The University of Pennsylvania seeks to maintain its leadership role in the international sphere as it continues to build on its long and illustrative history of research, education and service around the world. To maximize the efforts of individual schools, Dean Meleis and Dean Rubenstein inaugurated the Global Issues in Women's Health Group (GIWHG) - an interdisciplinary initiative of equal partners across all schools of the University. It is noteworthy that the group is composed of faculty, staff, and students from the Schools of Nursing, Medicine, School of Arts and Sciences, Social Work, Dental Medicine, as well as Development and selected University Centers.

Overall Goals

• Establish an Interdisciplinary International Institute for Global Issues in Women's Health (IIIGIWH), which will focus on the health and well-being of women globally, building on the expertise and experience of Penn faculty, staff, and students.
  
• Develop interdisciplinary research proposals on mutually agreed global women's issues to begin implementation in two selected regions of the world (Sub-Sahara Africa and India).
  
• Plan and implement a Penn Summit on Global Issues in Women's Health: "Safe Womanhood in an Unsafe World" (April 25-27, 2005)
  
• Plan, implement, and evaluate one university-wide course offering in the Spring semester and possibly one course offering in the Fall semester directly related to global women's issues.
  
• Develop a process whereby the Institute can help with identifying emerging needs and develop partnerships to assist in global crisis situations.
  
• Recruit an advisory committee to support the development of the Institute.