Emory Report homepage  

September 28, 2009
Themes and initiatives

The sum of Emory’s parts — working together in collaborative partnership, leveraging each other’s strengths — can collectively achieve far more than they could on their own.

The University-wide themes are mechanisms that interconnect school and unit programs to enable the greatest leveraging of Emory’s strengths and resources. Each theme is related to one or more goals of the strategic plan and consists of a set of related initiatives that describe specific strategic focus areas designed to move the University closer to achieving its goals. The themes recognize faculty, students, staff, alumni, and community resources and needs, and also delineate an intellectual agenda that will drive the reputation of the University.

The themes and initiatives have essentially remained the same, with the exception of Preparing Engaged Scholars. This theme has been recast as Ensuring Highest Student Quality and Enhancing the Student Experience, which takes into consideration that in addition to community-engaged learning and scholarship, there is a need to create strategies that enhance recruitment and financial aid for students and ensure cutting-edge curricula and pedagogy in all schools and colleges in the coming years. Also new to the plan is Emory’s Culture initiative to develop strategies to uplift a culture of ethics, diversity, work-life enhancement, entrepreneurship and philanthropy across campus.

Strengthening Faculty Distinction

Program grows academic leadership
Welcoming its second cohort in 2010, the Academic Leadership Program is helping to grow Emory’s next generation of academic leaders.

A vehicle for professional development, it seeks to retain the University’s best faculty, provide concrete opportunities for leadership in academic affairs, promote and develop from within, and ensure success at key transitions along the faculty life-course.

Through case studies, skills sessions and hands-on projects, the accelerated program of internal leadership development focuses on the business of the University and the subtlety of the academy.

For Jack Zupko, a member of the inaugural class, the Academic Leadership Program was an opportunity to strengthen and renew his skill sets.

What he learned reinforced his belief that the key to leadership is to communicate effectively and treat people with respect. “The good that can come of these things is especially great,” says the associate professor of philosophy. It also helped him connect with colleagues across the University.

By focusing on developing internal talent, the program also helps retain institutional memory. “It’s important for leaders to know where Emory has come from to make decisions about its future,” says Zupko.

Initiatives
Faculty members are an essential resource for achieving Emory’s vision of an inquiry-driven, ethically engaged and diverse intellectual community. Through teaching, research and service, scholars and teachers of all ranks and disciplines leave an enduring imprint on those whose lives the University touches. To strengthen faculty distinction, Emory must invest in and grow its faculty from within. Emory must foster external recognition of its faculty, building its distinguished faculty and nourishing, retaining and recruiting the next generation of outstanding scholars.

Faculty Development: To foster successful faculty career trajectories, Emory provides development programs that address teaching, research and service to the institution and the discipline. Faculty development activities include the Academic Ladder writing and time management workshop for tenure-track assistant professors. Emory celebrates its faculty accomplishments, and nominates outstanding faculty for prominent awards and membership to the national academies.

Tenure and Promotion: Emory endeavors to provide an environment that is conducive to faculty advancements in their career, their discipline, the academy and society. The University is committed to providing the resources that ensure a successful progression along the faculty career ladder, and ensuring University-wide criteria and processes for faculty promotion and tenure. The Office of the Provost is leading a review of processes that guide the selection of external reviewers for promotion dossiers.

Recruitment and Retention: The Faculty Distinction Fund is a key investment tool to reward and retain distinguished faculty and recruit promising scholars whose contributions support University-wide priorities. The fund has attracted faculty essential to the Computational and Life Sciences and the Religions and Human Spirit initiatives.

Ensuring highest student quality & enhancing the student experience

A virtual hub for students
“John Emory” is now taking your calls. Named in honor of Emory’s founder, the new “Ask John Emory” Web site provides students a central place to share questions about life at Emory.

“Although there are many people here at Emory poised to provide answers, we also know that it is not always self-evident to whom one should turn for answers or general advice,” says Santa Ono, senior vice provost for undergraduate academic affairs.

Ask John Emory is a comprehensive listing of Emory’s most frequented Web sites. Students also can send a private message to a committee of administrators; questions and answers are confidential and anonymous.
Included is a link for students to submit reflections on life at Emory. “These will also help us consider ways to improve the student experience,” says Ono.

