Reforms at GHP

To: Members of GHP Doctoral Committee
(David Canning, Chair Majid Ezzati, Ken Hill, Bill Hsiao, Ajay Mahal, Michael Reich)
From: GHP Doctoral Students
CC: Barbara Heil, David Bloom, remaining GHP faculty members
Date: December 21, 2009
Re: Proposal for Changes in GHP Doctoral Program


Proposal for Changes in the GHP Doctoral Programs

The GHP Doctoral Students, whose names are signed below, propose the following two categories of actions in Curriculum and Communications, to improve the GHP department and to realize our collective vision of a center for excellence in global health research:

(I) Begin serious reform of the doctoral curriculum over a transparent and clear period.
There is widespread, if not unanimous, concern among doctoral students (and many faculty) in GHP that the currently required coursework is not taught at the appropriate level of rigor for those students training to be producers, not just consumers, of research in global health and population. As doctoral students in GHP, we request that curricular reforms be made under the guiding principle "doctoral coursework for doctoral students." That is, doctoral students should not be required to take any masters-level classes; and all doctoral requirements should be taught at a doctoral level. As an example of the Department's existing efforts in this direction, we point to the newly constituted 272 doctoral seminar, which has received positive reviews.

Therefore, we recommend curriculum reform to include the following changes:
1. Limit the required courses to just four department-wide doctoral seminars:
a. the Foundations 272 doctoral seminar
b. a doctoral research seminar on global health for in-depth analysis of key literature in the three tracks with a focus on methods and which expands upon first-year coursework and helps lead to a prospectus (although in the short term while there lacks such a course, the tutorials led by Michael Reich's or David's Canning could serve as templates for this requirement)
c. a rigorous doctoral-level demography class, and
d. a rigorous doctoral-level measurement class similar to 506.
2. Make other classes optional or otherwise required by track, e.g. GHP507 would be a requirement for PRH but not other tracks
3. Make Day 1 of the WQE limited to cover topics from these four courses (while retaining sufficient breadth and depth).

(II) Improve communications, interactions, collaboration, and the sense of community within the department by:
1. Providing 24-hour key access to the doctoral student office (Rm 1106A) for all doctoral students, while post-WQE students would retain priority to locked cabinets and use of desks by Spring 2010 at the latest (see Appendix 1 for detailed discussion);
2. Creating a bulletin board on the 11th floor for TA positions, RA positions, jobs, and fellowships, and recent faculty research/publications;
3. Creating a quarter/semester/annual listing of department projects (title, short descriptive paragraph, total amount of funding, donor, affiliated faculty members and/or graduate students), which could easily be facilitated by the department's grant managers accountants (and indeed was previously published in the 1990s in an annual Department Report);
4. Providing clear guidelines on faculty advising and create a pathway to change advisors without retribution (see Appendix 2 for sample template of advising guidelines);
5. Establishing a research-presentation seminar with some minimum requirement e.g., one semester of required attendance for students and for a subset of faculty.

We recognize that the future reputation of our GHP program depends on the quality of today's program. Though curriculum reform will take time, we believe that changes in communications (particularly II.1, 2, and 3) can be done by Spring 2010.


GHP Doctoral Student Signatories by Track

Population & Reproductive Health

Anne Austin
Goodarz Danaei
Kathie Dionisio
Jennifer Manne
John Quattrochi
Carmel Salhi
Pamela Scorza


Health Systems

Shahira Ahmed
Yarlini Balarajan
Nathan Blanchett
Seemoon Choi
Victoria Fan
Heather Lanthorn
Huan-Ying (Kristy) Lin
Sarah MacCarthy
Tomoko Ono
Zubin Shroff
Banafsheh Siadat
Yanfang Su
Ye (Yvonne) Xu
Elif Yavuz

Health Economics

Ana Mylena Aguilara
Jeremy Barofsky
Jacob Bor
Diana Bowser
Annie Chu
Hiroaki (Muppy) Matsuura
Emre Ozaltin
Shufang Zhang







Appendix 1: Petition regarding Doctoral Student Office Sharing

We propose a policy where all doctoral students have access (i.e., 24-hour access and keys) to the doctoral student office and that 1st and 2nd year students could use the desks as long as the office is not full and that 3rd year or higher students have priority to using their assigned desk. The retention of "priority" would remain, i.e., students who passed the WQE would be assigned a desk (or given a desk to share), would have key-access to cabinets and would always have priority to their desks over 1st and 2nd year students. This would make the doctoral student space more akin to the "Flex Space" in the Pop. Center, where nine 'cubicles' are available for people to share them.

We believe that the issue of doctoral student office sharing is fundamental to improving the quality of student life. Moreover, the lack of face-to-face recognition, or interaction, between class cohorts should be a reason for increasing access, just like working at a particular research institute or center confers the benefits of regular personal interactions with one's colleagues. (Similarly, a department-wide and to a lesser degree a track-specific seminar would also increase between-cohort interactions.)

Obviously concerns about quietness are present, regardless of what years of students are there. However, we believe it is clear that the space is generally underused (i.e., it is usually empty and it is uncommon if there is a single person in there) and that expanding access to the 1st and 2nd years would not likely affect the quietness of the working space.

The 1st and 2nd years are more likely to be at HSPH and thus use the office more regularly, though it is unlikely that it would be to any point of reaching capacity with their use. Indeed, since the room is already fairly unused, and if the office is already open, many of the senior years have welcomed the 1st and 2nd years to use the room already.

Given the overwhelming support for all-year 24-hour access to the office, it is clear that the most students feel strongly about this issue and we hope that the decision will be favorable. We are very grateful for the attention of Barbara and others on this issue and the additional work that it involves.

We request that a timely response is given on this issue.


Appendix 2: Sample Template for Guidelines on Advising

An Advisor Should:
1. Be Regular in meeting with the advisee student at least twice (or once) a month
2. Be Knowledgeable by
a. Advising on courses both within and outside of school
b. Helping the student form a research network/team and help secure opportunities with student
c. Helping frame questions and discussing about meaningful contributions
3. Give feedback and constructive criticism on dissertation process, as well as refer and engage other faculty for advice
4. Encourage timeliness by the student to have structure and move towards small goals in their dissertation and ensure feasibility.
5. Tailor their recommendations by understanding the student's interests, strengths and weaknesses, help plot out a 2-year course-work plan and 4-6 year overall plan.
Finally, there should be a concrete process for switching advisors if it makes sense for the student to do so. For example, at the end of the two years of coursework, students can review the choice of advisor with respect to how the student's research interests have developed or other issues of compatibility.