… in the Minneapolis Star Tribune notes that the most charitable description of what’s been going on at the clubby University of Minnesota medical school would be “bizarre.”
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
University of St. Thomas to Establish New Med School?
"Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous."
From the StarTribune:
State's 3rd med school in the works
Allina and the University of St. Thomas are in talks about an effort to train primary-care doctors.
By David Phelps, Star Tribune
Last update: May 07, 2007 – 11:42 PM
Allina Hospitals & Clinics and the University of St. Thomas are exploring the establishment of a back-to-basics medical school in Minneapolis to train primary-care physicians.
The two organizations are in the talking stage at the moment but plan to present the concept of a 40-student-per-class school to their respective boards of directors later this week.
A statement from St. Thomas and Allina on Monday said additional doctors are needed "given population growth in the Upper Midwest and the increasing number of retirees who will need health care."
Allina is the second-largest nonprofit health care services provider in Minnesota. St. Thomas is the state's largest private university, with a large graduate business school and a new law school.
St. Thomas already offers a health care MBA, and the business school houses the university's Center for Health and Medical Affairs.
The two organizations would use clinics and hospitals in the Allina system, with a likely focus on Abbott Northwestern, as classrooms, and doctors and other clinicians would serve as faculty members.
The emphasis would be on primary care, much along the lines of the old-fashioned family doctor practice.
Minnesota currently has two medical schools: the University of Minnesota Academic Health Center in combination with the University of Minnesota Duluth, and the Mayo Clinic. The university is the largest, and last week graduated 220 doctors. Mayo graduates about 40 doctors a year.
Minnesota can use an additional medical school because the state proportionately graduates fewer doctors than its neighboring states, according to Allina's analysis of the market. Minnesota has a ratio of one doctor graduated for every 20,000 residents. Wisconsin's ratio is one doctor to 15,000 residents and Iowa's is one doctor for every 9,000 residents, Allina said.
The shortage of primary-care physicians can be attributed, in part, to the lure of higher-paid specialties such as cardiology and orthopedics. The median income for doctors in family practice is about $150,000 a year, about half of what specialists can earn.
It's difficult to lure primary care physicians to inner-city neighborhoods where a disproportionately high number of patients lack insurance, their medical problems are compounded by poverty or violence and where doctors are reimbursed through government programs that pay less than private insurance for standard procedures.
"We anticipate there will be a shortage of primary-care physicians, but we haven't yet concluded that adding another medical school will solve a problem created by very low reimbursement rates from Medicare, which drives the overall compensation package for primary care doctors," said Mary Brainerd, HealthPartners CEO.
And potential sources for financing medical education are dwindling largely because of federal cutbacks, said Mary Koppel, spokeswoman for the U's Academic Health Center.
"We have 154 years of experience we'd be more than happy to share. But the margins are small in all aspects of health care, and every source of funding in medical education is at stress. We're here as a resource for everyone, and I'm sure we can be of help during that [feasibility] phase of discussion."
The University of St. Thomas is an interesting institution. They recently started a Law School, that is already accredited, and have persuaded a very strong BigU law school faculty member to join them:
Paulsen leaving University of Minnesota:
After 16 years on the faculty of the law school, Mike Paulsen has announced he's joining the University of St. Thomas law faculty in Minneapolis starting this fall. He is a scholar of the first order, an irreplaceable colleague, and a personal friend. He will be greatly missed.
Michael S. Paulsen
McKnight Presidential Professor of Law and Public Policy, Briggs & Morgan Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship
Northwestern University, B.A.
Yale University, M.A., J.D.
Perhaps BigU, even with 154 years of experience, can learn some things from the University of St. Thomas?
Ciao,
Bonzo
"Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous."
From the StarTribune:
State's 3rd med school in the works
Allina and the University of St. Thomas are in talks about an effort to train primary-care doctors.
By David Phelps, Star Tribune
Last update: May 07, 2007 – 11:42 PM
Allina Hospitals & Clinics and the University of St. Thomas are exploring the establishment of a back-to-basics medical school in Minneapolis to train primary-care physicians.
The two organizations are in the talking stage at the moment but plan to present the concept of a 40-student-per-class school to their respective boards of directors later this week.
A statement from St. Thomas and Allina on Monday said additional doctors are needed "given population growth in the Upper Midwest and the increasing number of retirees who will need health care."
Allina is the second-largest nonprofit health care services provider in Minnesota. St. Thomas is the state's largest private university, with a large graduate business school and a new law school.
St. Thomas already offers a health care MBA, and the business school houses the university's Center for Health and Medical Affairs.
The two organizations would use clinics and hospitals in the Allina system, with a likely focus on Abbott Northwestern, as classrooms, and doctors and other clinicians would serve as faculty members.
The emphasis would be on primary care, much along the lines of the old-fashioned family doctor practice.
Minnesota currently has two medical schools: the University of Minnesota Academic Health Center in combination with the University of Minnesota Duluth, and the Mayo Clinic. The university is the largest, and last week graduated 220 doctors. Mayo graduates about 40 doctors a year.
Minnesota can use an additional medical school because the state proportionately graduates fewer doctors than its neighboring states, according to Allina's analysis of the market. Minnesota has a ratio of one doctor graduated for every 20,000 residents. Wisconsin's ratio is one doctor to 15,000 residents and Iowa's is one doctor for every 9,000 residents, Allina said.
The shortage of primary-care physicians can be attributed, in part, to the lure of higher-paid specialties such as cardiology and orthopedics. The median income for doctors in family practice is about $150,000 a year, about half of what specialists can earn.
It's difficult to lure primary care physicians to inner-city neighborhoods where a disproportionately high number of patients lack insurance, their medical problems are compounded by poverty or violence and where doctors are reimbursed through government programs that pay less than private insurance for standard procedures.
"We anticipate there will be a shortage of primary-care physicians, but we haven't yet concluded that adding another medical school will solve a problem created by very low reimbursement rates from Medicare, which drives the overall compensation package for primary care doctors," said Mary Brainerd, HealthPartners CEO.
And potential sources for financing medical education are dwindling largely because of federal cutbacks, said Mary Koppel, spokeswoman for the U's Academic Health Center.
"We have 154 years of experience we'd be more than happy to share. But the margins are small in all aspects of health care, and every source of funding in medical education is at stress. We're here as a resource for everyone, and I'm sure we can be of help during that [feasibility] phase of discussion."
