The School of Public Health is in the process of recovering from the loss of eight of its 36 faculty members, effective at the end of this academic year.
One faculty member is retiring, and one is headed to the Kansas Foundation for Health. The other six, however, are all off to Washington University in St. Louis’ new Institute of Public Health.
Saint Louis University’s School of Public Health Interim-Dean Homer Schmitz, Ph.D., said the sudden migration to Wash. U. by almost one-fourth of the existing faculty was not indicative of trouble in the School, but, rather, a shift to meet the interests of those professors.
“It’s just one of [those] things where you have a turnover from time to time,” he said. “I think there comes a time in any faculty member’s career when they simply need to move on for their particular interests.
“They may want to be in a place where they can collaborate with other people [who] share like interests … sometimes that works in a particular place, and sometimes it doesn’t, and when it doesn’t, they decide to move on.”
Wash. U.’s Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs Fredric Volkmann said he did not view this as an attempt by Wash. U. to seize SLU’s faculty.
“I don’t know all the dynamics, but I know that several faculty at SLU approached us,” he said. He could not release the names of the six transferring faculty due to the ongoing human resources process.
Schmitz also said that he was told SLU’s faculty initiated the talks.
However, according to an article on Thursday, May 1, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, SLU Provost Joe Weixlmann, Ph.D., said some of the departing faculty members were made “very handsome offers.”
This isn’t the first time the School of Public Health has been in the headlines this school year. In October, students were alerted about the possible sale of the School to Wash. U., a transfer that never came to fruition, and in November, former Dean Connie Evashwick, Ph.D., stepped down from her position.
Schmitz denied there was a connection between the six faculty members departing for Wash. U. and the briefly proposed sale of the School of Public Health to Wash. U. last October.
“I have not been told that that’s a linked issue,” he said. “I think many of the faculty members have worked and collaborated with people at Wash. U. for many years.”
Transfer of faculty members generally also means a transfer of grant dollars- about $8 million in this case, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, meaning that that money will instead be funneled to Wash. U.
Even so, Schmitz said he wasn’t worried, since the grant money will still be used collaboratively and in the same way by the universities, so the loss of this money will not hurt SLU.
“[People] should understand that grant money is not something that accrues directly to the school; it is something that is used to do work, like collect[ing] data,” he said. “For it to be [thought of as] a win-lose situation, that’s really not the spirit of research and of academic inquiry and of academic integrity.
“The spirit of all of that, which I think both universities represent, is to create new knowledge and have it apply to the communities in which they reside . I think we can generally do that better by working together than to be working in competition with one another.”
Volkmann agreed.
“This is a win-win for St. Louis,” he said. “There are going to be two major research universities . offering public health programming initiatives in the St. Louis area.”
In the meantime, at SLU, Schmitz said that hiring is underway to fill the vacancies left by the former faculty members.
“The School is certainly in a growth mode,” he said. “It may be moving a little more in the direction of academics and little less in the direction of research, although it will still be very large part of what we do … The research arm of the School of Public Health is alive and well.”
School of Public Health Professor James Romeis, Ph.D., said replacing the faculty was a high priority.
“The real issue probably has to do with trying to catch up with the faculty that are reported to be leaving,” he said. “Health Management?and Policy recruited three first-class faculty that will replace the?three that were?recruited out . The replacement faculty?knew the situation here, but came anyway without concern. The School seems?to have?an unimpaired reputation.”
Third year law and health administration graduate student Noel Pugh voiced worry over how the programs connected to and within the School would recover.
“I’m concerned that some of the notoriety we’ve been able to achieve will go away and the program will be disrupted,” Pugh said. “Are we still going to be able to draw students from around the country the way we have been?”
