Summer 1999
Dear Alumni and Friends, Of all Johns Hopkins' many traditions, the one that moves us to hire the best and brightest faculty- individuals expected to be leaders in their fields-is no doubt the most important. It may be our oldest tradition as well. In January 1875, the new board of trustees made its first and most important hire, Daniel Coit Gilman. At the age of 43, Gilman was already president of the new University of California at Berkeley and considered one of the foremost educators of his day. Legend has it that no fewer than five college presidents-including those of both Harvard and Yale-had recommended Gilman as the ideal candidate. That they succeeded in hiring him away from Berkeley probably speaks more to Gilman's nature as educational visionary than to the persuasive abilities of the trustees. They made it clear they would support Gilman in creating something new and utterly untried in America; for his part, the new president of Johns Hopkins realized he would have to recruit truly outstanding faculty if the upstart school wished to be taken seriously as a great educational institution. President Gilman's quest for faculty occupied much of his first year. Optimistically declaring he would set out to find faculty "who have won their spurs," he expected to hire full professors. He soon discovered that renowned faculty were reluctant to leave comfortable teaching positions at prestigious institutions, even for salaries nearly double their own. (Gilman was willing to pay up to $6,000, while Yale's highest paid professor at that time made $3,500.) By April 1876, he admitted that the university would "doubtless appoint many 'Associates,' young men of promise, for terms of years; & fill up the professorships slowly." What may have seemed to Gilman a great disappointment was, in retrospect, probably a great blessing. Starting his new university with a faculty long on talent (if perhaps a bit short on international reputations and prestigious appointments), Gilman instilled a passion for discovery and learning and teaching that survives to this day. No wonder less than a decade later a young Hopkins doctoral candidate by the name of Woodrow Wilson would write to a friend that Hopkins was "the best place in America to study." I'm pleased to tell you it still is. On June 24 a new chapter in Johns Hopkins research and education opened with the successful launch of FUSE, a 3,000-pound satellite developed for NASA by Hopkins scientists in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, with the help of their colleagues in the Whiting School of Engineering and at the Applied Physics Laboratory. FUSE stands for Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer, referencing the normally invisible ultraviolet wavelengths the telescope will see in its orbit high above the Earth's atmosphere. Astronomers will view the universe in a whole new light-literally-using FUSE, enabling them to search for answers about the nature of the Big Bang, the dispersal of chemical elements throughout galaxies, and the basic properties of stars and solar systems. FUSE will be managed and operated directly from a control room in the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy on the Homewood campus, a unique collaboration between Hopkins and NASA that marks the first time a project of this nature has been developed and operated by a university. Our scientists will work closely with the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales of France, the Canadian Space Agency and other universities in exploring some of the most fundamental mysteries of the universe. Innovative community outreach efforts associated with the mission will bring the newest discoveries in space science to schoolchildren in Baltimore and across the nation. FUSE is an unprecedented achievement for any university, and I invite all of you to share in the excitement by visiting http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu. This historic project's principal investigator is Physics and Astronomy professor Warren Moos, who came to Hopkins in 1964. Perhaps the perfect example of a young investigator of promise who went on to 'win his spurs,' professor Moos' early research into atomic physics and quantum optics led to his involvement in the design of novel spectroscopic instruments and their use in space borne telescopes. He has participated in historic space missions ranging from Apollo 17 to Voyager, as well as the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope flown in the space shuttle in 1990 and 1995. FUSE represents yet another accomplishment for this renowned Hopkins researcher, whose extensive publications have helped reshape our understanding of atomic and space physics and whose work in the coming years promises important new insights into the origins of the universe. As FUSE so aptly demonstrates, our exceptional faculty-still chosen with great deliberation and the utmost care-continue to blaze trails in the arts, sciences and humanities. Recently I spoke with the deans about the new generation of notable scholars and explorers who have found a home at Hopkins in the last few years. Each of the deans was quick with a half-dozen or more examples of tremendous talent who have joined our faculty, many with the assistance of private support from you. A look at some individuals in other schools whose careers are just beginning serves as an appropriate complement to Warren Moos' 35 years of outstanding achievement at Hopkins. At the Peabody Institute, where many departments have long enjoyed international renown, Director Bob Sirota has been adding depth to the breadth of programs already available. In the fall of 1997 the violin faculty welcomed Martin Beaver to its ranks, helping to round out an impressive roster of teachers and their students drawn from around the world. At age 29, Martin Beaver became one of the institute's youngest faculty members, yet he was already performing regularly on the international circuit, having earned a silver medal in Belgium's famed Queen Elisabeth Competition as well as winning numerous prizes here and abroad. A Canadian native, he maintains an active touring schedule that continues to take him across the Americas and around the world. During the recent conflict in Kosovo, you may have read a strategic analysis in The Wall Street Journal or other national publications by SAIS