There are certain things that make us who we are. To me, these include the Wisconsin Idea, the Union terrace, faculty governance and the strong administrative tie between research and graduate education. Changes in any of these fundamental characteristics affect who we are as an institute and a community.
Change is appropriate when it addresses real problems or better aligns us with a new vision for the university. To address some stated problems, the Chancellor and Provost are proposing a new structure of research administration, one that aligns more with the structure of the Chancellor’s previous institution, Cornell, than with our history as a successful research campus. This plan implements directions from above, and is not grounded in new ideas and directions from our faculty and researchers. Top down leadership breeds good followers; we want to build good initiators. The proposed new structure changes who we are as an institute.
UW is continuously engaged in campus wide strategic planning, yielding annual reports of how the campus is successfully meeting its strategic plan. These reports do not indicate a need to reorganize our research administrative structure. In 2007 leaders across campus articulated 2-year goals framed in the campus strategic plan, Connecting Ideas: Strategies for the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2001-2009). One of the Areas of Focus 2007-2009 is to Promote Research, which (to quote the document) includes three goals:
Goal 1. Promote interdisciplinary research through centers and institutes.
Many of the world’s most complex problems require interdisciplinary approaches to understand and solve. We will develop and implement core facilities, architectural designs and support systems to foster interdisciplinary research.
Goal 2. Advance research compliance.
Issues involving responsible conduct of research are critical to successful research. We can better assist our researchers in managing this increasingly complex environment through enhanced administrative practices, education and funding.
Goal 3. Improve the university’s processes for negotiating agreements with industrial sponsors.
Industry is increasingly interested in contracting with universities to conduct research. We can advance knowledge and contribute to economic benefit by increasing our industry-sponsored research efforts.
This strategic plan did not suggest a re-organization of the current administrative structure. These goals are set in the context of the current administrative structure, which is capable of achieving these goals. There is no evidence that the proposed plan will be any more successful than the current structure.
The current Strategic Framework (A Strategic Framework for the University of Wisconsin–Madison 2009–2014) lists six strategic priorities:
• Provide an exemplary undergraduate education
• Reinvigorate the Wisconsin Idea and renew our commitment to our public mission
• Invest in scholarly domains in which we have existing or potential strength and impact
• Recruit and retain the best faculty and staff, and reward merit
• Enhance diversity in order to ensure excellence in education and research
• Be responsible stewards of our resources
While these priorities do not explicitly call out promoting research endeavors as a priority (as the 2007-2009 plan did), it is certainly implied. The Provost’s presentations do not discuss how the proposed re-organization better addresses these strategic priorities than the current structure.
The recently completed 2009 Re-accreditation Project included significant input from faculty, students and staff across the campus as well as a review from outside our campus. This self study identified issues and problems. It does not suggest that the research structure is broken. The Re-accreditation Project does not identify a need to split the current structure of research administration and graduate education to address the problems it identified.
Yes, the Provost and Chancellor are right that problems need to be explored and solutions sought; however, there is clear resistance from across campus to solving these problems with such a fundamental change in our Graduate School. We need new approaches to addressing these issues that do not require such dramatic re-organization.
Research and graduate education on the Madison campus is succeeding and is a major success story. We must continue to identify and fix existing and predicted problems; however, solutions must maintain the key principles that define our identity. The recognition by UW-Madison of the importance of an integrated relationship between research and graduate education is reflected in our current structure – it is a successful part of who we are as an institute and a community.
-SAA
Excerpt from today’s Cap TImes (http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/education/campus_connection/article_588372b4-b233-11de-b6ac-001cc4c03286.html) reporting on the most recent Faculty Senate meeting.
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* Martin, who is starting her second year leading Wisconsin’s flagship university, said the thing she heard the most complaints about during her first year on campus was the structure of UW-Madison’s research enterprise.
This is at least a little surprising considering UW-Madison consistently ranks among the nation’s top research institutions.
Martin said there were three main concerns she was hearing about.
First, “the faculty was very worried about the long-term delays in getting their grants out and set up after they were awarded. So they felt there was a lack of efficiency and responsiveness.”
Next, Martin noted the university has “a whole set of safety and compliance issues — that are partly the product of increased regulation at the federal level — that we need to get caught up with and organized on.”
She added: “And a third thing I heard from faculty is we need a presence in Washington. A lot of universities have a vice chancellor or vice provost for research that spends at least part of his or her time in D.C. with an ear to the ground about what kinds of things might get funded and getting in on discussions about what we think should be funded.”
Because of these concerns, the University Committee said it has formed an “Ad Hoc Committee to Determine the Needs and Structure of UW-Madison’s Research Enterprise.” This committee will be chaired by Provost Paul DeLuca.
DeLuca is slated to host “town hall” meetings on this topic Oct. 14 from noon to 1 p.m. in the Microbial Sciences Building (1550 Linden Dr.) and on Oct. 23 from 1 to 2 p.m. in room 3650 of the Humanities Building (455 N. Park St.).
The Ad Hoc Committee is chaired by Biochemistry Professor Hector DeLuca, not Paul Deluca. It’s interesting that the article doesn’t mention that many faculty are concerned about the reorganization and also how faculty governance needs to play a part in this decision.
The paper got this part of their report all wrong. To quote: “Because of these concerns, the University Committee said it has formed an ‘Ad Hoc Committee to Determine the Needs and Structure of UW-Madison’s Research Enterprise.’ This committee will be chaired by Provost Paul DeLuca.”
As I understand, the UC formed the Ad Hoc committee in response to the planning process of the Provost and Chancellor, not because of the complaints she has heard.
The article probably didn’t mention it since no one made any comments about it, asked any questions or expressed any concern at the Senate meeting.
What remains murky about the proposed reorganization is its relation to the problem of compliance that colleagues in the sciences are very concerned about. Why would addressing this problem require reorganizing how research is managed across the university? A problem that concerns one sector could be addressed there. Having someone speak for campus wide research in all fields in Washington would be appropriate if that position were in fact evenly concerned with all levels and kinds of research. If the processing of complex grants (including those in the humanities) is slow, that suggests a need for more personnel in the grad school to distribute the workload or perhaps, if these problems are specific to the sciences, a position within that part of the university to address grant preparation steps there.