Council

The Life Sciences Council is the main administrative decision making body in the Life Sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The Council is currently chaired by Douglas A. Melton, Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences, and includes as representatives the department chairs of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Biological Anthropology and Psychology. The Council meets bi- weekly throughout the academic year. All inquiries related to the Life Sciences Council can be directed to Raymond_Coderre [-at-] harvard [dot] edu

Summary of Council Discussions: September – November 2006

• Reviewed the previous academic year’s accomplishments and organized priorities for the current year.

• Reviewed the UPCSE report’s recommendations and discussed each department’s faculty meeting feedback. This feedback was then discussed by the council, recommendations were made, and sent to the President’s office.

• Discussed graduate education and the current training grant programs and decided to support a proposal that would unify the current programs and would allow each to be a track in the program. Andrew Murray is spearheading this effort. The council will revisit the issue in January.

• Discussed instruction in the Responsible Conduct of Research and decided to enroll our graduate students and post docs in the medical school’s program.

• Reviewed a summary of divisional search authorizations with each department’s chair and discussed space requirements and condensing as well as the potential for joint appointments.

• Reviewed a draft proposal that would utilize existing data to examine the relationship between faculty space, teaching effort and grant dollars, and determined that such a study would be beneficial.

• Discussed the general education requirements with the co-chairs of the committee. The council recommended increasing the emphasis on science in the report’s recommendations, in particular, integrating ‘science as a way of knowing’ into all general education course offerings. The report’s recommendations will be discussed at the faculty meeting on November 14. The council encourages all life sciences faculty to attend.