CL, 8/21/05: College funding battle looms - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Aug 21, 2005

CL, 8/21/05: College funding battle looms

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Yes, and if you'd stop firing the best profs. and reading people's e-mail and treating them like peons who have no say in the university's governance, they might actually stay, Shelby.

Academics don't go into this for the money. Yes, USM profs. are very much underpaid, but that isn't the biggest problem with your administration.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

foot soldier wrote:

Yes, and if you'd stop firing the best profs. and reading people's e-mail and treating them like peons who have no say in the university's governance, they might actually stay

And stop giving those outrageous MIDAS bonuses....Renumerative rewards should be based solely on overall merit. There's nothing in the MIDAS activities that can't be translated into the traditional dimensions of teaching, research, and service. If faculty members want to become millionaires let them do it during their one day per week consulting, in the summers, and through personal investments, all without benefit of university resources. Labeling university-based consulting as scholarship fools nobody.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Office based consulting wrote:

Labeling university-based consulting as scholarship fools nobody.

I seriously doubt that very much of the work generated through the Midas program will ever see the light of day in a respecable journal. Unpublished research is the same as no research at all insofar as merit raises are concerned.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Journal referee wrote:

I seriously doubt that very much of the work generated through the Midas program will ever see the light of day in a respecable journal. Unpublished research is the same as no research at all insofar as merit raises are concerned.

Why do you say this? As competitive as the grant market is right now, why knock anyone with a grant? Can you give me a breakdown of Midas recipients that got competitive grants to those who got course release time from consulting (can you even do this?).

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Journal referee wrote: I seriously doubt that very much of the work generated through the Midas program will ever see the light of day in a respecable journal. Unpublished research is the same as no research at all insofar as merit raises are concerned.

To which manova replied:Why do you say this? As competitive as the grant market is right now, why knock anyone with a grant? Can you give me a breakdown of Midas recipients that got competitive grants to those who got course release time from consulting (can you even do this?).

If memory serves, this subject has already been discussed at some length on this message board. If Journal Referee is getting ready for the semester, here or elsewhere, then s/he especially shouldn't have to rehash old material. If you know about the old discussion, you could point out where you believe it is deficient. If you don't know about it, it would be courteous of you to go back and read it before asking these kind of questions.

JL

Date: Aug 21, 2005

manova wrote:
Can you give me a breakdown of Midas recipients that got competitive grants to those who got course release time from consulting (can you even do this?).

I never heard of faculty members here or elsewhere getting course release time for consulting. USM allows a day each week for approved consulting, but the faculty member who consults doesn't get that day and course release time as well. Your question suggests that you are probably not in academics.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Double Dipper wrote:

I never heard of faculty members here or elsewhere getting course release time for consulting. USM allows a day each week for approved consulting, but the faculty member who consults doesn't get that day and course release time as well. Your question suggests that you are probably not in academics.

I have never heard of it either thus the "can you even do that?" comment. You never know with USM what odd rules you might have.

Prof Lares: I'm disappointed in your response. Would you tell me how to search the archives of this message board, because I do not know how to do it. You have to go back several pages before you see any other mention of Midas. I check this board fairly regularly, and while I remember many debates on the merits of the Midas program, I do not remember any data showing the funding sources of the recipients. Granted, with nearly 49,000 posts, it would be easy for me to have missed one.

Journal referee put a fairly inflammatory comment out there regarding the research of several faculty members and I simply wanted him/her to provide some facts. If the researcher got a competitive grant, I can feel fairly certain that their research will show up in journals. The only thing I could figure was that if they had consulting contracts that this might not end up in a journal. But as DD pointed out, you don't get release time for consulting, therefore you would not get Midas. So I go back to JR's comment, why would you expect their research to not be worthy of publication?

Date: Aug 21, 2005

manova wrote:

Journal referee put a fairly inflammatory comment out there regarding the research of several faculty members......If the researcher got a competitive grant, I can feel fairly certain that their research will show up in journals.

