Bloomberg School of Public Health
Advisory Board Meeting Minutes
Thursday, June 27, 2002 | 3:00 p.m. | 862nd Meeting

Members Absent: Drs. William Brody, Diane Griffin, Martha Hill, and Edward Miller.

Guests: Drs. Kevin Frick, Sharon Krag, David Salkever, Eric Slade, Alan Sorkin, and Hugh Waters; and Ms Diane Glover; and Mr. Herbert Hansen.

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

Approval of the Minutes: Minutes of the 860th meeting on May 16, 2002 and 861st meeting on May 21, 2002 were approved.

Remarks by the Provost

Provost Knapp updated the Advisory Board on the successful conclusion of 4 searches. Dr. Jessica Einhorn became Dean of the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies on June 1. Dr. Daniel Weiss, previously dean of the faculty of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, will become its Dean on July 1, the same day Dr. Martha Hill will become Dean of the School of Nursing. Winston Tabb will become Dean of university libraries and director of the Sheridan Libraries on September 1. Dr. Knapp acknowledged Dr. Nancy Roderer for serving as interim Dean of university libraries over the past year. Dr. Ilene Busch-Vishniac, Dean of the Whiting School of Engineering, has announced that she will step down and return to teaching and research at the end of next year. She will continue to serve as Dean while a search is undertaken for her replacement.

Dr. Knapp reported that the activities of the Office of Technology Transfer, serving Johns Hopkins University except for the School of Medicine and the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), will merge with the Office of Technology Licensing, now serving the School of Medicine. The APL Intellectual Property office will remain separate. The purpose of the merger is to simplify and make more efficient technology transfer activities at the University. Dr. Steinwachs commented positively on the important outreach activities in the School by the present Office of Technology Transfer. Dr. Knapp requested continuing feedback on the new office and its interactions with faculty in the BSPH.

Dr. Knapp commented that the entire University has been actively developing a wide ranges of responses to the events of September 11 and after.

Initial efforts of the University focused on two areas, bioterrorism and preparation for mass casualties. The latter initiative has developed into the Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response (CEPAR), led by Dr. Gabe Kelen, professor and director of Emergency Medicine at the School of Medicine.

Remarks by the Dean

Dean Sommer commented on the successful retreat of the department chairs and Faculty Senate leadership. He then referred to an important discussion among the university deans about ways to achieve more faculty diversity, focussed on under-represented minorities. A number of strategies were discussed and will be reviewed in greater detail.

Remarks by the Faculty Senate

Dr. Rose reported that the Faculty Senate and Committee of the Whole held a joint meeting, where the recent revisions of the Faculty policy and procedures "Appointment, Promotion and Professional Activities of the Faculty," approved by the Advisory Board in May, were reviewed and discussed in some detail. The report and recommendations by Dr. Weiner's subcommittee regarding the balance of effort in teaching, research and service among the faculty, were briefly discussed at the joint meeting and will be forwarded for in-depth review and discussion at the department level. Senate members have been asked to facilitate the discussion and possible implementation of Dr. Wiener's report.

Other items

Faculty Reappointments for 2002-03 - for vote

The Advisory Board voted to approve the list of faculty reappointments for 2002-03 with minor changes and one addendum.

Strengthening Health Economics in the School

Drs. Bishai, Frick, Salkever, Slade, Sorkin, and Waters joined the Advisory Board. Dr. Salkever reviewed the key features of a proposal to better organize and strengthen health economics in the School, noting that the 6 health economists in the School are presently in 3 departments. Together, they have proposed developing a more unified educational program with additional resource commitments for student and faculty support. Dr. Salkever commented that other parts of the University may be interested in supporting this effort as well.

The School had an interdepartmental program in health economics in the 1980's and early 1990's that no longer exists. The Advisory Board discussed several possible reasons the earlier program failed, including a "double jeopardy" situation where students fulfilled the requirements of their department as well as additional requirements of the economics program, and a lack of resources to unify academic activities across the departments. In addition, a few key faculty left the School in the 1990's.

The program proposed by the Economics faculty would involve a small number of students supported by their departmental infrastructure yet would allow maximum flexibility in meeting program requirements. An oversight committee of department chairs or their designees and a wider University representation would assure that the needs of the program and of its component departments were complementary. Additional General Funds support for the economics faculty was requested to free them from departmental commitments and allow them to focus on the program.

Dr. Sommer remarked that the proposal does not contain a request for recruitment of a senior health economist, which had been indicated earlier as the primary need. Dr. Salkever responded that concerns about the amount of resources that might be involved, and a lack of concrete information about the external market were the reasons a senior recruitment was not requested. Dr. Knapp asked whether there might be value in enhancing discussions about health economics at SAIS and at Arts and Sciences. He noted that a few key appointments might make a great difference in the role and visibility of health economics in the University, particularly as there is a great deal of interest across the University in Public Health.

Several chairs asked if this program represents a special case for separate support, and whether the program would plan to become self-supporting after several years. After further discussion, Dr. Sommer thanked Drs. Bishai, Frick, Salkever, Slade, Sorkin, and Waters. Their proposal will be reviewed and considered in greater detail by the department chairs.

Revisions of Faculty PPM #7 - Fraud in Research; and Administration and Governance PPM #1, Section 9 - Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee - for vote

Dr. Krag noted that in the PPM on Fraud in Research, the constitution of the Committee on Professional Conduct has been revised to clarify that it is composed of 5 full professors, no more than one of whom can be a department chair.

The PPM on the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee required revision to describe the Committee's new channels of communication. The new position of Associate Provost for Animal Research and Resources has been created, to which the institutional committee will report.

The Advisory Board voted to approve the above changes.

Other Items

Dr. Sommer asked the members of the Advisory Board, who also serve on the Committee of the Whole (COW), about modifying the COW schedule in 2002-03 as attendance has been spotty and the agenda sparse. He suggested holding COW meetings one hour prior to or immediately following Advisory Board meetings, every month or 2. The members of the Advisory Board were supportive of this change.

Noting that a number of faculty have expressed confusion or concern regarding implementation of the revision of Faculty PPM 1 on appointments and promotions, Dr. Sommer solicited input from the chairs about how to best communicate these changes to the faculty. He suggested October 1 as a realistic date for implementation. He remarked that a plan must be developed quickly that is consistent across the departments, and that chairs will need to suggest a change in title for individual faculty resulting from the new PPM. Several chairs commented that the new PPM may be inconsistent with the direction provided to "scientists" and to "non-tenure-track research and public health professorial faculty" at the time of their recruitment, so that strategies must be individualized. Dr. Sommer committed the School to developing a fair process that is consistent with the goals of the tracks and the future of the School as a whole.

After further discussion, the chairs of the departments most directly affected by the PPM revisions agreed to meet with Dr. Sommer to develop an implementation strategy and return to the Advisory Board with their recommendations.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 5:15 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Robin Fox

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Last updated 04Sep02 by dgips@jhu.edu