One of the unusual aspects of the Krasnow Institute is that over the years, it has evolved into both a Institute for Advanced Study and a regular academic unit of George Mason University. One might construe the two, as mutually exclusive–how could a true Institute for Advanced Study offer programs and degrees–but from my own perspective, nothing could be further from reality. In fact, the degree programs with their graduate students and doctoral-level research, reinforce the scientific pursuits of Krasnow.
There’s another aspect to the equation though: having an academic unit embedded within an Institute for Advanced Study (as opposed to say a College or a School). The culture of an Institute for Advanced Study centers around scientists reaching across disciplines to solve fundamentally hard problems. Under such intellectually challenging circumstances, there is considerably less time for the famous academic “foul play” that Kingsley Amis‘ character, Lucky Jim, found himself embroiled in. Students thrive in this sort of milieu (Woods Hole comes to mind) precisely because they become themselves personally involved in the original research. Faculty thrive because they are rewarded for reaching across the typical disciplinary boundaries–for that is where the big payoffs in science lie.
Discoverers and Discoveries 