Moneychangers in the Temple

Abstract

The rosy status quo that we described comes from memory, not from imagination. And what Dr. Sommer sees as anguish is nostalgia. Younger readers of Epidemiology may not relate to this as they did not know schools of public health (SPHs) in their prime. The SPH was a scholarly place, calm and quiet, with full-time students whose studies were the central part of their lives. The word processor was unknown so it was necessary to think carefully before writing. Faculty members read journals, even books. Now these unread items are electronically archived at birth and later scanned by a search engine retrieving citations to support the thought of the day. Fine teaching was a gift to our students—and to ourselves. It helped us all to develop as professionals and scholars committed to preventing disease. Today, the SPH is a loosely knit enterprise, with hustle and bustle and paper flying in every direction. We write “grants” in response to the blizzard of proposals forwarded to us by a dozen administrators. A grant application describing our own ideas has become rare. Disease prevention is now just part of an unbounded mission in which anything—at least anything fundable—is relevant. Regard for our old friends, biology and medicine, wanes in favor of our new and too-popular acquaintance, business. We did not “decry” university fund-raising, nor the seeking of research funds—only the extent to which these activities displace teaching and research itself. Perhaps this crucial message was unclear: the SPH has lost the proper balance among the many activities available to it. And loss of balance often leads to loss of direction. If this seems overstated, read the recent “The Kept University”. 1 Our commentary may then appear balanced and constructive. Dr. Sommer specifically disagrees only with our support of Dworkin’s view that a faculty member’s teaching need not be seen by Society as of particular value or interest. Dr. Sommer asserts that the message is wrong and apparently believes that Society should lead while the professoriate follows. But it must be the reverse, as Dworkin fully explains. (Of course, the SPHs’ professional programs must fill Society’s needs. The Dean and the Department Heads should see to that. Most of us contribute to that purpose, but providing such service cannot interfere with the essential quality of tenure: freedom.) Dr. Sommer found little, perhaps nothing, acceptable in Moneychangers. Perhaps he could agree with this: “the unexamined life is not worth living.” The quote relates to human beings but it pertains as much, or more, to the life of an institution vitally concerned with human beings. We mean the School of Hygiene and Public Health of the Johns Hopkins University and all SPHs collectively. Who examines that life, and how? Surely the perpetual curriculum reviews that consume enormous amounts of time to little avail do not measure up to this great purpose. And neither do those desultory quinquennial efforts at “self-study.” They are more an effort to discern the current wishes of the accrediting body than our own place in Society. We offered Moneychangers as a small step in a long process, the examination of the life of a middle-aged institution. The institution needs reinvigoration. That can come not from its seeking new purpose but by a rededication to the purpose of its birth. We say it again: the purpose of an SPH is to develop the means of disease prevention. All else is distraction. Philip Cole Elizabeth Delzell Brad Rodu