Campus Life and the Office of the Provost created the student portal based on recommendations made at “Dialogues on the Emory Undergraduate Experience,” a series of conversations with undergraduates to assess the quality of their collegiate experience.

Initiatives
What is an “Emory Education”? The answer is expected to be defined and refined during the next five years under the University’s expanded “Ensuring Highest Student Quality and Enhancing the Student Experience” theme.

“Creating and investing in a signature education for our undergraduate students is a vital component of the strategic plan,” says Provost Earl Lewis. “Recruitment and financial aid is one part of it. What we distinctively offer our students when they are here is the other.”

Through the Office of University-Community Partnerships (OUCP), a particular focus is on building the faculty’s ability to employ engaged learning, and providing the resources to support logical, planned and thoughtful progressions for students along the continuum of engagement, from volunteer service to experiential learning to original scholarship addressing pressing community problems.

This fall saw the implementation of advising systems for freshmen and pre-health majors. And in fall 2010, the new freshman village will be completed.

Recruitment and Financial Aid: The University and its schools are examining recruitment strategies at all levels. Attracting the very best undergraduate, graduate and professional students is key to sustaining the mission of the University. For undergraduates, Emory Advantage for low-to-middle income families and financial aid for all students with assessed need will remain a priority.

Engaged Scholars: Emory’s OUCP, in coordination with the schools and colleges, Campus Life and Volunteer Emory, will continue to build the capacity for community-engaged learning and scholarship opportunities.

Curriculum and Pedagogy: Curriculum and its implementation are being refined at the school level.

Creating Community — engaging society

Resources help balance work, life
For John Kosky, Emory’s recent recognition in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s 2009 Great Colleges to Work For listing was especially satisfying. Last fall, Kosky was tapped to head the WorkLife Resource Center, charged with implementing recommendations from Emory’s Work-Life Initiative and promoting a work environment that allows the University and its people to excel and thrive.

Says Kosky, “Part of our initial work was to compile the extensive services Emory already provides its employees. At www.worklife.emory.edu, employees can survey these resources and view a road map of projects under way.”

One key area of focus is dependent care, which includes child care, elder care, adoption and special-needs dependents. An external market analysis was conducted of child care resources within five miles of Emory, and from that, the WorkLife Center developed a child care network that will provide discount and priority admissions to families, without making actual referrals to specific facilities. Future analysis of existing campus resources may provide opportunities for more dependent care enhancements.

Additionally, long-term emphasis on workplace flexibility and alternative work arrangements will allow managers and employees to reexamine when, where and how work gets done.

Initiatives
Emory’s culture and physical environment will enrich the lives and intellectual work of faculty, students and staff, making Emory a preferred employer and a destination where all can realize their full potential.

Sustainability: ‘Green’ buildings continue to spring up on campus as Emory approaches the 2 million square foot threshold of LEED certified space. Building to LEED standards, plus changes in individual behavior inspired by a sustainability pledge, will enable Emory to reduce energy consumption by 25 percent per square foot and yield other significant results by 2015. New composting programs will help meet the goal of diverting 65 percent of waste from local landfills. And since 2006, Emory has offered more than 150 sustainability-related courses.

Professional and Leadership Development: Emory is identifying and cultivating tomorrow’s leaders through an expanding portfolio of individual and group development programs, from the established Excellence Through Leadership and Woodruff Leadership Academy to the new Academic Leadership Program. Additionally, Emory invests in certification development programs for managers, supervisors and administrative professionals to excel in the workplace.

Culture: Emory’s new Culture initiative is focused on developing strategies to foster ethics, diversity, work-life enhancement, entrepreneurship and philanthropy among faculty, students and staff. Some strategies are already being implemented. For example, the Office of Community and Diversity works in tandem with schools and departments to develop plans that enhance capacity for access, equality and inclusion; entrepreneurship is a focus of the Emory South Africa Drug Discovery Program that trains African scientists on the science, business and law of drug discovery; and Campaign Emory provides the opportunity for faculty and staff to help their peers through the economic downturn.

Confronting the human condition and human experience

Religion and public health address social issues
Ellen Idler, new director of the Religion and Public Health Collaborative, is a gerontologist who holds a joint appointment in sociology and public health. But it’s her study of religion together with these disciplines that has brought new knowledge to her field.

Among Idler’s recent research findings is that elderly people who had more religious connections “had a better quality of life both socially and psychologically during their last year of life.”

