Dear Friends, If I were asked to encapsulate our mission in one word, it would be “leadership.”
As the world’s oldest and largest school of public health, the Bloomberg School has special responsibilities to lead. We train leaders. We expect our faculty to be at the leading edge of research and practice. Our alumni lead agencies, academic departments, schools and many other organizations. And all of us—faculty, students, alumni and staff—constantly strive to lead society toward better health. As I look back over the past academic year and plunge into this one, the centrality of “leadership” comes to mind again and again.
Foremost among my priorities is ensuring that the School fulfills this leadership mission in the 21st century. We need to optimize our practice and research agendas and make innovative use of technology in our education programs to achieve this goal. This year we began work on a new strategic plan for the School that will create a roadmap for our decision making. With input from the School’s key constituencies—including you—we will complete the plan in the spring of 2008.
In education, the great challenge for us is maintaining and enhancing our unparalleled public health training in research and practice. Once again, we have a record-breaking class of full-time MPH students. This year’s class is 270 (topping last year’s 235). And Schoolwide, we now have 2,030 students enrolled, up from 2,005 last year. Of course, our educational mission is all about quality, not quantity. So we are looking very closely at how our program meets the needs of our students and prepares them for their careers. A related issue is how we can provide top-notch educational opportunities for busy professionals who need more education but cannot afford to leave their jobs for full-time coursework. Many people who work in public health are not trained in its core disciplines. Only one in five state epidemiologists has had training in epidemiology. We are working with faculty committees to develop a practice-based DrPH degree that provides the highest quality education through School- and Web-based instruction. Laura Morlock, professor of Health Policy and Management, has taken over leadership of the DrPH program and is building on the strong foundation laid in previous years by Bernie Guyer.
One means of ensuring competency in public health’s professional ranks is a national credentialing examination—the first of which will be offered next year. Many of our faculty members helped devise the test and wrote questions for it. Jim Yager, senior associate dean for Academic Affairs and the Edyth H. Schoenrich Professor in Preventive Medicine, and Michel A. Ibrahim, a professor of Epidemiology, are leading the School’s related efforts. Michel is serving as our liaison and informing our students about this examination.
We also are taking new steps to engage the public health professional community in Baltimore and Maryland. I am working with Roger L. Harrell, president of the Maryland Public Health Association, and other leaders to revitalize that organization. Here in Baltimore, we are working closely with Baltimore City Health Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein and his office to regularly present to them our research that has public health implications for Baltimore. The point of public health research is to have a real impact, so it is important that those who can make policy changes are made aware of our discoveries.
Increasing student support remains one of my primary goals. Helping students afford a superior education is essential. The Sommer Scholars Program welcomes 31 new master’s and doctoral students this year. Most are in their 20s and early 30s and have already made important contributions to global health, from guiding health promotion in South Korea to quelling youth violence in Chicago and founding a health and human rights group in Haiti. Mpho Sadie Mogodi, an HIV/AIDS expert from Botswana, and James Ignas, a Tanzanian researcher working on child malnutrition and pneumonia, both received this year’s De Beers Scholarship, which trains African leaders to improve health systems. Closer to home, Stephanie Farquhar, Chandra Jackson and Amanda Latimore are the inaugural recipients of the C. Sylvia and Eddie C. Brown Community Health Scholarship. The three doctoral candidates will confront public health problems here in Baltimore. My mission is to increase support so more students can get a great education without undue financial burden.
To foster personal and professional leadership skills among students, we created the Bloomberg Leadership Series. These seminars, given by leaders in many different fields, are designed both to inspire our students and give them insights into real world leadership. In the past year, the series has hosted former Secretary of State Colin Powell, business guru Tom Peters, astronaut Robert Satcher, Nextel founder Morgan O’Brien and, most recently, Sophie Vandebroek, chief technology officer at Xerox. Students were able to question the speakers about their leadership strategies and to learn from their successes (and failures).
In March 2007, the Sommer Scholars and I received another lesson in leadership when we met in New York with Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Asked what his greatest legacy will be, Mayor Bloomberg said the smoking ban in public places. People told him he would fail. They told him it would cost him politically. He pushed on anyway. Despite tough opposition, he did what was right and he succeeded. Since the smoking ban went into effect in March 2003, cities and states around the world have followed suit. The list includes Baltimore and the state of Maryland.