The University of St. Thomas is an interesting institution. They recently started a Law School, that is already accredited, and have persuaded a very strong BigU law school faculty member to join them:
Paulsen leaving University of Minnesota:
After 16 years on the faculty of the law school, Mike Paulsen has announced he's joining the University of St. Thomas law faculty in Minneapolis starting this fall. He is a scholar of the first order, an irreplaceable colleague, and a personal friend. He will be greatly missed.
Michael S. Paulsen
McKnight Presidential Professor of Law and Public Policy, Briggs & Morgan Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship
Northwestern University, B.A.
Yale University, M.A., J.D.
Perhaps BigU, even with 154 years of experience, can learn some things from the University of St. Thomas?
Ciao,
Bonzo
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Oh Lord, It’s Hard to be Humble,
When You Have Ambitious Aspirations
By executive fiat Mr. Bonzo, as everyone at BigU, is driven to discover. His most recent discovery is the US News & World Report Rankings of America’s Best Colleges, version 2007. Alas, the rankings for public national universities are disturbing news for a BigU in the third year of our ten year march to greatness.
America’s Best Colleges 2007
1 Harvard University (MA)
1 Princeton University (NJ)
3 Yale University (CT).
4 University of Pennsylvania
5 Duke University (NC)
5 Stanford University (CA)
7 California Institute of Technology
7 Massachusetts Inst. of Technology
9 Columbia University (NY)
9 Dartmouth College (NH)
11 Washington University in St. Louis
12 Northwestern University (IL)
13 Cornell University (NY)
13 Johns Hopkins University (MD)
15 Brown University (RI)
15 University of Chicago
17 Rice University (TX)
18 University of Notre Dame (IN)
18 Vanderbilt University (TN)
20 Emory University (GA)
20 University of California – Berkeley *
22 Carnegie Mellon University (PA)
23 Georgetown University (DC)
23 University of Virginia *
25 Univ. of California – Los Angeles *
25 University of Michigan – Ann Arbor *
27 Tufts University (MA)
27 U. of North Carolina – Chapel Hill *
27 Wake Forest University (NC)
30 Univ. of Southern California
31 College of William and Mary (VA)*
32 Lehigh University (PA)
32 Univ. of California – San Diego *
34 Brandeis University (MA)
34 University of Rochester (NY)
34 Univ. of Wisconsin – Madison *
37 Case Western Reserve Univ. (OH)
37 Georgia Institute of Technology *
37 New York University
40 Boston College
40 University of California – Irvine *
42 U. of Illinois – Urbana - Champaign *
43 Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. (NY)
43 Tulane University (LA)
45 Univ. of California – Santa Barbara *
45 University of Washington *
45 Yeshiva University (NY)
48 Pennsylvania State U. – University Park *
48 University of California – Davis *
50 Syracuse University (NY)
50 University of Florida *
52 University of Texas – Austin *
53 George Washington University (DC)
53 Worcester Polytechnic Inst. (MA)
55 Pepperdine University (CA)
55 Univ. of Maryland – College Park *
55 University of Miami (FL)
58 University of Georgia *
58 University of Pittsburgh *
60 Boston University
60 Ohio State University – Columbus *
60 Purdue Univ. – West Lafayette (IN)*
60 Rutgers – New Brunswick (NJ)*
60 Texas A&M Univ. – College Station *
60 University of Iowa *
66 Miami University – Oxford (OH)*
66 University of Delaware *
68 Fordham University (NY)
68 Univ. of California – Santa Cruz *
68 University of Connecticut *
71 Brigham Young Univ. – Provo (UT)
71 Southern Methodist University (TX)
71 Stevens Institute of Technology (NJ)
74 Indiana University – Bloomington *
74 Michigan State University *
74 SUNY – Binghamton *
74 Univ. of Minnesota – Twin Cities *
78 Baylor University (TX)
78 Clemson University (SC)*
78 North Carolina State U. – Raleigh *
78 St. Louis University
78 University of Colorado – Boulder *
78 Virginia Tech *
84 Clark University (MA)
85 American University (DC)
85 Auburn University (AL)*
85 Iowa State University *
85 Marquette University (WI)
Public Universities that are ahead of BigU are bolded*. Wisconsin has dropped one spot from last year and Minnesota has dropped several spots to be tied for 33rd in the public university category. The eleven BigTen schools, including Penn State and Northwestern, are in green. BigU is tied for last place in the BigTen with Indiana and Michigan State.
Now OurLeader and other BigU administrators can cry that the criteria used for these rankings is suspect and that their own numbers are a better method of ranking. But looking at the criteria used in the US News rankings, they don't seem particularly unusual or unfair to Mr. B. Somehow, using them, Wisconsin is 40 [sic] positions above us. And the majority of our competition in the BigTen beat us. With the exception of Northwestern, they all bear the same burden of being a state supported institution. How can this be? And let's face it - if a prospective student is going to be looking for ways to evaluate potential places to attend college, he or she would be foolish not to consider these rankings. They are readily available to prospective students - just google college rankings and see what pops up.
So Mr. B. concludes with his usual request to OurLeader and his functionaries. Please drop this "one of the top three public research universities in the world" stuff. You destroy all credibility when you speak this way. "In the world" reeks of hubris. We have a lot of important work at BigU that should have priority. You would be surprised at what will happen if you can come up with a scheme that the faculty can buy. Let's fix things that are obviously broken. Going on a Children's Crusade at this point is foolish.
"We're number 74!" Now that is a rallying cry. Or, perhaps "Tied for last in the Big Ten - Nowhere to go but up!"
There is obviously plenty we have to do before we worry about becoming one of the top three public research universities in the world. This ambitious aspirations business is a smokescreen. To even mention it, given the sad current state of affairs, is disgraceful.
Mr. Bonzo
Friday, May 4, 2007
How Do We Reward the Great Work of Geriatricians at BigU?
(We close the geriatrics division and they move to Johns Hopkins...)
From a recent New Yorker:
Annals of Medicine
The Way We Age Now
Medicine has increased the ranks of the elderly. Can it make old age any easier?
Atul Gawande in The New Yorker
April 30, 2007
Several years ago, researchers in St. Paul, Minnesota, identified five hundred and sixty-eight men and women over the age of seventy who were living independently but were at high risk of becoming disabled because of chronic health problems, recent illness, or cognitive changes. With their permission, the researchers randomly assigned half of them to see a team of geriatric specialists. The others were asked to see their usual physician, who was notified of their high-risk status. Within eighteen months, ten per cent of the patients in both groups had died. But the patients who had seen a geriatrics team were a third less likely to become disabled and half as likely to develop depression. They were forty per cent less likely to require home health services.
