Two important items relevant to the Institute made today’s on-line edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education. In the first, the House version of the DOD appropriation’s bill would cap overhead reimbursements at 20% on competitive research grants. This is a very big deal since the typical overhead reimbursement rate is currently around 50% for US Research Universities.

The second item concerns the migration of Vernon’s Smith’s experimental economic group–which is moving to Chapman University (a non-PHD granting private institution in Orange County California)–minus our own Kevin McCabe, who is quoted extensively in the interview. Kevin heads up our Neuroeconomics Center. I am delighted that he is staying at George Mason–and of course, our Brain Imaging Center is a key tool to his work, that simply wouldn’t be available at Chapman.

Jim

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s afternoon edition reports that SCIENCE has decided to pull out of the J-Stor archive since its own content (back to 1880) is now on-line. I’m not so sure that’s a wise move though. J-Stor’s value lies in a scholar’s ability to search across journals.

Jim

The new wing passed its final fire alarm test. With that, the certificate of occupancy should be issued in Richmond, and we can begin to do science in the new space.

Meanwhile….my colleague and fellow blogger Tyler Cowan has written a new book, Discover Your Inner Economist. It’s gotten great reviews and seems like a great explanation for Tyler’s unique ability to live life really well. Tyler’s blog can be found here.

Jim

Here is a photo of one of the pioneers of modern integrative neuroscience, Karl Pribram at the meeting. The meeting participants were feted by a chamber music concert in the famous Residenz Palace in the Center of the City. Of course the music was entirely Mozart. Two people to his right is my graduate student, Mike Cloud.

Jim

I am back from a very enjoyable conference in Salzburg which I’ll soon describe at some length. Central Europe is suffering from a terrible heat wave and without the ubiquitous air conditioning that we have here in Washington D.C., sleeping in the evening was pretty rough. Nevertheless, the company and talks more than made up for it.

So I’m back for two weeks or so, before heading off to Wood Hole. I’ll try to upload some photos later today.

Jim

I’ll be at a meeting in Salzburg next week and for once, I’m just taking my blackberry–no computer, so I expect blogging will be light. I’ll try to take some good pictures for posting when I return. I’m also going to ask one of my graduate students, Mike Cloud, to guest blog–he is giving his first poster. I bet he’ll have some interesting impressions.

In the meantime, our new PI’s Rob Cressman and Ted Dumas are getting set to move into Krasnow. Rob is an assistant professor in the Physics Department. Ted is an assistant professor in my own Molecular Neuroscience Department. I’m very excited about their joining us.

We also have a new office manager starting when I get back, Stacey Sexton. I know we’ll all welcome her to the Krasnow scientific community.

Have a nice weekend (and week).

Jim

One of the most difficult tasks for academic administrators (particularly those in the biosciences) is the challenge of properly mentoring junior faculty members. The crux of course is the tenure clock and the generally accepted metrics for promotion–grants and publications. The other complication lies in the fact that junior faculty members act to build favorable impressions with their academic leaders (and senior colleagues) and that these actions may take away (or at least compete) for the crucial time and energy that must be devoted to scholarship.

So the problem then becomes one of trying to focus the junior faculty member’s energies in what will be best for them (in terms of that tenure clock) rather than necessarily what is best for the academic unit.

This is one of the rare cases, where a good academic leader will put the unit’s interests as secondary to that of the individual faculty member.

But the issue becomes more nuanced when a junior faculty member is providing a crucial service function to the unit (for example teaching an introductory course). Here the complexity that arises is the weighing of the loss to the unit (course not taught) against the loss to the faculty member (not enough time to pursue scholarship).

From an ethical standpoint, I think the proper action remains the same: counsel the junior faculty member to focus of his or her scholarship. At the same time, it sure becomes a painful mentoring moment.

Jim

As I return from vacation, my second term as Krasnow Institute director begins. This is probably as good a time as any to reiterate my overall vision for the Institute over the next five years and my scientific management philosophy.

When I step down as Institute Director in 2012, it’s a primary goal that my successor will assume leadership of a tightly-knit scientific community focused on the problem of understanding mind. The Krasnow Institute’s scientific program will span across many complementary disciplines ranging from cognitive science to molecular neurobiology and including a strong emphasis on engineering the mind computationally and embodied robotically. The Institute will have an international reputation for bringing together scholars across these multiple disciplines, under one roof who will distinguish themselves by reaching across their fields to collaborate scientifically. And the productivity of the Institute will have been made manifest by a track-record of the highest impact publications which will delineate a significant series of discoveries concerning the nature of mind.

My scientific management philosophy has been a learning (and memory) process developed over the past twelve years that I’ve been in leadership roles. Simply put, that philosophy is a “light touch” combined with a (virtual) open door. What this means is that, as a rule, I’ll use my authority minimally and that I will attempt to respond rapidly to any concern or query from Institute scientific or support staff. I’ll guard confidences and I will do my utmost to fulfill any commitment made by myself or on my behalf.

I’m looking forward to getting back to work.

Jim

Today the broadband was finally hooked up and I can send you the view out my window, looking north-west across the Shenandoah Valley. I’ve been working on the book and my talk for Austria, but I’ve also found time for the pool and a PD James Novel, The Lighthouse (which was excellent by the way).

But all vacations have to end, and so does this one. I’ll be back at the Institute on Monday.

Jim

Margaret Talbot’s piece is still behind the firewall, but it’s a good read in that she clearly understands the hype that’s currently behind the notion of using fMRI to build a better lie detector. She interviews some very credible cognitive neuroscientists and does some appropriate digging into who the potential customers for such technologies might be.
Nevertheless, I think she misses the key point I’ve made here before: namely that the most valuable lie to detect really is something much more complex than a lie: namely a hidden altered state of consciousness. A hidden altered state of consciousness may be as simple as hiding one’s state of inebriation, but it might also be as complex as one’s true job as an espionage agent rather than one’s cover story.