| Departments — President’s Report | Autumn 2008 |
Life after Harvard At our Alumni Council meetings, we hear about all aspects of the School—from broad strategic priorities down to the details of curricular reform and student debt. At the same time, we discuss how the Council can best work with the School for the benefit of all relevant parties—alumni, students, and the School itself. So I’ve only partially severed my ties, and I treasure the ones that remain intact. Still, I don’t think anyone who has gone through the extraordinary experience of education at HMS ever completely loses the connection. Whatever career path we ultimately choose, we recognize how strongly our professional lives have been shaped by our education, our experiences, the contacts we made during our time as students, and any additional training or relationships we have maintained with the School. During our 35th HMS reunion in June, my classmates and I reinforced the bonds we had forged decades ago, bonds that hadn’t really broken despite many years and many miles of separation. Throughout the past year, William Chin ’72 (my predecessor as president of the Alumni Association), JudyAnn Bigby ’78 (my successor), and I have discussed ways in which the Council could help strengthen the links among alumni, between alumni and current students, and between alumni and the School. As we know from social networking sites such as Facebook, electronic communication through the Web provides us with an unprecedented opportunity to establish a virtual HMS community that extends far beyond campus. Bill, JudyAnn, and I have joined other Council members in recognizing that developing the platform and the infrastructure for such a community—and then encouraging alumni and students to become active participants—is more than a one-year project. We believe, however, that it’s an important priority. What is our vision for this virtual community? Ultimately, it will allow alumni to connect with each other and with students around areas of common interest, ranging from clinical and research interests to volunteer opportunities. Students will be able to link with alumni who have specific interests or live in particular geographic areas. Students will also have opportunities to seek advice, establish mentoring relationships, and find alumni willing to provide housing during travel for residency interviews. Ideally, the community would also provide a portal for alumni to experience some of the current curriculum, perhaps through access to digitized lectures or other educational resources. We are in the early stages of exploring the potential applications of such a community, and a range of unanticipated applications will undoubtedly emerge as alumni and students recognize the promise and power of this new community. Our priorities now are to develop the infrastructure for the virtual community and to establish a robust database of all alumni. We will work with the School to determine how such a resource is best developed, housed, and financed within the complex organizational structure of So, in returning to the question of whether there is life after Harvard, my hope is that the question becomes moot as we use the power of the Internet to help all alumni feel connected to the HMS community for life. Steven E. Weinberger ’73 is senior vice president for medical education at the American College of Physicians in Philadelphia. Photo: ©iStockphoto.com |
Harvard. I have discussed this priority with Dean Jeffrey Flier, and he shares our interest and excitement.
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