Little of what the geriatricians had done was high-tech medicine: they didn’t do lung biopsies or back surgery or PET scans. Instead, they simplified medications. They saw that arthritis was controlled. They made sure toenails were trimmed and meals were square. They looked for worrisome signs of isolation and had a social worker check that the patient’s home was safe.
How do we reward this kind of work? Chad Boult, who was the lead investigator of the St. Paul study and a geriatrician at the University of Minnesota, can tell you. A few months after he published his study, demonstrating how much better people’s lives were with specialized geriatric care, the university closed the division of geriatrics.
“The university said that it simply could not sustain the financial losses,” Boult said from Baltimore, where he is now a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
And we compete with Hopkins?
As OurLeader said in this year's state of the university address:
"The inscription on Northrop captures this beautifully: It expresses the spirit of a great University, its commitment to excellence, and its service to the greater good."
Walking the talk is long overdue at BigU.
Bonzo
(We close the geriatrics division and they move to Johns Hopkins...)
From a recent New Yorker:
Annals of Medicine
The Way We Age Now
Medicine has increased the ranks of the elderly. Can it make old age any easier?
Atul Gawande in The New Yorker
April 30, 2007
Several years ago, researchers in St. Paul, Minnesota, identified five hundred and sixty-eight men and women over the age of seventy who were living independently but were at high risk of becoming disabled because of chronic health problems, recent illness, or cognitive changes. With their permission, the researchers randomly assigned half of them to see a team of geriatric specialists. The others were asked to see their usual physician, who was notified of their high-risk status. Within eighteen months, ten per cent of the patients in both groups had died. But the patients who had seen a geriatrics team were a third less likely to become disabled and half as likely to develop depression. They were forty per cent less likely to require home health services.
Little of what the geriatricians had done was high-tech medicine: they didn’t do lung biopsies or back surgery or PET scans. Instead, they simplified medications. They saw that arthritis was controlled. They made sure toenails were trimmed and meals were square. They looked for worrisome signs of isolation and had a social worker check that the patient’s home was safe.
How do we reward this kind of work? Chad Boult, who was the lead investigator of the St. Paul study and a geriatrician at the University of Minnesota, can tell you. A few months after he published his study, demonstrating how much better people’s lives were with specialized geriatric care, the university closed the division of geriatrics.
“The university said that it simply could not sustain the financial losses,” Boult said from Baltimore, where he is now a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
And we compete with Hopkins?
As OurLeader said in this year's state of the university address:
"The inscription on Northrop captures this beautifully: It expresses the spirit of a great University, its commitment to excellence, and its service to the greater good."
Walking the talk is long overdue at BigU.
Bonzo
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
A Less Than Enthusiastic Response to BigU’s Becoming GreatBigU?
Mr. B. has commented before on the lack of faculty enthusiasm concerning the ambitious aspirations of OurLeader for BigU to become one of the top three public research universities in the world [sic]...
A recent Daily article indicates that a large percentage of the faculty are not drinking the Kool-Aid. The reaction of the Daily and of the university’s spokesperson are quite instructive. See the quotes below in red font. This University spinmeister clearly has what it takes to move on to a place where his extraordinary skills would have an even greater impact. Since there has been such a rapid turnover of spinmeisters lately in the White House, how about a job there?
Note also the enthusiastic rate of participation in this survey: “for an overall survey response rate of 17.35 percent.” This number is telling because the overwhelming majority of people apparently don’t even feel strongly enough about what is going on (or are simply too disgusted) to even bother to respond.
From the Daily:
May 2, 2007
Survey denotes divided campus
A Daily poll showed mixed opinions on the University's strategic positioning progress.
By Conrad Wilson, Tiff Clements
Two years after the Board of Regents unanimously approved a revamp of the University, students and faculty say they are skeptical of the progress made.
The University administration's goal to be one of the top-three public research institutions in the world has divided support, according to a poll conducted by The Minnesota Daily.
Overall, students were more confident than faculty about the likelihood of the administration to implement the strategic plan in the next decade. Where nearly 50 percent of students polled said they were certain the goal would be met, calling it extremely or very likely, only 36 percent of faculty responded with such optimism.
University spokesman Dan Wolter said he sees the numbers as positive, grouping together respondents who said it was extremely, very and somewhat likely the University would reach its goal in 10 years.
"I think having more than 70 percent think this top-three goal is realistic and doable is a very positive sign," he said.
Hmm, and the US is winning the war in Iraq. There MUST be a place in the White House for this creative spinmeister.
Support from faculty, staff and students will be crucial to achieving this goal, Wolter said.
"Continued engagement and interest in this is going to be very critical."
Regent Patricia Simmons said faculty skepticism might stem from variables outside the University's control, like state funding and competition with other universities.
"I don't think this reflects support as much as caution," she said. "The faculty would and should respect the fact that this is an aspirational goal and there are a lot of factors involved that all have to come together."
Once again Mr. B. implores a member of the Board of Regents to understand that some faculty consider this top three business to be an insult to anyone at BigU who actually knows what a "top three university" is. Some of us have been educated at such an institution or done sabbaticals there. Crying that it is just "aspirational" doesn't help matters. Please stop doing this. The old Ken Keller phrase "commitment to focus" comes to mind and OurLeader and the Board of Regents should start thinking about it. Please fix what is broken, then let's talk.
Minnesota Student Association President Max Page said strategic positioning isn't a huge priority for the organization.
"I know the administration has been working on implementing some of the strategies," Page said. "It's harder to fit students into what they are doing."
Opinion is divided over whether faculty's focus on teaching would change under the plan, according to the Daily poll. Although 25 percent of respondents anticipate no change, 38 percent said they expect faculty focus on teaching to decrease, while 36 percent indicated an increase. Ninety-six percent expect faculty focus on research to increase.
The quality of undergraduate education was also divided. Forty-seven percent said the quality of undergraduate education would increase, while 28 percent predicted a decrease, according to the poll. Twenty-five percent said there would be no change.
The University Futures Survey was conducted from Feb. 23 to Feb. 27, 2007. 347 students, faculty and staff responded to the surveys for an overall survey response rate of 17.35 percent. The margin of error associated with this sample is plus or minus 4.78 percent with a 95 percent confidence interval (reported as 5 percent for simplicity).
Communication studies associate professor Kirt Wilson, who sits on the strategic positioning Academic Task Force for Faculty Culture, said as the University moves forward with its process, it will need to make sure it hires faculty with strong research and teaching potential.
"People always seem to think that to focus more on research means to take away from teaching," he said. "I think that is a false dichotomy."
