For the seventh successive year, the HSPH community gathered in the Kresge cafeteria to hear the State of the School Address, which took place this year on Oct. 8. HSPH dean Barry Bloom, who will step down as dean in January, offered a concise 10-year review of his time at the School, and James Ware, dean for academic affairs, delivered an annual report.
New LeadershipIn the report, Ware described changes of leadership around the School over the past year. Lisa Berkman, former chair of the HSPH Department of Society, Human Development, and Health (SHDH), now directs the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Ichiro Kawachi assumed the role of chair of SHDH. Eileen Nielsen came aboard as director of compliance, and Vicki Johnson was hired as the School’s financial controller. Delia Wolf serves as the new director of Human Research Administration. Dale Trevino joined the School as the new director of the Office of Diversity, established last year. And James Smith will serve as the School’s new assistant dean for alumni affairs. Ware also reviewed eight new faculty appointments made in the last year.
Change of Name and Program Plans
Ware enumerated changes in HSPH educational programs. In 2008, the Department of Population and International Health changed its name to Global Health and Population to reflect a broadening of the challenges in public health in the 21st century.
In 2007, HSPH faculty members Nancy Kane and Nancy Turnbull were jointly appointed as associate deans for educational programs. Their goal has been to develop and execute a long-term plan focused on the coordination, integration, and improvement of the School’s professional and academic educational programs.
In his remarks, Bloom pointed to the arrival, in January, of Julio Frenk, the new dean of HSPH. Bloom described Frenk, a longtime friend of his, as “a visionary in public health.”
“He was the founding dean of one of the great schools of public health outside of the United States—the Institute for Public Health in Mexico,” said Bloom. “… [He] led policy at WHO, and then was Minister of Health in Mexico.… [He] has brought healthcare reform to provide basic healthcare to 50 million people.”
“We’re enormously pleased that he is coming to the School after serving as Minister of Health for Mexico,” Ware said. “… He’s a person with deep knowledge of global health and global health systems. And he has been visiting the School one week each month, and we’ve really enjoyed his visits here and are looking forward to his leadership as dean.”
Bloom then recounted that he was asked to become the head of HSPH in the summer of 1998 and he took over the role in January 1999. He listed specific consequential events during his tenure.
In the world:
• The Human Genome Project was completed, changing the way people think about risks to health.
• The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and the anthrax attacks that followed put public health on the map in the United States and other countries.
• In this country and in the world, the standard of living increased, but disparities in income, health, and social satisfaction widened.
At the University:
• The Harvard University Science and Engineering Committee (HUSEC) was established with the purpose of bringing together scientists from each of the Harvard faculties to solve big problems through interdisciplinary and interfaculty work.
• Construction began on Science One, the first new building at Harvard’s Allston campus.
And at HSPH:
• The School’s student population grew almost 20 percent, and the staff population grew 37 percent.
• Several departments merged to create new entities, giving the School a total of nine departments in 2008. The number of centers at HSPH decreased from 16 to six in the past decade.
Bloom noted that numerous efforts at the School will help keep HSPH at the forefront of scientific research, including HIV/AIDS prevention research efforts in Africa, a Center for Public Health Preparedness, a Program in Quantitative Genomics, the Bioinformatics Core, and the Genes and Environment Initiative.
In concluding the program, Bloom described the School’s impact by quoting Albert Einstein’s response when asked what the greatest discovery in mathematics was. “His answer was, ‘compound interest,’” said Bloom. “Compound interest doesn’t look too great when you look at the financial situation. But it looks pretty great when you look at the educational system. There is no compound interest like education. And if you look—when I go anywhere in the world where our students end up—they’re in leadership positions in China and in India and all over the world. And that is, in the long run, the greatest impact any educational institution could have.”
