and courses. As part of this effort, the School-wide Committee on Academic Standards is being asked to develop a procedure to register and provide oversight of programs offered under the School's rubric; a space allocation priority policy for the different offerings will be developed. Comments on the draft table of contents of the Summer Institute Resources Manual should be directed to Robin Fox. Dr. Sommer noted this is the beginning of a larger effort to organize and conduct common marketing of non-traditional courses and programs offered by the School.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 5 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Robin Fox

© 1997 The Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore, Maryland. All rights reserved.
Last updated by dgips@jhu.edu