Harvard Public Health NOW

Julio Frenk Presented Officially as Next Dean to HSPH Community at Reception and Program

President Drew Faust officially presented Dr. Julio Frenk as the next dean to the HSPH community at a reception and program attended by approximately 500 students, faculty, and staff on Friday, September 5, in the Kresge cafeteria. Dr. Frenk will assume the deanship in January 2009.

A video, along with a transcript of Dr. Frenk's remarks, is available. The site also has webcasts of Dr. Frenk delivering the 2007 HSPH Commencement Address and a 2006 Dean's Distinguished Lecture.

The program began with HSPH Dean Barry R. Bloom expressing his deep appreciation to President Faust for the wisdom of appointing Dr. Frenk, whom Dean Bloom has known for more than 20 years. Said Dean Bloom: "I have absolute confidence that he will bring great vision, a special graciousness, and an exceptional leadership to the School and to the University."

Dean Bloom recounted a story about Dr. Frenk joining the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) board on international health in the 1990s — chaired at the time by Dean Bloom and former HSPH Dean Harvey Fineberg. At his very first meeting, Dr. Frenk had the temerity to suggest changing the group's name — to the board on global health. When asked why, Dean Bloom recalled, Dr. Frenk, "for the first time I think for any of us," defined global health as "health problems and issues and concerns that transcend national boundaries and may best be addressed by cooperative action." This definition later framed an Institute of Medicine report on global health, and the term is now widely used.

"I think that's a reflection of his visionary spirit and his understanding of the need for cooperative action in every arena in which he has engaged and motivated people," said Dean Bloom.

In January, Dean Bloom will become a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and will continue his research and other activities related to global health as a member of the HSPH faculty. He will maintain an office on the 9th Floor of HSPH Building One.

President Faust thanked Dean Barry Bloom for his distinguished leadership throughout a decade of growth and change. "He leaves his successor in a remarkably strong position and with a very tough act to follow," she said.

President Faust described HSPH as at the forefront of the University's efforts to reach out internationally and to connect education and scholarly inquiry with everyday, real world problems.

Addressing the School's students, staff, and faculty, she said: "More and more people elsewhere recognize how so much of what you do is central to the problems of the world. The subjects you address are in the newspapers on the front pages every day. Your work is essential to improving the world around us, and is essential also to modeling how knowledge, inquiry, [and] research matter and why they matter and how we all live our lives."

She continued, "At such a moment it's especially exciting to welcome a new dean who can take up all these challenges so effectively. He's a person who blends academics and practice. He's a person who is expert in thinking across disciplines to solve real-world problems. He's a person whose vision extends from the local to the national to the global and transfers across those boundaries with enormous ease. So this is a person who is going to be able to bring this school and this field to even greater heights of achievement and also will enable all of us to do more in meeting enormous challenges of health for world populations, especially for people most in need."

President Faust referred to comments made about Dr. Frenk during the search process for the new dean. Those descriptions included "a visionary, a leader, a consensus builder," "profound thinker," and an individual known for his "rigorous humanitarianism."

Dr. Frenk briefly outlined initial ideas for his vision of his deanship. Those ideas center on building bridges that cross Harvard, research disciplines, and domestic and global health.

"If there is one keyword that I can use to characterize that vision, it is ‘integration'," he said. "I have always seen public health as a crossroads where multiple dimensions intersect: biology and society, individual and population, science and scholarship, evidence and ethics, analysis and action, the local and the global, excellence and relevance."

Dr. Frenk commented that HSPH is distinguished by its cutting-edge research; translation of rigorous analysis into major policy initiatives, such as tobacco control; and its educational mission. "Continuing to attract the most talented students from all over the world will be a top priority for me," he said.

He noted the School's record of combining a global outlook with work on important health issues on the domestic agenda.

These strengths, Dr. Frenk said, offer a foundation for progress: "Public health is at the threshold of a new era fueled by four simultaneous revolutions: in the life sciences, in the information and communication technologies, in systems thinking, allowing us to comprehend and transform complexity, and, last but certainly not least, what Michel Ignatieff, formerly at the Kennedy School, has called the rights revolution, which provides the ethical foundation for so much of our work in public health."

Dr. Frenk also noted that he plans to spend several days every month at HSPH until January when he fully assumes his duties, using the time to listen to concerns and aspirations among HSPH members and to develop relationships with other parts of the University.

"I can set no higher goal for myself than to be a worthy successor to the previous deans of the School of Public Health. I can find no challenge more inspiring than to become a commendable companion to the men and women who have made Harvard the great institution it is today. Standing firmly on this outstanding platform of past and present achievements, I shall always strive to be a reliable steward of the future legacy that we will build together," said Dr. Frenk.

Provost Steven Hyman led a toast to thank Dean Bloom and to welcome Dean Designate Frenk. Also present were Dr. Frenk's wife, Dr. Felicia Knaul; David Ellwood, Dean of Harvard Kennedy School; Jeffrey Flier, Dean of Harvard Medical School; Howard Hiatt, former Dean of HSPH; Barbara Grosz, Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; Bruce Donoff, Dean of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine; Tamara Rogers, Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development; and Edward Forst, Executive Vice President of Harvard.

-Photo by Suzanne Camarata.