I’m always happy when August rolls around because it means that the Fall semester is just around the bend–we start early at Mason. I find also that if you look closely at our woodlands that surround the Institute, you can begin to see the first hints of the seasonal change that will follow: look for those first bright yellow tulip poplar leaves contrasted against the green grass. Soon also the black gum tree leaves will begin their change to brilliant red and then we’re off to the races (you can see I enjoy Fall more than Summer!).

Of course, we’re now in the phase at the end of summer where we welcome home our faculty from their various travels–I’ve heard numerous reports of very successful conferences and collaborations–congrats to all. And most importantly, we’re about to welcome two new incoming cohorts of doctoral students: neuroscience and computational social sciences. I can’t tell you how excited I am about that.

In the meantime, I hope that you all enjoy the dog-days of summer–when the parking in DC becomes just a bit easier and the traffic on 66 is reputed to lighten up–if just a tad.

Jim

If you’ll link over to the construction blog, you’ll see a wonderful post by Meredith, on the need for common spaces. The concerns that she has synthesized are shared by all of us. Every time, we loose another small bit of common break-out space, I feel a loss as far as the original vision for the Institute.

And yet, we continue to lose such common spaces at a fairly constant rate.

The pressures which create this chronic loss are of course obvious: our scientific program is successful. Success leads to greater need for programmed space–which in turn leads to the pruning of the open spaces.

What to do?

Well, I think that the message about our need for open spaces will definitely be communicated to the design build teams–the plan is for them to be reading these blogs also. So ideally the new space will add some break-out areas. Second, I would be willing to discuss with all the possibility of using our current break out space more efficiently–for example, I heard the comment about the food vending machine in the kitchen loud and clear.

Finally, let’s really think about the Great Room. Maybe it’s time to open our minds to different ways of using that space.

Cheers,
Jim

I thought it might be useful to review what I see as the three primary economic drivers of basic and applied research at research universities, with the notion that this might be useful for driving discussions of how to grow research at our own university.

The first driver is clearly the indirect cost recovery from on-going sponsored research. Most research institutions use these funds to build out and invest in their research enterprise. This is fundamentally the driver behind the success of established institutions–they have the seed money to increase their research footprint into new areas.

The second driver is, interestingly enough, land assets held by the institution. Institutions with valuable land assets have historically leveraged these holdings to create the necessary income to build out research infrastructure and to hire in selective areas. Generally these assets are used in a hybrid fashion: some of them are used to generate income, other assets are used to site new capital infrastructure necessary for supporting the new areas of research.

The third driver is intellectual property. The institutions that do this well are often just plain lucky–only some IP is really valuable. Licensing a faculty member’s invention produces a revenue stream which can be re-invested in research. The best institutions often have a large portfolio of such intellectual property, each of which is generating licensing income. Sometimes these dollars can be enormous.

Just a final thought: the data shows that institutions with medical schools have, in general, an order of magnitude more sponsored research–this is the classical rationale for institutions acquiring a medical school in order to build out their research.

Jim

At a budget presentation yesterday, I was struck by the qualitative increase in Krasnow’s program, particularly when I think back to arriving here in July of 1998. This increase in activity seems to be quite uniform across all of our research domains: computer science, neurobiology, and behavioral biology/cognitive science. At the moment, as we integrate two new Centers, and prepare for a significant increase in our space, the question of how large is too large once again becomes salient.

My own sense of when a research institute becomes too large stems from my own background, particularly at Woods Hole. One of the very enjoyable things about that place, in the early 1990’s, was the “flatness” of the bureacracy. By that I mean, that in any particular support function, there was basically one person, not only in charge, but who also made the decisions and actually did whatever needed to be done. So for example, if you had a problem with ordering a radio-labeled chemical, instead of a department there was one person, the radiation saftey officer, who could say yes or no, and who would personally take care of following up on anything that had to be followed up on.

In contrast, at Michigan or NIH, that same decision involved a vast bureacratic structure, with layers upon layers of org-charted individuals and where decisions followed complex flow charts that I could never completely understand.

Here at Krasnow, we’re still largely flat, I’m pleased to say. But a Krasnow with perhaps 100 folks instead of 50? At that point, I would be worried about maintaining support functionality without falling into the org-chart trap.

Jim

Check out the new posts and comments at: http://krasnowconstruction.blogspot.com/

– Meredith

Space is at a premium right now at Krasnow for a number of good reasons.

First, quite a substantial number of new grants have come in (congrats to all the involved PI’s–you know who you are!). Those new grants imply increased need for spaces to house graduate students and postdocs.

Second, we de facto house most of the neuroscience graduate students–one way or another.

Third, of course the construction projects that are commencing.

The result of this is that we’ll need to be very efficient. As Harold Morowitz once described the space policy at the Santa Fe Institute: “no more than two Nobel Laureates to an office!” But seriously, I urge every PI to think out of the box in terms of how you are utilizing your currently assigned space. Please understand that under the currently cramped conditions, some of our currently held assumptions will need to be revisited.