As a mere 'umble scientist, let me try to communicate this way:
There is a finite amount of time that faculty can work per day. Let us call this 1 for simplicity. Let T be the fraction devoted to teaching and R be the fraction devoted to research:
R + T = 1
Therefore, if R increases, then T decreases. At least on the planets in my universe.
"When people say (University of California) Berkeley, University of Michigan," he said, "will the University of Minnesota be the next thing that comes out of people's mouths?"
I assume this is a rhetorical question. Here's another one. Where are Cambridge and Oxford in this list of three, since we are talking about "the whole world?"
Ciao,
Bonzo
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
If You Build It, Grants Will Come?
Or, Could Someone at BigU Please Be Honest and Responsible About Expansion of Biomedical Research?
It’s nice to see that the direct phone line between Morrill Hall and the Strib is still working. Mr. B. has previously commented on the attention that should be paid to claims of millions of dollars in research funding that will be dropping like manna from heaven if only BigU will throw up multiple buildings and hire new faculty, even though we can’t keep the ones we’ve got...
See: Trees Do Not Grow to the Sky or, Why the State Legislature Should Not Write a Blank Check to BigU for Biomedical Research Buildings
From the StarTribune
Last update: May 01, 2007 – 6:04 PM
Editorial: Put research buildings on separate track
For new industry's sake, let go of legislative control.
Minnesota has the ingredients to be a biomedical science leader -- world-class medicine, innovative agriculture and a major research university. What's needed is a way to bring those ingredients together ASAP for some creative synergy.
That's what Frank Cerra aims to accomplish as senior vice president of the University of Minnesota's Academic Health Center. He has a solid plan: Create a biosciences zone on the Twin Cities campus, build state-of-the art facilities, hire 200 top faculty and set out to win upwards of $100 million a year in grants for research that cures disease -- and creates jobs.
Uh, huh… And just exactly how much is it going to cost to hire those 200 faculty and provide them with start up packages? Let’s see a real analysis here, please. It is not just the buildings - it is the money to make them functional. You can just see how this is going to work. Oh, state legislature, you gave us the money for the buildings and now we need the money to hire the people to put in them. And what if that doesn’t happen?
It's ambitious but achievable [sic] -- provided Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Legislature get behind it. Authorizing one building every few years, as the political tides permit, won't turn the heads of the high-caliber faculty Cerra is courting. An upfront commitment for five new buildings will.
My goodness, "ambitious but achievable" - that phrase seems familiar to Mr. B. Let's see what a little googling will do. Would you believe: " The plan is ambitious but achievable because the momentum for change is ... " taken directly from OurLeaders UM2005 Annual Report. Surely this must be a coincidence? Have the Strib editorial writers become Kool-Aid drinkers?
Cerra explains: "Recruiting every one of these faculty is a three- or four-year effort. We compete with Harvard, [Johns] Hopkins, Michigan, the California schools. It's a seller's market. These faculty want the best facilities to do their work in. That's very important to them. What do I show them?"
Excuse me, sir, we compete with Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, the California schools? Have you been sampling the Kool-Aid, too? Sorry Dr. Cerra, let’s get real here. Have a look at the latest rankings in US News & World Report and see what institutions are actually our competitors. See: "Speaking of Rankings." As far as I can tell the traffic between BigU and the above institutions has only been one way. (Chip Bolman -> Harvard, David Sherman -> Michigan, Chad Boult -> Hopkins...) Fortunately for BigU the California schools have a little problem with the cost of real estate. Californians can sell their houses, move to Minnesota, and buy a McMansion - there are a few examples of this type known to Mr. Bonzo.
The state ought to show them a new, fast-track process to authorize bond issues for four new buildings (a fifth is already under construction), for a total of $235 million from the state and $60 million from the university. The university's proposal would bypass the Legislature's usual bonding process. It would create a separate governing board, empowered to issue those bonds as needed to open one major building every two years.
Sorry, but there is a lot more at the U than biomedical research. Why can’t the biomedical researchers compete with the rest of the campus programs and if their needs are legitimate and overwhelming AND the money is available to fund the faculty to go in the building without crippling the rest of the university, then maybe we can talk about it. A blank check for this purpose is not appropriate.
This idea is making its second appearance at the Legislature. This year, as last, it has Senate support. But it has run into resistance in the House from legislators reluctant to let go of their grip on the bonding purse strings. They need a gubernatorial push.
Perhaps it is not just the bonding purse strings. Might it be fiscal responsibility? I realize that to some BigU administrators this may be a novel concept... Some responsible people in the state legislature may have realized that new buildings will also require additional funds to fill them with faculty and equipment. Sort of like a new stadium will require expensive new coaches to fill the stadium. The march to greatness has required an expensive advertising campaign, Driven to Discover, and the road to GreatBigU will need to be paved with gold. Do you really believe that OurGov TeePaw, Republican vice presidential candidate wannabe, is going to allow taxes to be raised so that BigU will have enough money in the future for ambitious aspirations? If so, then I have a nice maroon and gold Yugo I'd like to sell to you.
On Monday, the Legislature sent a $334 million building projects bill to the governor that did not include the Biomedical Sciences Research Facility Authority. Pawlenty vetoed that bill yesterday, saying it was too large. But he also called the idea of a streamlined bonding process for biosciences buildings "a good idea" that "either this year or next year should go ahead." States including Arizona, New York, Texas and Wisconsin have recently announced similar biosciences building plans. If Pawlenty wants to keep Minnesota in the running for this new industry, next year may be too late.
Uh, huh… Mr. B. suggests an honest conversation about the building plans AND the additional money that is going to be required to hire the faculty and buy the equipment to fill them as well as an honest estimate of how much money this spending-spree will net, particularly because of the currently disastrous NIH funding situation. NIH is the source of the bulk of funding for biomedical research. If a case is to be made then let’s be responsible and honest about it, at least.
An amazed Bonzo is disappointed with the Strib for having taken a position that does not seem to be in the best interest of BigU or ColdState. Rather than cribbing from the University for this editorial, perhaps they should do an independent analysis of the real cost of hiring hundreds of new faculty and a realistic estimate of the amount of NIH funds that could reasonably be expected from the proposed building spree.
It is time for BigU's administration to start walking the talk of responsible leadership and frank discussion.
Mr. Bonzo
ps: If we run out of Coke and Pepsi at BigU, at least there is apparently still a lot of Kool-Aid.
Monday, April 30, 2007
The Bonzos in BermudaGiven the depressing news to be found in the earlier posts below, the Bonzos have decided to write about a more cheerful subject, a trip taken during BigU's euphemistically named Spring Break. [Full disclosure: the usual readers may not be interested in this post.]