professor Eliot Cohen, the youngest professor at the Nitze School. Dr. Cohen directs the school's Strategic Studies Program, nationally recognized as the best program of its kind. His geopolitical expertise and military savvy put him in great demand as both analyst and commentator whenever a foreign crisis erupts, and have won him a devoted group of students ranging from members of the diplomatic corps to active duty military personnel. Already nationally recognized for the scope of his knowledge and the penetrating insight he brings to seemingly intractable international dilemmas, Eliot Cohen has a long career in front of him. We are bound to see his prominence in the field only increase. At the School of Hygiene and Public Health, associate professor Valeria Culotta has won international attention for her work on the role of copper in metabolism, including front-cover recognition by the prestigious journal Science. Dr. Culotta and colleagues discovered a protein "chaperone" responsible for transporting copper within a cell to its proper destination, the superoxide dismutase or SOD enzyme. That enzyme, when defective, is believed to be responsible for amyotrophiclateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, a uniformly fatal condition. Valeria Culotta's insights into how copper is chaperoned through the cell to the SOD enzyme have given scientists the first viable target for potential drug therapies to slow or even stop the advance of the disease. Her work is likely to lead to major advances in our ability to treat ALS. Now in his fourth year at Hopkins, associate professor Fred Hanna teaches in the graduate division of education in the School of Professional Studies in Business and Education, known until recently as the School of Continuing Studies. Dr. Hanna is currently in the second year of an innovative joint program with the Baltimore County School System, training the system's counselors to work with the "tough kids" through a post-master's certificate program in counseling at-risk youth. These are the most difficult adolescents, the ones all too often shunted out of the system or simply ignored for lack of adequate resources. His program has been very successful at teaching counselors how to address issues such as violence, anger management and suicide, enabling school staff to respond to the warning signs of students who are likely to be dangerous or engaged in criminal behavior. The great Hopkins physician William Osler first described polycythemiavera, a form of chronic leukemia in which the body produces too many blood cells. Recently, Alison Moliterno, who became an instructor in the division of hematology in the School of Medicine in 1998, discovered a genetic marker that provides a likely diagnostic test for the disease. The results of her research were published in an article she authored for The New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Moliterno's research provides important new insight into the cause of this disease and the related family of myeloproliferative disorders. Alison Moliterno was recently selected to receive the new Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Award, a three-year, $300,000grant intended to help the most promising young scientists establish their careers in clinical research. Associate Nursing professor Gayle Giboney Page has demonstrated that pain relief is not merely a matter of comfort but one of physiological necessity. Her research suggests that stress and surgery increase the growth of cancerous tumors. Dr. Page and her colleagues demonstrated that in animal models natural killer cell activity-in which certain white blood cells seek out and kill tumors and virally infected cells-was suppressed by physical stress or surgery, resulting in a significant increase in tumor development. Dr. Page, who holds the school's Independence Foundation Chair, co-authored a paper on the subject that appeared recently in The International Journal of Cancer. Her animal study corresponds to human studies that have found a connection between the level of natural killer cell activity and susceptibility to several types of cancer. Materials Science and Engineering assistant professor Timothy Weihs is also at the forefront of discovery. He co-invented a patented process for creating highly reactive metallic films no thicker than a human hair. When ignited, these films can create 2,900 degree Fahrenheit temperatures over a square-foot area within a millisecond and could be used in applications as varied as deep space welding or burning off cancer cells without harming healthy ones nearby. Last summer Tim Weihs was asked to bring his expertise to bear on one of the great technological failures of the 20th century: the sinking of the RMS Titanic. In a Discovery Channel program that aired in May, Dr. Weihs and a group of researchers visited the Titanic wreckage to gather clues about the exact nature of the disaster. His investigation revealed the likely culprit: wrought iron rivets containing too much slag, which made them brittle. In the collision with the iceberg some of the ship's rivet heads probably popped off, allowing water to rush in between the separated hull plates, sending more than 1,500 people to their deaths. This is only a sampling of the world-class faculty who have become part of the Hopkins family in recent years. Their presence on every one of our campuses illustrates the central tenet that has made possible the accomplishments of the past. We hire the best faculty and give them the means to research and teach at the cutting edge of human understanding. This remains the "fundamental proposition" of a Johns Hopkins education, just as President Gilman declared in 1876. Johns Hopkins University has always been dedicated to the belief that the best possible education can be had at the side of teachers working at the frontiers of their field. Needless to say, that is a daunting challenge. Yet in this one respect, President Gilman may have underestimated the power of his radical new idea. Many others beyond college officers-most prominent among them our alumni, friends and donors-have recognized the value of a world-class faculty. Their support-and yours-is what continues to make a Johns Hopkins education possible today, and for future generations of students. Here's hoping you have a relaxing, enjoyable and safe summer. Sincerely, William R. Brody | 