Jim

As Institute Director, my policy is to have, in as much as is possible due to scheduling constraints, my door open to all at the Institute–this includes all support staff, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and faculty. Sometimes this gets complicated: suppose someone from one of our Centers comes to me on occaision and speaks out of school?

This is an unavoidable complication. Everybody at Krasnow should have equal access to the Director’s ear–that’s part of the reason for this blog (you can leave comments I think). My job is to weigh the various points of view, the sometimes conflicting perspectives and try to arrive at solutions (or at least suggestions) that are best for the Institute and the University, while at the same time retaining sensitivity to the needs of the individual, all of whom are valued friends and colleages.

One thing Center Directors can do: urge your staff to keep you in the loop, so that neither of us is blind-sided. After seven years in this job, the most important thing I have learned is the importance of keeping folks in the loop. Let’s all work on that together.

Jim

Having grown up with parents who were PI’s in neuroscience themselves, I’ve seen a lot of graduate students over the years–besides having been one. One curious aspect of what I would call the “unspoken rules” of graduate student culture is the notion of the need to actually be in the lab. Why should that be–particularly during the early years of the doctoral education?

Or, to put it another way, why should that be true above and beyond doing the things that one is assigned to do in the lab as far as research and other tasks are concerned?

The first thing I would say is that even if there were no explanation for it, it’s definitely a really important unspoken rule. Most advisors and faculty members that I have met have a constant weather-eye for who is, and who isn’t in the lab. And furthermore, I would venture that such folks often factor that information into their general opinion of a graduate student.

But I think there is also reason behind this madness (smile). By immersing oneself in such a disciplined way within a tight community of scholars, there is an osmosis of knowledge that is quite independent of the more formal training that would normally be going on. Example: at 2 in the morning early in my doctoral education at Michigan, I remember learning a trick for producing buffer solutions more quickly from a fellow graduate student who had the laboratory bench opposite my own. I think there are countless such opportunities.

Where faculty members are coming from is the realization that becoming a productive scientist is so incredibly difficult, so challenging, that the student needs to deploy every possible channel for learning during those crucial years of graduate school (some call it gradual school for good reason).

But there is also a certain amount of “jumping through hoops”–no question. The attitude of “I did it, so you’ll do it too”. With regards to this aspect, I would only say that it’s very important to show one’s own personal motivation to one’s advisor.

Interestingly there is another field where this notion of “being in the lab” is an unspoken rule–that’s serving on Congressional staff up on the Hill. Perhaps similar reasons are in play there.

Jim

Many people have noticed: while the conference table in the Great Room makes for great visuals as a background for a meeting, it’s not exactly optimal for hearing what others are saying. In otherwords, the accoustics are not so good. I’d also add that, for the years that we’ve had the Krasnow Holiday party in the GR, it’s a tad big. My sense is that there’s a bit too much open space for that sort of party.

On the other hand, the GR has performed extremely well on ceremonial occaisions, such as when Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa, arrived at Mason several years ago. And when there’s a string quartet on the mezzanine with a fundraising dinner going on below, it’s been hard to imagine a more beautiful location on campus.

Individuals, tongue-in-cheek, have suggested filling it up with water to make a large aquarium. Others have pointed out that it might make an idea aviary (although with its windows I have my doubts).

One thing is clear: as we move forward with the construction, we’re going to be using the GR a lot more, because it’ll become swing space–as with the mezzanine.

Maybe for the duration of the construction we do need some more couches and comfortable furniture to tide us through.

Jim

On August 4, I’ll head up to Woods Hole for the first of a series of extended visits that will continue over the next five years of my editorship of The Biological Bulletin (www.biobull.org). This is an interesting scientific homecoming for me–I conducted my first experiment (an impalement of a Hermissenda Type B photoreceptor) there in 1978–which is quite a long time ago, even for me.

I arrived in Woods Hole, fresh from a bachelors degree in Chemistry from Amherst College and a summer in DC, where I had interned for the New England congressional delegation. After a summer of policy related activities, I have to say I was very skeptical of how much I would enjoy actual experimental biology, particularly because, at least on the map, Woods Hole looked like it was at the very end of the planet (relative at least to the US Capitol Building where I had been working). But arriving on a beautiful early Fall day, coming around the famous bend in the road the reveals the Village, I remember very specifically becoming optimistic that maybe this would be a good experience.

It was, of course. There was an invertebrate zoology course with collection trips on Woods Hole’s famous research vessel, the A.E. Verrill (which was called affectionately by students the “Vomitin’ Verrill”), the library that in those days had wide open stacks 24/7 365, and the electrode-pullers that were so primitive as to induce superstitious behaviors in all of us trying to pull the perfect glass micropipette electrode. At least one of our regular scientific visitors to Krasnow was there with me–we were both initiating our training prior to heading off to graduate school. And I know he remembers those heady days also very vividly.

Well, enough reminiscing. I do hope that, for those of you who haven’t been there, you get some feeling for the affection that many of us in science feel for the place. I’ve returned many times since those first days in the late ’70’s, but never before in a position to pay back to the place, some of what I think I owe to it for making science come alive to me.

Jim