A Winter Escape from ColdState
The Bonzos in the Bermuthies
The Bonzos have gone to
It is cold in ColdState. Yesterday was Good Friday and it was colder here than it has been since 1939. So the Bonzos decided to take a real winter vacation this season. They took it during BigU’s so-called spring break. This turned out great because Mr. B. did not have to feel guilty about not being available to the undergrads in his lab - they, too, were on break. [Actually Mr. B’s undergrads are very hard working and they used the break to get their ducks in a row, course wise.] No computers were taken on the trip.
There is also a Shakespeare connection to Bermuda via the Tempest.
“...in The Tempest, Shakespeare borrowed from a manuscript by William Strachey that detailed an actual shipwreck of the Virginia-bound 17th-century English sailing vessel Sea Venture in 1609 on the islands of Bermuda.”
Quoting Wikepedia is not 'pc' anymore but it still a very useful reference. As with all things bardly there is dissent concerning the Strachey connection. If you are interested in authorship debates an introduction is given in David Kathman’s Dating the Tempest. [Full disclosure: Mr. B. once wrote a paper assigning the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays to someone else. He doesn’t remember the name of the lucky person. He no longer cares.]
There is also a Mark Twain connection to Bermuda. Mrs. Bonzo discovered a wonderful book that she brought along and enjoyed very much, as did Mr. B. - highly recommended. It is: 'Mark Twain in Paradise, His Voyages to Bermuda' by Donald Hoffman, published by the University of Missouri Press in 2006. There are many fascinating things about the book and Mr. B., who is a scientist, did not realize what a depressive, cynical, old curmudgeon MT turned into in his old age. Two good quotes, though:
“The task of tracking Mark Twain in Bermuda proved the wisdom of what Richard P. Feynman so happily called ‘the pleasure of finding things out.’ "
“You go to heaven if you want to,” he [Twain] wrote from the islands in his last days. "I’d ruther stay here.”
But back to the main narrative. Mrs. B. did some research and located a place to stay that was quite reasonable. It was the lower level of a house built for the cowboy writer Zane Grey in the 1920s. The picture at the beginning of the post is from the patio outside the apartment where we stayed. It had kitchen facilities which allowed us to eat some meals at home. It was also an easy walk to the bus connection as well as the ferry connection, so we could get just about anywhere on the island. Public transportation is good and a ticket to ride both bus and ferry for a week is a good deal. There was also an outstanding grocery store within walking distance. And the rental rate was quite modest.
The weather was perfect - cool at night (excellent sleeping weather) & warm during the day but not 'stinky hot.' On the first day Mr. Bonzo hunkered down and refused to do anything but read; this counted as "decompression day." Thereafter we slept late, ate breakfast at home, and then set out to explore - the Botanic Garden, the city of St. George w/ the oldest church in continuous use in the Western hemisphere (it had a Breeches Bible dated 1594), the Bermuda National Gallery, a tiny church from the 17th century where Gregorian chant is sung daily, pristine beaches almost completely empty, historic houses, a Victorian tea-room, etc., etc. In the evenings we ate dinner at home or went to one of Bermuda's fabulous (& pricey) restaurants.
One highlight was a performance by a group of Bermuda's indigenous Gombay Dancers. This has been a tradition since slavery days, when travelling groups of dancers, masked and wearing brightly colored capes and headdresses and accompanied by energetic drumming, performed for money on their 'days off.' Today boys (no girls - sorry) start training around the age of three and Gombay groups perform all over the world. The group we saw was about to travel to Jamestown, Virginia, to help celebrate the 400th anniversary of settlement there. Mrs. Bonzo noted dryly that joining a Gombay group might be a good way to get into Harvard.
But mostly it was just wonderful to be there and be outside in the sunshine. The entire island is a tropical garden, with profusely blooming begonias and geraniums, palm trees and lush tropical vegetation everywhere you look. It was so relaxing to read, wander & do what we wanted with no schedule or requirements of any kind. We plan to go back next year. And the next year. And the next year...
The Bonzos
Saturday, April 28, 2007
OurLeader Comes Clean On The Management
System Behind BigU's So-Called Transformation
Mr. Bonzo had an "aha" moment today when on BigU's website he came upon a powerpoint presentation that OurLeader gave to the BoRe (Board of Regents) last month. He found it enlightening and helpful in understanding what is currently happening with respect to transforming BigU, which is management speak for the process formerly known as reengineering.
BigU seems not to be able to function without expensive advertising campaigns such as Driven to Discover. BigU's administration also seems to be incapable of action without borrowing some flavor of the month management scheme from the business world, regardless of whether it is appropriate for an academic institution. If some great man at the Harvard Business School has a pet theory, however could we fault OurLeader for trying it out?
Apparently the BoRe eats this up. No surprise given that at least one of them - OurLeader's strongest and most vocal champion - is in the consulting business and for $2000-$5000 will give inspirational talks on such subjects as: Leaders are Learners, Change or Die, Building a Learning Organization, How Great Boards Work, It’s All About People, You Can’t Win Without Teamwork, Inspiring and Motivating Your Staff, Barriers to Change, Moving out of your Comfort Zone. Mr. B. has previously commented that this BoRe member refuses to move out of his own comfort zone and currently does not reside in the Congressional District he supposedly represents. I guess ethical standards are not very high at BigU given MedSchoolDean's Pepsi association, BigU's Coca-cola partnership, and the little matter of inappropriate manipulation of images in papers and a patent.
So the flavor of the month is? The secret we've all been waiting for?
"Welcome back, Kotter!"
That would be Harvard Business School professor emeritus, John P. Kotter, and his marvelous and apparently foolproof "Eight Step Process of Creating Major Change."
Now it has always seemed to Mr. Bonzo that the transformation program at BigU was inauthentic, top-down with no real faculty input, unrealistic in its goals and expectations, and inappropriate for a university. But it is difficult to argue with someone when you don't know the intellectual underpinnings for their activities, especially when it appears from their actions that they don't have any. Now, properly implemented, it might be possible to transform the BigU using the Kotter system, but clearly anyone with even a primitive knowledge of the system will be aware that BigU has made a major botch of its implementation. Mr. Bonzo is also greatly disturbed by the lack of transparency and the manipulation of opinion that is antithetical to the idea of a university. Where, exactly, did the idea come from that BigU should become GreatBigU? Who, exactly, decided that we are Driven to Discover? An advertising agency, a consultant ? These decisions were certainly not made by the faculty, students, and staff at BigU. Nor does it appear that these stakeholders have bought into the program.
