Committee for Excellence in Health Science Education
Minutes for Meeting #4 August 27, 2003

Prepared by Sarah Karmin and Hilary Schmidt

Present: Hilary Schmidt, Ron Drusin, Letty Moss-Salentijn, Sarah Cook, Fred Loweff (for Richard Kessin), Mike Gershon, Pat Molholt, Rita Charon, Ian Lapp, Harvey Colten, Jeff Szmulewicz, Bob Lemieux
Absent: Laura Forese, Andrew Davidson, Ken Forde

New Member:
The Chair began the meeting by welcoming Jeff Szmulewicz, the newest member of the Committee for Excellence in Health Science Education.

Old Business

Small Classroom Space
The committee discussed space planning and the need for smaller classrooms. Sarah Karmin reported that the efforts initiated by the Dean and pursued by Classroom Management (Michele-Brown Nevers) to identify potential conference rooms have not had the anticipated results. Many departments cannot commit regular blocks for use, since the Departmental needs are frequently unpredictable. The few conference rooms that were available were not adequately furnished or outfitted to support teaching. Committee members discussed the need for rooms that could be used at the same time each week, and that were reasonably proximal to lecture halls. It was pointed out that the traveling time from a lecture hall to the PH17 small classrooms is problematic. After discussion, Harvey Colten requested that the Academic Deans provide a detailed list of small group classroom needs that can be used to guide planning and to identify short term solutions. He has requested estimates of the numbers of rooms, frequencies, and times for both semester long courses and ad hoc purposes.

One-Stop Shopping
The retreat for one-stop shopping has been scheduled for October 30th and a large majority of the faculty participants have already indicated they will be attending. They are excited about this opportunity to collaborate on developing the priorities for integrated resources to support education. It was noted that a number of the other retreats are planned for the fall, and that it is important to avoid conflicts.

Education Philosophy Statement:
It was recommended that the education philosophy statement should read like a mission statement and should therefore be condensed. Specific suggestions for rewording, re-sequencing of ideas and reformatting were discussed. It was agreed that the committee would review the statement again, after these revisions were made and after Rita Charon and Glen Peterson provided feedback and suggestions

Webpage
The committee decided that all working documents will be password protected and accessible to committee members only. All approved documents will be accessible to anyone viewing the website. Tracking software will become important in determining whether the website is a useful tool for dissemination of information. An intranet will be explored so that committee members will be able to create an ongoing dialogue on the website.

New Business

Decision Making Process: The Audience Response System (ARS) and the Standardized Patient Proposals as test cases
The Chair initiated discussion of two longstanding fully developed proposals for education enhancements that were submitted over year ago - with the goal of converging on appropriate decision making strategies for this committee. The two proposals represent projects of very different scales and potentially provide an excellent test ground for developing working decision-making strategies. Moreover, both proposals are complete, urgent, important, and longstanding and merit action at this point. The proposal to create a position to support the Audience Response System (an innovative educational technology) is relatively small - a single position with cost recovery potential. The second proposal - to establish a Clinical Performance Assessment facility in collaboration with the hospital - is much larger involving new space, equipment, and staff.

It was brought to the attention of the committee that the Dean had established the Academic Program Committee (APC), headed by Steve Shea, to consider proposals that require significant investments and to recommend fund raising priorities. Committee members were unclear on whether the CEHSE or the APC would be responsible for education proposals and priorities. Harvey Colten suggested that the small initial proposal would not come before the APC committee while the larger proposal might. The committee raised questions about the criteria by which decisions will be made outside of this group, and were concerned about the role of this committee in relation to the APC committee. Several committee members requested that the relationships between the two committees be clarified. It was recommended that CEHSE continue with its agenda, and that all approved proposals and recommendations be submitted to the Dean's office for whatever action deemed fit.

Discussion about voting procedures within CEHSE followed. The question of whether or not all members should be able to cast equal votes was at issue. Bob Lemieux did not think that he should participate in a vote on the ARS, for example, while Jeff Szmulewicz believed that he (JS) should. The question of whether each school should have one vote was also raised, since the current composition of the committee gives some schools more votes than others. It was recommended that the Dean decide the voting rules for the committee. The chair will follow up with the Dean.

Audience Response System (ARS): Although the College of Physicians and Surgeons purchased an ARS over a year ago, it has not been utilized fully because it lacks a full time programmer-educator to program for, assist and train faculty. The ARS is an outstanding resource with the potential to substantially improve the quality of lectures. The committee considered the proposal to create a position and discussed several cost-recovery models based on scaled fees to users: modest or no fees to faculty, flat fees for CME events (e.g. $500.00 per event), and substantially higher fees for corporate events (e.g. $4800-$5000.00). The fee structures and recovery estimates were based on recommendations from Biomedical Communications who has significant knowledge of the market.

Committee members strongly advocated for no charge to faculty members since this would be a deterrent to using the system, and course budgets are limited. It was argued that because the ARS has such potential to improve the quality of lectures, there should be no impediments to its use. Instead, faculty should be rewarded for using innovations in education. The School of Public Health strongly supports the ARS system, but believes the AV technician charges associated with ARS set-up and take down are unnecessary and excessive, and will further discourage use. They request that the issue of AV charges be the topic for discussion at a future meeting. It was suggested that either classroom coordinators, and or CAIT support staff be trained as backup for the ARS facilitator - and since staff in both units are available in the evening this might provide a viable alternative to using AV technicians.

By a majority vote (10-2) the committee voted to submit the proposal to the Dean, requesting the creation of a position for an ARS programmer/facilitator in the amount of $48,100.00, with about 50% of this expected to be recovered annually. The proposal will request funding for a three-year period of time and a comprehensive evaluation process will take place to assess the cost-benefits to education here at Columbia Health Sciences.

The next meeting will be devoted to discussion of the Clinical Performance Assessment Facility (Dr. Rita Charon).