A new study Idler is investigating is the impact of religion on end-of-life decision-making. In contrast to the earlier study, “we’re finding that people who are more religious are less likely to have had discussions about end-of-life treatment,” she says. “We need more research to understand why and what can be done.

“Faculty at Emory are very well-suited to address this issue, not only from a research standpoint but also from a practice standpoint,” says Idler. “Social action is part of the agenda here. Faculty in theology, religion, public health and medicine can talk to each other in a way that they just can’t do at other places.”

Initiatives
Emory brings together interdisciplinary teams of humanists, artists, scientists and social scientists willing to tackle difficult subjects, challenge prevailing beliefs, and assert the University’s role in thoughtfully addressing important issues.

Race and Difference: Faculty members Dorothy Brown, Martha Fineman, Tyrone Forman, Leslie Harris and Amanda Lewis are coordinating the University’s pursuit of five goals: Creating a culture of collaboration and climate of inclusion; building intellectual density in the study of race and difference; training and mentoring the next generation of promising scholars studying race and difference; institutionalizing the study of race and difference; and developing collaborations and partnerships related to race and difference beyond Emory’s campus.

Religions and the Human Spirit: In the area of religion and public health, the Religion and Public Health Collaborative is working to consolidate progress and lead new directions in these issues. Contemplative Studies is advancing its research by commencing the Compassion and Attention Longitudinal Meditation (CALM) Study, integrating initial research with additional projects that will add novel behavioral and neuroimaging components.

Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding, with a newly created PhD concentration, is building the scholarly dimension of the field not only through the work of practitioners but by adding to the core research in this increasingly crucial area of study.

Global Health: The Emory Global Health Institute will continue to build on the innovative global health research and training programs it has helped develop and support in more than 70 countries as well as search for and facilitate new opportunities and global partnerships for Emory faculty, students and alumni interested in addressing global health challenges around the world.

Exploring new frontiers in science and technology

CCI facilitates data use
The Center for Comprehensive Informatics (CCI) is a new, multidisciplinary center that promotes collaboration between software system researchers and scientific research groups, motivated by the requirements of cutting edge scientific research projects. The CCI carries out a broad research and software development agenda in high performance computing, biomedical informatics, Grid computing, translational research informatics and imaging informatics.

Many scientists use large volumes of data in their studies on the mechanisms underlying biological functions and disease processes. For instance, a translational research project in biomedicine may gather clinical, molecular, pathology and imaging data to target better treatments by analyzing data from a group of patients. The CCI develops innovative, open-source software systems, tools and applications for the informatics needs of a variety of research projects.

The CCI is developing interactions with numerous programs and initiatives at Emory, including the Computational and Life Sciences initiative, the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory College and the Predictive Health Institute.

“For example, we expect new opportunities for faculty who may engage in computationally dense research about the choices people make around health behaviors,” says Lynn Cunningham, administrative director for both Predictive Health and the CCI.

Initiatives
Researchers are pursuing groundbreaking interdisciplinary research that increasingly involves partnerships with other institutions. Along with more than $484 million in external research funding over the past year, Emory researchers are receiving a boost through the “stimulus funding” of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The NIH and the NSF have awarded at least 94 stimulus grants to Emory for more than $26 million, with additional funds expected to follow.

Neuroscience, Human Nature and Society: With more than 400 faculty members from throughout the University working in the neurosciences, Emory’s Neurosciences initiative is contributing to an understanding of the mind and the brain that aims to benefit society through collaborative research, teaching and clinical care. A new Web site (www.neuroclinical.emory.edu) describes the activities of the WHSC Comprehensive Neurosciences Center, the clinical arm of the Neurosciences initiative.

Predictive Health and Society: The Center for Health Discovery and Well Being is showing statistically significant improvements in the health markers of participants as data from the six-month and one-year visits are analyzed. Information is already being utilized in cross-disciplinary work. The fully subscribed undergraduate class in predictive health and the novel Burroughs Wellcome PhD program are early indicators of advances at Emory in health education.

Computational and Life Sciences: As CLS continues to hire stellar faculty and fellows in interdisciplinary fields, it has graduated the first cohort of informatics PhDs and launched several new programs. The collaborative community of Emory CLS scholars continues to grow, with the CLS initiative catalyzing and sponsoring exciting projects at the interface of computation and life sciences that enhance Emory strengths.