Daniel Weiss, the James B. Knapp Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, announced in December that he will resign as dean and assume the position of president of Lafayette College on July 1. Leadership of the Krieger School is currently being shared between Dean Weiss and Interim Dean Adam Falk.
Weiss and Falk have said that they are committed to ensuring a smooth transition between leadership despite the challenges the university is currently facing.
"It's a bit unusual," said Weiss. "[Falk] has been named Interim Dean as of January 1, and I'm still dean until July 1. But because Adam and I have worked together in everything we do, we're developing our own transition process. At the moment, decisions are being made by both of us. People come to either Adam or to me, and it doesn't even matter because we talk to each other all day long."
Falk previously served as both professor of physics and astronomy, and vice dean of faculty at the School of Arts & Sciences.
For Weiss, the decision to leave was not an easy one.
"I've been at Johns Hopkins University in one capacity or another for sixteen years," he said. "I've had a lot of different roles here, and I have enormous affection for this institution."
Weiss added, "Being in this environment, having a chance to first be a teacher and then be a dean of this group of Hopkins students has been one of the great privileges in my career and in my life."
"Dean Weiss did a great job for the Krieger School," said Steven David, Director of the International Studies Program.
"Of his many accomplishments, one of the most important was his commitment to undergraduate education. He recognized the central importance of undergrads at Hopkins and took steps to address long-neglected issues. As someone who was from the Hopkins faculty, he understood the culture here and improved it. He'll be missed."
The partnership between Weiss and Falk began in 2001, when Weiss chaired a faculty committee to author a strategic plan for the university.
"I worked on [the plan] as a faculty representative and it was very exciting," Falk said.
"It was an opportunity to dream about where we would like the school to go," Falk continued. "Dan became Dean of Faculty and then became Dean, and asked me to come in as Dean of Faculty and work with him in implementing the strategic plan."
Their strategic plan included a $250 million capital campaign that sought to improve faculty competitiveness by reforming the tenure system and encouraging diversity, as well as moving the school's focus back onto the undergraduate experience.
Both Weiss and Falk attribute their success as leaders to their experience as faculty.
Weiss is an alumni of Hopkins and has been a member of its faculty since 1993, while Falk has been with Hopkins since 1994 in the High Energy Theory Group of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, achieving the rank of professor in 2000.
"Being Interim Dean is a big responsibility, but what I am above all else is a member of the faculty at Johns Hopkins," Falk said. "I'm a physicist. I want this institution to be a terrific place to learn and to do research."
Both Weiss and Falk are keenly aware that their responsibility for the undergraduate experience is especially important at present, as they recognize that many undergraduates are frightened by the violence that has struck the campus of late.
"Hopkins students are wonderful people," Weiss said. "I think that the students are held in as high regard as they have been in the history of the school, and it's the responsibility of the students to step up to that, and be active participants in their own well-being."
Falk added, "Nothing is more important than the safety of the people in our community. Nothing."
He continued, "Community is a security issue; I think students have to take care of each other. Building a secure community [requires that we] all take care of each other.
"While we're thinking about what kind of technologies or personnel we're going to apply to the local problem of keeping Charles Village safe, it's a small solution to a very complex problem. We can't think of security questions narrowly. We could fail to see the forest for the trees."
Weiss and Falk both stressed that Hopkins is a community, and while it is facing dramatic challenges - the departure of a leader and the loss of two students - they are confident that the strength of community will rise to meet them.
"The faculty that I know, and I know all of them in the Krieger school by now, have a lot of affection and a sense of responsibility for the students," Falk said. "The faculty are the institution. As faculty, we feel responsible for everything that the students experience at this institution."
"We'll do everything we can to improve the undergraduate community," Weiss said. "Diversity, community, academic ethics; there are many ways that students and administration can work together for the benefit of the community. And I hope that will continue with my successors."