[As an aside, Mr. B. loves the use of the word stakeholder. It brings to mind a vision of Dracula at a crossroad in Transylvania at high noon with a golden stake through his heart. Now there is a stakeholder. ]
Kotter and other beer of the month management types (Covey, anyone) have not been particularly successful at causing meaningful change in the business world, let alone in education. They have, admittedly, made a great deal of money for themselves from the gullibility of managers both in real business and the business that education has become. Mr. B. is a great fan of Chris Argyris, also at Harvard, who dares to criticize both Covey and Kotter. He has written insightfully about the disconnect between theory and practice in change management systems embodied by the cliche "failure to walk the talk" oft used by the late Paul Wellstone.
Mr. B. has more to say on these matters, but not tonight and probably not for a while. A hellish month is ahead including about eight hours of lecturing on nanotechnology for a general audience in BigU's Compleat Scholar program. This will be fun, but a lot of work. The topic, however, has legs. I'll post the stuff somewhere and put a link on the PT. He will also be going to New Orleans in mid-May for a graduation. This will no doubt be a hard trip, because he has not been in NO since well before the hurricane.
Auf wiedersehen,
Bonzo
System Behind BigU's So-Called Transformation
Mr. Bonzo had an "aha" moment today when on BigU's website he came upon a powerpoint presentation that OurLeader gave to the BoRe (Board of Regents) last month. He found it enlightening and helpful in understanding what is currently happening with respect to transforming BigU, which is management speak for the process formerly known as reengineering.
BigU seems not to be able to function without expensive advertising campaigns such as Driven to Discover. BigU's administration also seems to be incapable of action without borrowing some flavor of the month management scheme from the business world, regardless of whether it is appropriate for an academic institution. If some great man at the Harvard Business School has a pet theory, however could we fault OurLeader for trying it out?
Apparently the BoRe eats this up. No surprise given that at least one of them - OurLeader's strongest and most vocal champion - is in the consulting business and for $2000-$5000 will give inspirational talks on such subjects as: Leaders are Learners, Change or Die, Building a Learning Organization, How Great Boards Work, It’s All About People, You Can’t Win Without Teamwork, Inspiring and Motivating Your Staff, Barriers to Change, Moving out of your Comfort Zone. Mr. B. has previously commented that this BoRe member refuses to move out of his own comfort zone and currently does not reside in the Congressional District he supposedly represents. I guess ethical standards are not very high at BigU given MedSchoolDean's Pepsi association, BigU's Coca-cola partnership, and the little matter of inappropriate manipulation of images in papers and a patent.
So the flavor of the month is? The secret we've all been waiting for?
"Welcome back, Kotter!"
That would be Harvard Business School professor emeritus, John P. Kotter, and his marvelous and apparently foolproof "Eight Step Process of Creating Major Change."
Now it has always seemed to Mr. Bonzo that the transformation program at BigU was inauthentic, top-down with no real faculty input, unrealistic in its goals and expectations, and inappropriate for a university. But it is difficult to argue with someone when you don't know the intellectual underpinnings for their activities, especially when it appears from their actions that they don't have any. Now, properly implemented, it might be possible to transform the BigU using the Kotter system, but clearly anyone with even a primitive knowledge of the system will be aware that BigU has made a major botch of its implementation. Mr. Bonzo is also greatly disturbed by the lack of transparency and the manipulation of opinion that is antithetical to the idea of a university. Where, exactly, did the idea come from that BigU should become GreatBigU? Who, exactly, decided that we are Driven to Discover? An advertising agency, a consultant ? These decisions were certainly not made by the faculty, students, and staff at BigU. Nor does it appear that these stakeholders have bought into the program.
[As an aside, Mr. B. loves the use of the word stakeholder. It brings to mind a vision of Dracula at a crossroad in Transylvania at high noon with a golden stake through his heart. Now there is a stakeholder. ]
Kotter and other beer of the month management types (Covey, anyone) have not been particularly successful at causing meaningful change in the business world, let alone in education. They have, admittedly, made a great deal of money for themselves from the gullibility of managers both in real business and the business that education has become. Mr. B. is a great fan of Chris Argyris, also at Harvard, who dares to criticize both Covey and Kotter. He has written insightfully about the disconnect between theory and practice in change management systems embodied by the cliche "failure to walk the talk" oft used by the late Paul Wellstone.
Mr. B. has more to say on these matters, but not tonight and probably not for a while. A hellish month is ahead including about eight hours of lecturing on nanotechnology for a general audience in BigU's Compleat Scholar program. This will be fun, but a lot of work. The topic, however, has legs. I'll post the stuff somewhere and put a link on the PT. He will also be going to New Orleans in mid-May for a graduation. This will no doubt be a hard trip, because he has not been in NO since well before the hurricane.
Auf wiedersehen,
Bonzo
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Coke or Pepsi? The Age Old Question
BigU is a Coke franchise. BigU's MedSchoolDean serves on the Pepsi board of directors. Mr. B. has previously written on this embarrassing situation. One post is It’s the Ick Factor… BigU MedSchoolDean Sits on the Pepsi Board.
There really are ethical problem here. It is amazing that the administration seems to be ignoring these issues. Usually they are quite interested in having "conversations" on topics related to achieving greatness, but so far not on ethical matters. At least someone at the Minnesota Daily is finally willing to ask: "The question is, does he [OurLeader] have the guts to face these concerns?"
Adri Mehra in today's Daily:
Bruininks must answer for Coca-Criminals
The University must be responsible world citizen
You can't beat the real thing, and in Coca-Cola's case, that includes a tangled web of apparent lies, intimidation and murder that would make the management of Guantanamo Bay sob with tears of joy and envy.
In December 2005, New York University and the University of Michigan banned all Coca-Cola products from their campuses following Rutgers, Oberlin, Bard and Minnesota's own Carleton College in the removal of the company's bloody stain.
It is thus far past time for University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks to address these issues with Coca-Cola, as our school has the largest remaining contract with the corporation.
The question is, does he have the guts to face these concerns?
Why don't we ask him?
Further sordid details are presented in the piece, but you get the idea. I admire Mr. Mehra for speaking out about this. When Mr. B. was young, this is what newspapers did. Doesn't seem to be so popular anymore, either at the local or national level.
And unfortunately, I don't have much hope for Mr. Mehra's question being answered let alone anything done about the situation. After all, we have to pay for a Twin City Federal Stadium and the road to becoming one of the top three public research institutions (in the world) will necessarily be paved with gold. So however could OurLeader afford to end BigU's lucrative financial arrangement with Coke?