There was nothing inflamatory in what I wrote. It's as simple as this: Unpublished data are not the same as an article accepted for publication in a refereed journal. That's the national perspective. Maybe it's not that way at USM any more.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Manova:

In fact, if their research is for the Department of Defense, the intelligence agencies, or for any number of private corprorations dealing with proprietary information, their research might never be published in a refereed journal. It is possible that their research might never become known in the broader academic community in fact. This poses quite a problem for the university, which depends upon open access to information for such minor processes as peer review.

These are among the many salient reasons why some universities have extremely stringent and well defined policies regarding research, funding, publication, and peer review. Of course, at USM we haven't even begun to walk down the very well-travelled road that the great universities have marked for us -- we continue to advance on our own as though we are blazing new roads in the academic wilderness when in fact we are simply ignoring the trails of those who have already been there ahead of us.

None the less we keep acting as though these things aren't already known and policies and procedures haven't already been elaborated by someof thebest minds in the country . . . .

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Stephen:
Thank you for your thoughtful response. Is it your opinion that a DoD grant or a private contract should not be pursued if there is a confidentiality clause in it? Also, if you a faculty member that depends on publications for promotion, etc., would you not make sure that you can publish some of the findings. I have only had one private contract, but I made sure it had language that I could publish the data from my research.

Journal referee:
I agree that peer reviewed papers are the measure of academic success. What I took issue with is why you thought the research of those that received a Midas award would not be worthy of being published.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

manova wrote:

If the researcher got a competitive grant, I can feel fairly certain that their research will show up in journals.

I wouldn't count on that. Some grant generated research is published, sometimes it's not. If a faculty member is successful in attracting a competitive grant, that activity should certainly be recognized when merit raises are given. If a faculty member generates funds from bprivate consulting and the funds go into the faculty member's own pocket, that should be its own monetary reward and it should not be considered at raise time. In any case, state property should not be used for private gain.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

I should have said that peer reviewed papers are a measure of academic success not the measure.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Manova wrote, "I have never heard of it either thus the 'can you even do that?' comment. You never know with USM what odd rules you might have."

Ah, Manova, this explains much. I'm sorry I didn't ask for clarification. It sounded for all the world as though you were suggesting that your interlocutor were stupid, whereas what you were actually saying was, "can such a thing be done?" Thus my tone of restrained disapproval. My bad.

Your other question was how to search the old posts. I don't know. Perhaps someone out there does, and can tell us? But the MIDAS thread was not all that long ago--a month, maybe two.

Cheers,

J Lares

Date: Aug 21, 2005

manova wrote:

Journal referee: .......What I took issue with is why you thought the research of those that received a Midas award would not be worthy of being published.

I don't think I wrote that. MIDAS generated research could conceivably be of Nobel Laureate quality. That is not my objection to MIDAS.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Journal referee wrote:

I wouldn't count on that. Some grant generated research is published, sometimes it's not...

I realize that not all experiments are published. It is often very hard to get something published if you fail to reject the null (that's why most funding agencies only fund research that you have already proven will give results...at least that is true in the health sciences).

I understand that consulting fees should be treated differently from competitive grants, but I thought you could only get a Midas bonus if you bought out of your classes, but as we have established, you cannot buy out of your classes with consultant money.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Jameela Lares wrote:

Ah, Manova, this explains much. I'm sorry I didn't ask for clarification....

Thanks Professor Lares, I evidently did not pay attention in your class when you taught how to write clearly.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Journal referee wrote:

I seriously doubt that very much of the work generated through the Midas program will ever see the light of day in a respecable journal....

I'm sorry JR, I must have misunderstood your comment.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Manova:

Your question about DoD grants etc. is a very difficult one and one which with (oddly since I am not an academic in the traditional sense) I have had some experience.

I think generally it is difficult at a university to have two greatly different communities -- the traditional academic community in which processes and proceedures (including peer review and P&T generally) are open and a separate system in which such processes are covert. I accept that researchers in the academic community are interested in such research . . . and that the Defense Dept and intelligence community are interested in faculty who are working in certain research areas. But I think generally, that if the work can't be published in a public, refereed arena -- then it should not be acceptable for the purposes of P&T, although of course both researchers and institutions might possbly get the benefit of research $$$ and probably the benefit as well, of contacts within those communities.

