FIRST M.D./PH.D. PROGRAM ON POLICY STARTED: Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine is the first medical school in the country to offer a federally supported M.D./Ph.D. program in a discipline outside the basic sciences. The program is supported in part by a grant from the Agency for Health Care of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Students will get training and do research relating to the key issues affecting the health status and health services provided to populations. They’ll look at access, cost and quality of care. Graduates of the dual-degree program will be equipped to help design solutions to health care delivery and policy questions through careers in academic medicine, public health, health care management in group practices, managed care organizations and other health-related industries.

PUBLISH OR PERISH: Newer faculty at University of California, Davis say the pressure to publish to get grants is rivaling the pressure to publish to get tenure. Deans and senior professors say junior faculty members face growing stress in establishing their careers, despite the university’s reputation for collegiality within its academic ranks and the university’s commitment to help young scholars succeed. With the pace of discovery and information exchange speeding up, those in the sciences find themselves racing to publish before someone beats them to it.

IN SEARCH OF MINORITY GRADUATE STUDENTS: The University of Virginia wants to boost the number of minority graduate students it has by creating a community-wide plan. The university currently has a blueprint for recruiting undergraduate minority students but not a similar effort for graduate students. As a result, decisions about programs and funding to support graduate students are made in the schools and departments for the most part, making efforts uneven. Successful or new programs can often go unnoticed. The university is looking at what other schools have done and have considered launching a graduate student Web page and surveying its minority graduate students.

SOBERING UP STUDENTS: Schedule more tests and projects on Mondays and Fridays. Do not excuse late work due to drinking. Make fewer jokes about alcohol in class. Learn more about detection, intervention and referral of at-risk students. Those were among the recommendations endorsed by the Alcohol Summit Task Force at University of Missouri-Columbia as steps faculty members can take to help combat student alcohol abuse. At MU, a 1998 study found that 44 percent of the students are binge drinkers (more than five drinks in one sitting), which is on par with the national average of between 42 and 44 percent.

ENDOWED CHAIRS: Helping the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill compete in such a challenging market for high-caliber professors is its growing pool of endowed professorships. An endowed chair confers its holder with extra money, for both salary and research, some flexibility in using those funds, and recognition. The steady growth in the number of endowed chairs—nearly 300 faculty members now hold such positions—has helped Carolina keep top faculty. Faculty salaries at Carolina rank 34^th among the country’s 86 Research 1 universities. ¶