Now, let's see - where did I put my tea...
Mr. B.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Trees Do Not Grow to The Sky or, Why the State Legislature Should Not Write a Blank Check to BigU for Biomedical Research Buildings
Mr. Bonzo has been concerned for some time that the money for biomedical research just isn't there, and that the push for a blank check from the legislature for the construction of more buildings for this purpose is a serious mistake. The most recent issue of Science has an article, selections of which are quoted below. This is done in the belief that fair use applies since a direct link cannot be given.
20 APRIL 2007 VOL 316 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org
The percentage of research proposals funded by NIH has dropped from 32% in 2001 to a projected 21% this year. Funded grants are routinely cut by 10% or more.
Dozens of investigators interviewed by Science, along with six NIH institute directors and agency head Elias Zerhouni, describe a climate in which young scientists struggle to launch their careers and even the most senior are trimming their research projects. Harold Varmus, a Nobel Prize winner who led NIH from 1993 to 1999 and is now head of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, has had his grant cut, although he won't say by how much.
Meanwhile, research institutions everywhere were breaking ground on new facilities and expanding their faculty. In a 2002 survey, AAMC found that new construction at medical schools had exploded: From 1990 to 1997, schools invested $2.2 billion in new construction, compared to $3.9 billion from 1998 to 2002. But that paled in comparison to what was to come: an expected $7.4 billion in new construction from 2002 to 2007.
Schools hired new faculty members to fill the buildings, expecting to recoup their investments from the NIH grants investigators would haul in. "Universities and their leadership did what I would have done too," says Zerhouni. "The government is indicating support for these activities," and the expansion was "exactly what Congress intended."
Yet the numbers fail to convey the gnawing unease and foreboding expressed by scientists across disciplines and at every stage of their careers. "The ripple effect here is amazing and paralyzing," says Steven Dowdy, a cancer biologist at the University of California, San Diego. At Brown University, molecular cell biologist Susan Gerbi, who helps oversee graduate training, canvassed 49 faculty members in eight departments recently, as she does every year, to see how many would take on a graduate student from next year's pack. "In the past, it was a majority," around 90% of those who responded, she says. "This year, only about 25% of the trainers said they would be interested … because they did not have a guarantee of funding for next fall."
Compounding the problem is that most universities and medical institutions rely on NIH money for the bulk of scientists' salaries and overhead costs and are not set up to support faculty members long-term. Traditionally, "bridge funding" could tide researchers over for a few months. But now, more scientists than ever are having to resubmit grant applications, with a gap of 8 months or more in between each submission. At NIAID, the percentage of proposals funded on the first try has gone from 27% in 2001 to 11% in 2006.
What brought biomedical research to this place of financial anxiety? The doubling flooded NIH with billions more dollars over a relatively brief time. Whereas a private corporation might conserve some of this windfall, by law NIH must spend nearly all the money it receives the year it receives it. That provoked a massive expansion in biomedical research, and expectations of federal support surged to a level that could not be sustained when the budget stopped growing. The crash is hitting labs, careers, and the psyches of scientists with a vengeance.
The big bubble
Nine years ago, Congress set out to double the NIH budget and within 5 years sent it soaring from $13.7 billion to $27.1 billion. But everyone knew the golden days would not last. In October 2000, eight senior scientists and policymakers began meeting informally to discuss how to maintain the momentum. In 2002, the group published a commentary in Science presenting different budget models and their impacts on research priorities (Science, 24 May 2002, p. 1401). Its most pessimistic prediction modeled annual increases of 4%. Says David Korn, a former Stanford University dean now at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in Washington, D.C., who helped bring the group together: "We didn't model increases below 4% a year because the tradeoffs and the sacrifices that would have been caused … were too difficult for us to deal with in the model."
At NIH, senior officials found that "no matter what, there will be pain after the doubling," says Zerhouni, who became NIH director in 2002. To soften the blow, in 2002 and 2003, NIH tried to accelerate the pace of one-time expenditures such as construction, to free up money for the following years. But even "in the worst scenarios, people really didn't think that the NIH budget would go below inflation," says Zerhouni, an outcome he attributes to the 9/11 attacks, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Hurricane Katrina.
This appears to have helped drive more applicants to NIH. In 1998, fewer than 20,000 scientists sought research grants from the agency; in 2006, that number was more than 33,000, and according to NIH forecasts, the number of applicants is expected to top 35,000 in 2007. The number of applications has grown at an even faster clip, as scientists, concerned about their chance of getting funded, are submitting proposals more frequently. Because growth at medical schools lagged somewhat behind the doubling, many institutions are still expanding. At Sloan-Kettering, for example, officials only recently began filling a new building with scientists. They expect to increase their faculty by almost 50%, says Varmus.
But as requests for NIH money edged upward, NIH's resources began to drop. After a 16% increase in 2003, the final year of the doubling, NIH received a 3% boost in 2004, an abrupt reversal of fortune. Although the general rate of inflation in 2006 was 3.1%, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the cost of goods and services in biomedical research and development rose 4.5%. The number of competing grants NIH funded peaked in 2003 and has been dropping since. The declining value of NIH's dollars and rising demand were "a perfect double whammy," says Zerhouni.
Some schools are beefing up their bridge funding. Dana-Farber, for example, is setting aside $3 million to $4 million this year. Historically, the institute reserved $500,000 to $1 million "and almost never spent it," says Benz, Dana-Farber's CEO.
Even "the senior investigator is turning out to be a challenge for us to support," Benz continues.
Many scientists complain that the tough funding climate is exacerbated by an excessive focus at NIH on costly "big science," such as the Cancer Genome Atlas, which is using large-scale genetic sequencing to decipher the molecular basis of cancer and whose 3-year pilot phase is budgeted at $100 million. Projects like this one, many scientists say, are coming at the expense of grants that sustain individual labs and have been the source of much innovation over the years.
Nowhere does the funding gap seem wider than when looked at through the lens of age. "It's just about inconceivable for a brand-new investigator to get an NIH grant funded on their first submission these days," says David Sweatt, chair of the neurobiology department at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. Sweatt has hired three young scientists in the past year and worries about their future. "I see it as this dark shadow hanging over people who are just starting out their labs," he says. "They're having to spend so much time being anxious over funding, to the detriment of having time to think creatively about their research."
It is time for a serious and honest conversation about this matter at BigU.
