December 8, 2008

Minutes of ASEF Executive Council December 8, 2008

Present

Drs. Asbury, Steinberg, MacGregor, LaRossa, Goldfine, and McCarthy; Rachael Berget

ASEF Office Space

Dr. Asbury reported that he had spoken to Kevin Mahoney about the office space for ASEF. Mr. Mahoney said that he didn't know when the Gates 1 space would open up, but he said that ASEF should go into space that's ready to be occupied. Mr. Mahoney indicated that there were other possible locations that might be equally good. These other possibilities are emerging as the current occupants in various locations relocate to the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine (CAM).

Kevin Mahoney wants ASEF to give him three possible dates on which ASEF members can tour the CAM. This tour will probably be held in April 2009. If ASEF can't attract at least 15 members to this tour, we may open it up to other groups.

Neal Nathanson and the Emeritus Travel Program

Dr. Saunders said that Dr. Nathanson was delighted that ASEF is willing to participate in the Emeritus Travel Program. As a reminder, this is an initiative to send emeritus faculty to international medical schools as visiting professors, or consultants, for brief periods of time. The immediate program is in Bangalore, India—an Indian donor wants to sponsor a visiting professor at a Christian hospital in Bangalore. The offer would be for one (1) week as a Visiting Professor and one (1) week as a tourist. The “tourist” week substitutes for an honorarium. The contact person at Penn for this program is Dr. Pablo Tebas, from the Department of Medicine. Dr. MacGregor sees Dr. Tebas every day and will talk to him about this program.

MFSSC Presentation

Dr. Saunders will give the Medical Faculty Senate Steering Committee (MFSCC) an update on the proposed retirement community tomorrow.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Retirement is being updated.

Notice of Dr. Mastroianni's death

The distribution of the notice of Dr. Mastroianni's death exposed the fact that emeritus faculty are not on the Dean's distribution list for important announcements like this. Emeritus faculty should be on the Dean's general mailing list. Emeritus faculty want to know what's going on with the School of Medicine. Vicki Mulhern will check into having Emeritus faculty added to the Dean's mailing list.

ASEF Website

PASEF's website is not part of the Provost's Office, so they are able to change and update their own website. Dr. Saunders has asked if ASEF could be allowed to manage its own website, but he hasn't yet heard back about that. He's guessing that ASEF won't be allowed to do this and, even if they are, they don't currently have a member who's web-savvy enough to maintain the website. Dr. MacGregor will talk to Dr. Alan Myers, from PASEF, about how they got their own website.

Dr. Saunders said that all requests for work to be done by Rachael Berget should come to him for approval first.

At-Large Council Members: There are two senior faculty members who are interested in becoming At-Large Council Members. One of these faculty members cannot meet on a Monday, so Dr. Saunders asked Executive Council members whether the monthly meetings can be switched to Tuesday or Thursday. Dr. Steinberg stated that he had sent Dr. Saunders additional names for consideration for these positions. Dr. Saunders will follow up with these individuals.

Dr. McCarthy will prepare an e-mail message about the Community Volunteers in Medicine Program. He will send it to Dr. Saunders, who will review it and forward it to Rachael Berget for distribution to ASEF members.

Post-Baccalaureate Health Mentoring Program – This program has held three events, with a total of 39 student attendees and 8 faculty members (some of whom are ASEF members) participating. A number of Executive Council members are scheduled to participate again this Spring.

Retirement Community Survey

Dr. Saunders reported two of the percentages from the Retirement Community Survey:

• 65% of faculty surveyed said that they would be interested in a Penn retirement community
• 90% said that they supported ASEF's continued pursuit of this project with university administration

On Friday, December 12, 2008, Dr. Saunders, Dr. Neville Strumpf (PASEF President-Elect), and Dr. Jerry Porter (PASEF President), and others will meet with Craig Carnaroli, Penn Executive Vice President. Mr. Carnaroli has also invited personnel from the Real Estate and Facilities Departments (both of which report to him) to join him in this meeting. The ASEF and PASEF leaders will gauge Mr. Carnaroli's enthusiasm level for this project and ask him put members of his team onto making the Penn retirement community a reality.

Programming Committee

Dr. Goldfine reported that his committee is thinking of having an outside group come in and talk about what to do about your investments in this economy. Dr. and Meadows and Dr. Goldfine will start working on identifying speakers for this program.

Data Committee

Dr. Steinberg reported that he now has a list of departmental faculty coordinators. FAPD will send them an e-mail every 6 months to check on new emeriti, deceased faculty, faculty changes of address, etc.

The next Executive Council meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 13, 2009.

Respectfully submitted,

Rachael Berget