Members Absent: Drs. William Brody, Robert Black, John Breitner, Bernard Guyer, and Barry Zirkin.

Guests: Drs. David Celentano, Sharon Krag, Noel Rose and Susan Weiss; Ms. Donna Helm and Mr. Herbert Hansen.

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

Approval of the Minutes: Minutes of the 824th and 825th meetings on May 18 and May 25, 1999 respectively were approved.

Remarks by the Provost:

Provost Knapp commented that the University and Health System have reached their capital campaign goal of $1.2 billion one year ahead of schedule, and that the gift from the Gates Foundation to the School of Hygiene and Public Health pushed the effort over it's goal.

He then updated the Advisory Board on the status of several searches for senior positions at the University.

Remarks by the Dean:

Dean Sommer reported on the meeting of the Dean's Alumni Council. Dr. Sommer requested that each department make efforts to acknowledge the contributions of their parttime (adjunct teaching) faculty, many of whom have roles in a department's teaching efforts. He suggested an end-of-year dinner or other special event.

Dr. Lawrence reported that 51 students will begin internet instruction next week, half enrolled in the internet MPH and half in the Graduate Certificate Program in Public Health. He will continue to update the Advisory Board on the status of the internet MPH program.

The University of New Mexico has expressed interest in licensing one of the new internet courses for one of their residency training programs. Further marketing efforts for internet courses will be developed. However, Drs. Lawrence and Sommer noted continuing problems with the faculty's ability to mount new distance education courses due to conflicting responsibilities. Dr. Sommer stressed that the chairs must make development and refinement of distance education courses a priority for the entire School. A progress report on distance education activities will be provided at each Advisory Board meeting in the future to raise the visibility of this important commitment.

Remarks by the Faculty Senate:

Dr. Anthony noted that faculty might be more enthusiastic about the development of webbased courses if they had a better, concrete idea of how much time and effort is required by this course development process. It was agreed that the School's distance learning group would work up the numbers for distribution to the faculty. Dr. Yager noted that the initial time commitment can be substantial for developing a distance education course. However, if the format is viewed as representing the application of new technology to teaching, the newly developed material can be used to make teaching on-site courses more efficient and rewarding.

Other items:

Report on Recruitment, Promotion and Retention of Women Faculty at Johns Hopkins University

Drs. Susan Weiss and David Celentano joined the group. Dr. Weiss began by thanking Provost Knapp for his support of the Academic Issues Subcommittee of the Provost's Committee on the Status of Women during the preparation of the report on Recruitment, Promotion and Retention of Women Faculty. The report reviews "best practices" in the divisions for improving the climate for women faculty while also highlighting areas for improvement.

Provost Knapp asked each division to convene a working group to assess progress in improving the climate for women faculty at the University, and make recommendations as appropriate. Recommendations for each division were to be communicated to each dean, who will in turn discuss them with Provost Knapp. Dr. Weiss gave a brief status report on each division's working group. She congratulated the School of Hygiene and Public Health for setting a high standard of "best practices" for the other divisions.

Dr. Celentano, chair of the Schoolwide Committee on Affirmative Action reviewed recommendations of the Committee for improving the climate for women tenuretrack faculty. Included in the recommendations are reasonable target dates for implementation. The first recommendation was to deliberately include women on review, search, ad hoc appointments and promotions and other prominent committees to the extent possible. So as not to overburden the most senior women faculty, the committee suggested creation of a "special status" committee membership position that would relieve such members of some ongoing committee responsibilities. A second recommendation is a stop in the promotions clock for significant family life events such as child and parental care, which would apply to both male and female faculty. The third recommendation is the development of an onsite child care center. Dr. Celentano noted that while a child care center has been designed and will be built pending identification of funds from an interested donor, interim solutions should be sought. The fourth recommendation is to develop an exit interview for departing or departed tenure-track faculty. The Affirmative Action Committee can develop and administer the interviews. The final recommendation is to develop an explicit mentoring process for junior tenuretrack faculty that would include a minimum standard of information provided by the junior faculty for review by a senior faculty committee. The purpose of this recommendation is to provide a high level of mentoring across the departments.

Dr. Knapp thanked the Committee on Affirmative Action on behalf of the Provost's Committee on the Status of Women, and commented that the School continues to set the University standard, particularly in the area of data collection and analysis. Dr. Celentano noted that the current recommendations are intended to apply to tenure-track faculty as a starting point, but can later be expanded incrementally for other faculty titles.

Dr. Lawrence, incoming chair of the University Diversity Leadership Council, asked Dr. Weiss what lessons might be learned from experience gained during the preparation of the report Recruitment, Promotion and Retention of Women Faculty that would benefit recruitment of minority faculty. Dr. Weiss noted that the methodology and approach to assessing the needs of women faculty at the University could be adapted to underrepresented minorities.

Dean Sommer thanked Drs. Weiss and Celentano and remarked that recommendations of the Committee on Affirmative Action will be discussed in greater detail by the department chairs and the Committee of the Whole. Those that can be accomplished immediately will come back to the Advisory Board for implementation.

Sponsored Research Report

Ms. Helm presented information on 10 years of sponsored projects in the School and commented that the School projects a total of $182 million in sponsored projects for the 1999 fiscal year, a figure which has more than doubled in 10 years. The application success rate continues to be between 4045%. She reviewed the amount of sponsored projects by department, including the Center for Communications Programs, research vs. nonresearch support, and indirect cost recoveries. The report in 2000 will return to the 5 year format and will contain a new table that looks at only our success rate with DHHS.

Suggestions for additional information or tables to be included in subsequent reports should be provided to Ms. Helm.

Mr. Hansen remarked that 1999 will show success in sponsored project funding. However, flat tuition income will affect the departments in the 2001 fiscal year. A modest increase in the size of the student body will hopefully help alleviate future financial pressure on the School. Dr. Anthony asked about the number of fulltime faculty shown in the report on individual departments. The numbers will be clarified or deleted in future reports.

Departmental Annual Faculty Review Forms

Dr. Sommer noted that the discussion of requiring a minimum standard of information for departmental annual faculty reviews is embedded in recommendations of the Committee on Affirmative Action and will be included as part of the follow up discussion of the recommendations.

Annual Hot Topics Day

Dr. Sommer suggested that an annual Schoolwide event might be designed to appeal to alumni, other members of the Hopkins community and persons outside of Hopkins in place of the current "Research Day", which is not wellattended. Short presentations with broad perspectives would provide updates on timely topics while shorter minisymposia could still be mounted for SHPH faculty and students based on their current research activities. Themes suggested for Hot Topics Days included managed care services for needy persons, injury prevention, gun safety, breast implants and advocacy, and uses of new tobacco funds. Dr. Anthony suggested that Hot Topics Days could be conducted during winter and summer institutes.

Dr. Sommer announced that a symposium will be held on November 45, 1999 to dedicate the new Becton Dickinson Lecture Hall. Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF, will be among the speakers. Former Surgeon General Julius Richmond will give the inaugural Leroy Burney Lecture on July 15, 1999.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 4:45 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Robin Fox

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