[Supervisors of employees without access to e-mail: Please print out and distribute this message to those employees.]

December 19, 2001

Dear Students, Faculty and Staff:

For the past three months, all of us at Johns Hopkins -- and, indeed, throughout the country -- have worked to strike a delicate balance. We perform our work and go about our daily routines as best we can, recognizing simultaneously that we suddenly, unexpectedly find ourselves living in a nation at war and in a world that has unalterably changed.

Just as we as individuals are working to strike that balance, so is Johns Hopkins as an institution. We go forward with our work of teaching and learning, research, patient care, and community service. At the same time, we are addressing the new realities we face.

I thought it might be useful to outline, briefly, some of the steps Johns Hopkins has taken and is taking in the face of these new realities.

Some of our actions are outwardly focused. Our faculty, particularly at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, have tirelessly given of their time and expertise to governmental leaders and to the media. They have helped all of us better understand the events of these three months.

School of Medicine and School of Public Health groups are working to help develop national protocols for implementation in case of anthrax attacks or mass casualties. An Applied Physics Laboratory team is developing a system to destroy biological agents in heating and air conditioning systems. APL Director Rich Roca is leading a university-wide task force to coordinate these and other potential Hopkins contributions to our national response.

Others Hopkins activities, less visible, perhaps, but just as important, are more inwardly focused. The university and Johns Hopkins Medicine are taking constructive and concrete steps to be better prepared to handle crises that might arise at our campuses and clinical facilities.

Teams have been reviewing and strengthening crisis response plans at our campuses throughout the Baltimore-Washington area. At Homewood, for instance, they are creating contingency plans to house students in the event of emergencies of a kind we might not have considered in previous crisis planning.

Other teams are reviewing the air circulation and filtration systems in our buildings to make sure they can meet possible threats. They are identifying potentially dangerous substances and organisms in our laboratories and reviewing the security precautions we use to protect them. They are considering new security measures we might adopt on our campuses, either in time of emergencies or on a permanent basis.

Johns Hopkins Hospital has revised its disaster management plan to better prepare itself to deal with an influx of patients related to bioterrorism. New equipment and supplies are being purchased to enable our people to work safely in highly infectious environments.

We are working closely with public safety and public health officials, and with organizations such as the American Red Cross. We want to ascertain that federal, state and local governments are ready to respond in case of an emergency affecting Hopkins and its employees, students and patients. We also want to ensure good coordination in case Hopkins is needed to help respond to a broader civic emergency.

We are also planning increased training initiatives in crisis management skills for those faculty and staff centrally involved in these efforts.

Though we are making very good progress on all these fronts, we will never be able to label the job "finished." We will refine the work we have already done. We will also continue to look at new challenges and potential threats as they arise.

We will also continue to communicate frequently with you. As you know, we have sent you information and updates in a variety of formats since Sept. 11, and we will continue to do so. I expect that, in the next few days, for instance, you will receive updated thoughts from Richard Kilburg, the university's senior director of human services, on how we as individuals can prepare for potential emergencies and help ourselves and our families manage the emotional stresses of these times.

Much of what we have already communicated to you, and a lot of other related information, remains available on the "Johns Hopkins Responds" Web site at www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/911/, which is one click away from the university's home page.

In time of emergency, you also would be able to find frequently updated information from the university on the emergency notices Web page at webapps.jhu.edu/emergencynotices/ (which would be available from the home page and the "Johns Hopkins Responds" site). Information would also be posted on the university's emergency telephone hotline at 410-516-7781 or 1-800-548-9004.

Emergency information for Johns Hopkins Medicine is posted at www.insidehopkinsmedicine.org/emergency.html. The disaster information telephone hotline for Johns Hopkins Medicine employees on the East Baltimore campus is 410-502-0011; outside of the Baltimore area the number is 1-866-262-8747.

Finally, I want to thank you for continuing to do your part over these past several months in the vital, ongoing work of Johns Hopkins. I have no doubt that one of the most important contributions we can make to humanity in these difficult times is our best effort in our daily lives as students, faculty and staff. And I want to thank you also for ensuring that people of all nationalities, cultures, and religious affiliations remain welcome on our campuses and supported in doing their jobs and pursuing their educations.

I wish you all the best in this holiday season and a very happy new year.

Sincerely,
William R. Brody