Health and Human Services Task Force
Minutes
January 19, 2000

Vida Huber called the meeting to order at 4:38 p.m. in Moody Lounge. The members present were Herb Amato, Judy Holt, Jean Dalton, Bill Walker, Craig Abrahamson, David Cockley, and Lennie Echterling. Student Paula Neher was present as a participant observer.

1. The minutes of the January 12 meeting were reviewed and approved.

2. Vida announced the exciting news that plans for the modular building are going forward with a health and human services focus. This promising development may provide significant support for the development of a HHS entity at JMU.

3. The specific purpose of this meeting was to meet in two small groups in order to continue working on the following major areas:

· Mission Statement, Principles and Guidelines; and,
· Structural Models.

4. It was decided that, near the end of the meeting, the entire group would reconvene to report on the progress they had made on their tasks.

5. Structural Models:

The small group reviewed five possible structures that have been proposed to support a HHS mission here at JMU. The group members reported that they decided to reject the first model, which involved simply adding an Integrated Health and Human Services School to the other three existing schools within CISAT.

There was more support for the second model, which proposed restructuring CISAT to have only two schools - Integrated Health and Human Services (IHHS) and Integrated Technology (IT). Under this model, IT would include CS, GIS, and ISAT departments, while IHHS would include other departments, centers, new programs, outreach services, and university services related to health and human services.

The third model was a variation on the above two. Under this proposal, IHHS would be a new school in CISAT, its functions would be divided into external and internal programs. However, it would have no departments under its direct administration. This model was also rejected.

These three models have in common the proposal of creating a new school for administering health and human services. However, only one of these models received even a minimal level of support. The group acknowledged that the major limitation of all of the above models is that the administrative structure, which would have a university-wide mission, would be located in only one of JMU's colleges.

The group reported that they endorsed the fourth model. It would establish IHHS as a new college, along with Arts and Letters, Science and Mathematics, CISAT, Education and Psychology, and Business. This model would involve assigning IHHS some already existing departments and programs that are currently in other colleges. In addition to a dean, IHHS would have one associate dean to coordinate external programs and centers, and another associate dean to coordinate internal programs and services. At a college level, IHHS would be able to work across the university to advocate for interdisciplinary efforts to address health and human service problems.

The fifth proposed model was rejected. It would create a university-wide IHHS to be administered by a dean, but without any assigned departments.

6. Mission, Principles and Guidelines: The second small group reported on their progress. First, they had refined the mission statement by making one minor change. Second, they had spent most of their time together developing a promising new conceptual framework for the principles and guidelines. Members of this group proposed to meet again next week to complete their task.

7. Next Meeting: The next meeting of the entire Health and Human Services Task Force will be Wednesday, February 2, at 4:00 p.m.

8. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 6:05 p.m. Respectfully Submitted, Lennie Echterling