I actually have known of several Ph.D candidates who signed secrecy agreements and then discovered that their work (including dissertation work) was classified and could not be published. In essence, this put them in the positon of indentured servitude, since the only community in which their work was known was (in those cases) was the intelligence community.

This isn't completely black and white -- there are mechanisms for creating some ability to review a researchers classified or proprietary work that is similar to the way the courts operate in reviewing evidence, but the issue of open access to the intellectual content produced within the university is one that is fraught with difficulties for all -- including some difficult ethical ones in terms of how the university idenfies itself as an open marketplace of ideas . . . . maybe marketplace isn't a very good metaphor . . .

Date: Aug 21, 2005

manova wrote:

I'm sorry JR, I must have misunderstood your comment.

I can see how you might interpret what I wrote. I don't think these traditional academic values can be presented very well on a message board like this. They should be acquired through modeling strong and experienced faculty members "in the trenches" so to speak. But I did enjoy conversing with you.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Stephen:
Another thoughtful response. I understand your point. I guess I have worked under the model that you only get funded for research you have already done and you use your money for pilot work for the next grant and to work on questions that are not funded. In other words, even if you are contracted to answer certain propriatary questions, the equipment and supplies (and even the salaries for techs and grad students) that are bought for that project can be used for other projects that can be published. I can understand why this can be a problem when it comes to P&T.

I have known a PhD student who could not defend his dissertation until a patent had been secured on his project. At least he finally got to defend. I think future PhD students should definitely think hard about taking on a project for a confidential contract.

Also, I would not doubt for a second that you might have experience with a DoD or intelligence agency grant. I can think of many ways that a person with theatrical skills could be beneficial to them.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

manova wrote:

Stephen:Thank you for your thoughtful response. Is it your opinion that a DoD grant or a private contract should not be pursued if there is a confidentiality clause in it? Also, if you a faculty member that depends on publications for promotion, etc., would you not make sure that you can publish some of the findings. I have only had one private contract, but I made sure it had language that I could publish the data from my research. Journal referee:I agree that peer reviewed papers are the measure of academic success. What I took issue with is why you thought the research of those that received a Midas award would not be worthy of being published.

I missed your second question about creating a contract with language that protects your ability to publish. I think that is a very good idea and it is great that you were alert enough to do that on your own contract.

My own experience with researchers who have worked on some defense/intelligence research and some private contracting is that the money is so big (or the possbility of future contracts and contacts, what have you) that it becomes an uneven negotiation. Not to mention that it can be pretty intimidating just working with some agencies. Very few researchers are in the position of having their research be so unique they can make that kind of agreement with a powerful government agency (or a big corporation).

In the case of the government, if the work was that unique and needed, in the government's mind, to be secure then I'm quite sure the government would find the mechanism to seize the researcher's compliance -- particularly these days.

Particularly troubling are those "junior researchers" (Ph.D candidates and entry level research professors) who simply find themselves swept up as an aspect of a larger research project being conducted by a researcher who has already hired them to work in a highly specialized area -- and who find themselves being asked to sign confidentiality agreements in order to continue the work.

It is tricky stuff . . . . maybe some folks who are out there and working on these things might weigh in . . .

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Journal referee wrote:

I can see how you might interpret what I wrote. I don't think these traditional academic values can be presented very well on a message board like this....But I did enjoy conversing with you.

I enjoyed it as well. It is true that these topics are often hard to talk about in this kind of forum.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Manova:

Actually my experience with Defense and intelligence grants was in my other area of study -- the fine arts. The intelligence and defense community has a great need for image makers of all types -- particularly computer imaging, photographic imaging, and printmaking. At one school this became a Ph.D in "imaiging Science" and was entirely financed by the Defence Intelligence Agency, the CIA and the old department of Photo Reconnaissance, which was subsumed into the CIA.

You know what I do -- do I know you?

You don't have to sign a confidentialty agreement.

Date: Aug 21, 2005

Oh no, I've been discovered