Johns Hopkins University
Faculty Budget Advisory Committee
Summary of January 7, 2020 Meeting
ACADEMIC SPACE VISIONING
Mr. Lee Coyle, Senior Director of Planning & Architecture, led a discussion on academic space visioning for the future on the Johns Hopkins University campuses, with input from Dr. Lainie Rutkow, Senior Advisor to the President for National Capital Academic Strategy as well as Professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the School of Medicine and Ms. Elizabeth Smyth, Executive Director of the SNF Agora Institute. Provost Kumar opened by noting that the University is on the cusp of a tremendous amount of capital investment, with many JHU divisions having significant new capital construction on the horizon. The aim is to develop core principles on the future programming and renovation of academic space with regard to owned versus shared and collaborative versus private space.
Mr. Coyle summarized a consultant-facilitated workplace strategy visioning session that took place in November. Attendees included 11 faculty members from various JHU divisions. Discussion topics included: what participants liked most about their current personal space, what would most enhance their work experience outside of their office, and what hinders their work experience outside of their workspace today. Given that faculty work is much more varied than many other jobs, future programming of space will need to support a variety of activities and diverse faculty work and interaction styles.
Programming options under consideration for 3 projects that are in various stages of planning were reviewed—the Henrietta Lacks Building in East Baltimore, the SNF Agora Institute Building at Homewood Campus, and 555 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. It was also noted that the School of Nursing has re-envisioned workspace for faculty and their teams within the context of the expansion of the Pinkard Building. Various options under consideration for individual and team/lab workspace design, storage space and communal space were reviewed and discussed with the FBAC.
The academic space visioning effort will help to develop a framework of design approaches to inform future projects. The framework will likely become a living document that is modified as needs change. Ideally, options will offer flexibility in the long term, leaving opportunity for future changes.
FACULTY SALARY REVIEW
Dr. Ratna Sarkar, Vice Provost for Institutional Research, presented samples of FY19 summary data from the American Association of Universities (AAU) Data Exchange. She provided an overview of the source and protections associated with the salary data, relevant data fields and limitations. Dr. Sarkar also described the criteria used to extract Hopkins faculty salary data from SAP. She showed FBAC attendees examples of information shared with JHU Deans and Vice Deans of Faculty – charts depicting maximum, minimum and average salary by department and rank for Hopkins compared to peers (public and private). FBAC members suggested that times-series salary levels and progress toward bringing ranks in line with median salaries, where warranted, would be helpful. Dr. Sarkar offered to set up meetings to discuss the faculty salary benchmarking data between FBAC representatives, Deans and Vice Deans of Faculty.
FINANCE UPDATE
Mr. Daniel Ennis, Senior Vice President for Finance & Administration, noted that the University’s financial health has strengthened along several key dimensions over the last several years. That improvement was driven in part by a selective slow-down in the pace of capital expenditure. Per JHU’s five-year financial plan which was shared with the Committee in June, JHU is now heading into a period of significant capital and related programmatic expansion. Even with unprecedented philanthropy to support this dramatic increase in capital and program investment, JHU will face increased pressure on cash, debt and operating performance over the next ten years.
The University has historically generated relatively thin but consistently positive operating margins. In FY19 the School of Medicine, the University’s largest division, ended the year worse than budgeted due to a few factors including reduced income from joint ventures and increasing costs for medical malpractice insurance. As a result, the Board of Trustees asked the School to restate its FY20 budget, which it presented to the Trustees in December for approval. The restated budget for FY20 reflects a break-even result for the University, placing additional pressure on all divisions to meet or exceed financial performance objectives. Despite this financial challenge, University leadership remains focused on continuing to make necessary strategic and academic investments to strengthen core mission and support progress on University goals.