While inspiring and training our students to be the next generation of public health leaders, our faculty continues to push the research envelope. We learned on October 8 that Ron Brookmeyer, chair of our MPH program; Kay Dickersin, director of the Center for Clinical Trials; Lynn Goldman, chair of the Interdepartmental Program in Applied Public Health; and Frederick M. Burkle, Jr., who lectures at the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response, had been elected to the Institute of Medicine. They join 19 Bloomberg School faculty members who previously have been elected to the IOM—strong evidence of our faculty’s outstanding contributions to health. In other faculty news, Ruth Karron, a professor of International Health, is working to coordinate the School’s many vaccine activities. Ruth leads the Center for Immunization Research, which focuses primarily on phase I and II clinical trials and training in vaccine trial conduct. Our faculty are developing measles, malaria and other vaccines; evaluating vaccines for avian influenza, dengue, West Nile malaria, and others; and implementing global programs to expand the use of Hib and pneumococcal vaccines. The new Johns Hopkins Vaccine Initiative, also led by Ruth, serves as an umbrella organization to engage all of the faculty involved in vaccine research, teaching, policy and ethics.
To explore our opportunities for leadership in new areas, I have convened two special task forces. First, Scott Zeger, the Frank Hurley and Catharine Dorrier Professor and Chair in Biostatistics, has been leading our health informatics task force, which draws on expertise from across the University. Health informatics includes such critical missions as building electronic medical records, conducting health surveillance and improving the efficiency and outcomes of health systems. The committee recently presented its recommendations to Deans Ed Miller and Martha Hill, of Hopkins Medicine and Nursing, and to me. We are now considering how to turn these recommendations and our existing considerable strengths into an action plan. I also commissioned a task force to begin planning a new center at the School for the study of children with developmental disabilities, with a focus on epidemiology. Led by Richard Johnson, a Hopkins professor of Neurology and Microbiology, this task force includes representatives from the Schools of Public Health and Medicine and from the Kennedy Krieger Institute. They have hosted a number of important autism researchers, advocacy experts and service providers. I will receive the group’s recommendations later this fall.
In keeping with the leadership theme, I want to welcome three new associate deans. Alexandra McKeown is our new associate dean for Research Administration. A former assistant vice president at the University of Maryland and a former grants administrator at Hopkins, Alex will oversee research grants. Trained in law and business, she is a recognized national leader in grants administration. Janet DiPietro, a professor of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, has been named associate dean for Research. Janet is an outstanding scientist who has studied fetal development and is greatly respected by her colleagues. And finally, Paul Seifert is our new associate dean for External Affairs. Paul served previously as the senior vice president for Gift Planning at ALSAC/St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, and before that at Georgetown University’s law school. It is testimony to the quality of our School that we were able to recruit such outstanding candidates. We also are seeking two new department chairs. Scott Zeger, Biostatistics chair, and Roger McMacken, chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, are stepping down. Both are incredible leaders and, happily, will remain on the faculty.
We lost a great leader this year when George Comstock passed away on July 15. As many of you know, George was a distinguished epidemiologist who conducted seminal research on tuberculosis. A kind and caring man, he epitomized our common drive for excellence. Through the George W. Comstock Center for Public Health Research and Prevention, his many students, his discoveries and his portrait (which overlooks our meetings in the School’s boardroom), George’s spirit lives on. We had a wonderful, moving celebration of his life on September 28 at the School.
Even as great leaders leave us, the institution continues to attract new ones. Nobel laureate Peter Agre will join us in January as the new director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, succeeding founding director Diane E. Griffin, who remains chair of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. I have known Peter for more than 20 years; he is both a great scientist and a great human being. His innovative research on the molecular biology of malaria parasites and his ability to lead collaborations make him an ideal candidate to direct the Malaria Research Institute. He will continue to have an affiliation with Duke University, where he has been a vice chancellor.
Last spring, I led the University’s search committee for the new provost and senior vice president of academic affairs. It was really an honor. We had a great panel of applicants, which speaks well of the University’s national prestige. We recruited the best of the best: Kristina M. Johnson, who was dean of Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. An optical and electrical engineer with dozens of patents and the co-founder of several start-up companies, Kristina is a transformational leader. We are fortunate to have her in this position and will enjoy working with her.
I want to close by mentioning the special journey to Africa that I made with the Health Advisory Board last February. We traveled there to witness firsthand the School’s work and other public health initiatives. One of the most poignant moments came at an AIDS orphanage in Johannesburg. The children there were bright-eyed and happy, but they obviously had been affected by malnutrition and illness early in life. It was inspiring to see the support these children have and how their futures are being improved by it. Yet, with more than 5 million HIV-positive South Africans, the need is incredibly vast.
Like so many experiences in the past year, our African travels reminded me once more how much work is yet to be done. And how many opportunities there are for public health leadership.
Finally, I want to thank all of you—faculty, students, staff, alumni and friends of the School—for your continuing support. Sincerely, 
Michael J. Klag, MD, MPH '87
Dean
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health |
