Back from Deans’ Retreat

Now an “old” dean

According to Harrison Spencer’s (President, Association Schools of Public Health) President’s Bulletin, 40% of all SPH deans have served five years or less. I just began my second term and am now one of the older deans in terms of number of years I have been dean—not the longest or oldest, but getting up there.

Some of the deans I have gotten to know and like a lot have moved on or are nearing the end of their terms. That makes me sad, because this is a great peer group. While we compete in many spheres, we also are colleagues, friends and confidantes.

Future talk

We focused a lot of our meeting on where we should be in the future. We used 2030 as the destination year; our School is using 2020 for planning purposes. Most of us agree the future will look a lot different from where we are now. Health reform will have a large impact, but so will many other factors. We had some excellent discussions about how disciplines may evolve and what curricular changes might be needed. More about this soon.

Mark Prensky’s book, Digital Natives, gives a glimpse of a collaborative, technology-enabled classroom where the learner is a partner. He will be at our School this week, and I am looking forward to it.

Prensky will speak in the BCBS auditorium on July 28th from 10am to noon. Everyone is invited.

Happy Monday!