Health and Human Services Task Force
Minutes
January 12, 2000

Vida Huber called the meeting to order at 4:05 p.m. in Moody Lounge. The members present were Janet Gloeckner, Herb Amato, Judy Holt, Cheryl Beverly, Jean Dalton, Corey Cleland, Jeff Kushner, Bill Walker, Brenda Ryals, Craig Abrahamson, and Lennie Echterling.

1. The minutes of the January 6 meeting were reviewed. Since the draft material detailed in the minutes required more discussion and greater clarification, approval of the minutes was tabled until the end of the meeting.

2. Mission and Purpose Statement: The group generally supported the mission statement, but there was a consensus that refining the wording would serve to enhance its power and clarity. For example, the term "competent" was thought to be too lackluster.

3. Training and Service Philosophy: Discussion focused on clarifying the meaning of some terms and reordering the sequence of the items.

4. Core Values and Principles: In this area, the group agreed that the values were consistent with the mission and philosophy. We also addressed the need to promote ongoing development of faculty clinical skills.

5. Guidelines: A brief discussion supported the guidelines that had been generated in the previous meeting, but it was reiterated that we should choose our words carefully to ensure understanding.

6. Potential Structures: Most of the meeting dealt with the potential structures to support a HHS mission here at JMU. At the start of discussion, it was recollected that a fourth model had been proposed.

The first model involves creating a new school within CISAT. A variation of this model would have two schools, HHS and IT, only in CISAT, instead of merely adding HHS to the college. This variation would roughly correspond with the current CISAT Associate Dean positions. The discussion also addressed the need to take care in committing to a specific name of this enterprise.

The second model is fundamentally similar to the first, but adds coordinators for internal and external matters.

The third model would function as a college to coordinate university-wide programs.

The fourth model would be an additional college that would involve restructuring of the university to include some of the departments and programs that are currently in other colleges.

The group discussed which model would best serve the interdisciplinary mission and philosophy. We face two important alternatives. First, should departments and programs be under one administration or should we have a structure without departments? Another important issue concerns the integration of academic and service components of learning. In practical terms, should we develop a structure that administers both departments and service programs?

The discussion then turned to explore how we might present these specific models in the most productive manner. We decided to approve the minutes of the previous meeting, which were amended to report that the group had explored potential structures to support health and human services issues here at JMU, but not to present specific descriptions and detailed figures of possibilities. These models are not in a presentable and coherent form at the present time.

7. Next Meeting: Our next meeting will be Wednesday, January 19, at 4:30 p.m.

8. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 5:30 p.m.

Respectfully Submitted,
Lennie Echterling