Einstein Senate

Senate Meeting: Wednesday, August 7, 2024

  • Dr. Tomer gave the Dean's Report. He began by welcoming Dr. Yoon Kang, the new Vice Dean for Education. He then discussed the arrival of the new MD and MSTP students and launching of the learning communities. He also mentioned the reopening of the library, which was completely renovated in just a few months based on student input. Finally, Dr. Tomer gave updates on a number of leadership positions with ongoing or recently completed searches.
  • Dr. Arnsten provided the Speaker's Report. She indicated that the Senate Council had met once during the previous month and had focused on the proposal to modify the criteria for promotion on the Clinician Educator track that was slated for later in the Senate meeting.
  • Dr. Tomer introduced the revised promotion criteria for Clinician Educators, which were presented in detail by Drs. Backer and Southern. The changes are designed to remove the suggested minimum of five publications, which had been interpreted as a requirement, and to widen the scope of scholarly activities that contribute to promotion, including better recognizing teaching of students and trainees. There will now be three major legs – teacher, educator, and clinical scholar/leader – and candidates for promotion may have different distributions of strength across the three categories.
    • After extensive discussion of the proposal, it was put up for a vote and passed.
  • Next, Dr. Sophie Molholm presented the proposal of the Tenure and Compensation Policy Committee to remove a footnote specifying that, although expected percentages of salary coverage via grants are written into the policy, these are not requirements. Dr. Tomer requested this edit because he felt the footnote negated the sentence to which it was attached. After a robust conversation about the necessity of the footnote, a decision was made to send the policy to Senators via email and have an online vote.
  • Drs. Holden and Correa gave a report on the activities of the DEI office, including the success of the inaugural Dr. Hal Strelnick Day, the newly renovated interfaith space, and collaboration between the DEI office and the Office of Grant Support.
  • There was no additional old or new business at this meeting.