Mr. Bonzo
Mr. Bonzo has been concerned for some time that the money for biomedical research just isn't there, and that the push for a blank check from the legislature for the construction of more buildings for this purpose is a serious mistake. The most recent issue of Science has an article, selections of which are quoted below. This is done in the belief that fair use applies since a direct link cannot be given.
20 APRIL 2007 VOL 316 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org
The percentage of research proposals funded by NIH has dropped from 32% in 2001 to a projected 21% this year. Funded grants are routinely cut by 10% or more.
Dozens of investigators interviewed by Science, along with six NIH institute directors and agency head Elias Zerhouni, describe a climate in which young scientists struggle to launch their careers and even the most senior are trimming their research projects. Harold Varmus, a Nobel Prize winner who led NIH from 1993 to 1999 and is now head of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, has had his grant cut, although he won't say by how much.
Meanwhile, research institutions everywhere were breaking ground on new facilities and expanding their faculty. In a 2002 survey, AAMC found that new construction at medical schools had exploded: From 1990 to 1997, schools invested $2.2 billion in new construction, compared to $3.9 billion from 1998 to 2002. But that paled in comparison to what was to come: an expected $7.4 billion in new construction from 2002 to 2007.
Schools hired new faculty members to fill the buildings, expecting to recoup their investments from the NIH grants investigators would haul in. "Universities and their leadership did what I would have done too," says Zerhouni. "The government is indicating support for these activities," and the expansion was "exactly what Congress intended."
Yet the numbers fail to convey the gnawing unease and foreboding expressed by scientists across disciplines and at every stage of their careers. "The ripple effect here is amazing and paralyzing," says Steven Dowdy, a cancer biologist at the University of California, San Diego. At Brown University, molecular cell biologist Susan Gerbi, who helps oversee graduate training, canvassed 49 faculty members in eight departments recently, as she does every year, to see how many would take on a graduate student from next year's pack. "In the past, it was a majority," around 90% of those who responded, she says. "This year, only about 25% of the trainers said they would be interested … because they did not have a guarantee of funding for next fall."
Compounding the problem is that most universities and medical institutions rely on NIH money for the bulk of scientists' salaries and overhead costs and are not set up to support faculty members long-term. Traditionally, "bridge funding" could tide researchers over for a few months. But now, more scientists than ever are having to resubmit grant applications, with a gap of 8 months or more in between each submission. At NIAID, the percentage of proposals funded on the first try has gone from 27% in 2001 to 11% in 2006.
What brought biomedical research to this place of financial anxiety? The doubling flooded NIH with billions more dollars over a relatively brief time. Whereas a private corporation might conserve some of this windfall, by law NIH must spend nearly all the money it receives the year it receives it. That provoked a massive expansion in biomedical research, and expectations of federal support surged to a level that could not be sustained when the budget stopped growing. The crash is hitting labs, careers, and the psyches of scientists with a vengeance.
The big bubble
Nine years ago, Congress set out to double the NIH budget and within 5 years sent it soaring from $13.7 billion to $27.1 billion. But everyone knew the golden days would not last. In October 2000, eight senior scientists and policymakers began meeting informally to discuss how to maintain the momentum. In 2002, the group published a commentary in Science presenting different budget models and their impacts on research priorities (Science, 24 May 2002, p. 1401). Its most pessimistic prediction modeled annual increases of 4%. Says David Korn, a former Stanford University dean now at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in Washington, D.C., who helped bring the group together: "We didn't model increases below 4% a year because the tradeoffs and the sacrifices that would have been caused … were too difficult for us to deal with in the model."
At NIH, senior officials found that "no matter what, there will be pain after the doubling," says Zerhouni, who became NIH director in 2002. To soften the blow, in 2002 and 2003, NIH tried to accelerate the pace of one-time expenditures such as construction, to free up money for the following years. But even "in the worst scenarios, people really didn't think that the NIH budget would go below inflation," says Zerhouni, an outcome he attributes to the 9/11 attacks, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Hurricane Katrina.
This appears to have helped drive more applicants to NIH. In 1998, fewer than 20,000 scientists sought research grants from the agency; in 2006, that number was more than 33,000, and according to NIH forecasts, the number of applicants is expected to top 35,000 in 2007. The number of applications has grown at an even faster clip, as scientists, concerned about their chance of getting funded, are submitting proposals more frequently. Because growth at medical schools lagged somewhat behind the doubling, many institutions are still expanding. At Sloan-Kettering, for example, officials only recently began filling a new building with scientists. They expect to increase their faculty by almost 50%, says Varmus.
But as requests for NIH money edged upward, NIH's resources began to drop. After a 16% increase in 2003, the final year of the doubling, NIH received a 3% boost in 2004, an abrupt reversal of fortune. Although the general rate of inflation in 2006 was 3.1%, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the cost of goods and services in biomedical research and development rose 4.5%. The number of competing grants NIH funded peaked in 2003 and has been dropping since. The declining value of NIH's dollars and rising demand were "a perfect double whammy," says Zerhouni.
Some schools are beefing up their bridge funding. Dana-Farber, for example, is setting aside $3 million to $4 million this year. Historically, the institute reserved $500,000 to $1 million "and almost never spent it," says Benz, Dana-Farber's CEO.
Even "the senior investigator is turning out to be a challenge for us to support," Benz continues.
Many scientists complain that the tough funding climate is exacerbated by an excessive focus at NIH on costly "big science," such as the Cancer Genome Atlas, which is using large-scale genetic sequencing to decipher the molecular basis of cancer and whose 3-year pilot phase is budgeted at $100 million. Projects like this one, many scientists say, are coming at the expense of grants that sustain individual labs and have been the source of much innovation over the years.
Nowhere does the funding gap seem wider than when looked at through the lens of age. "It's just about inconceivable for a brand-new investigator to get an NIH grant funded on their first submission these days," says David Sweatt, chair of the neurobiology department at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. Sweatt has hired three young scientists in the past year and worries about their future. "I see it as this dark shadow hanging over people who are just starting out their labs," he says. "They're having to spend so much time being anxious over funding, to the detriment of having time to think creatively about their research."
It is time for a serious and honest conversation about this matter at BigU.
Mr. Bonzo
Saturday, April 21, 2007
What a relief ! Babies who die unbaptized
don't have to worry about limbo - now that it’s been declared only a dance...
Mr. B. rejoices by dancing the limbo at right.
Last update: April 20, 2007 – 9:16 PM
Vatican: Unbaptized infants who die no longer in limbo Reversing centuries of traditional Catholic teaching, a report says there is hope those babies can go to heaven.
By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times
ROME - Limbo has been in limbo for quite some time, but is now on its way to extinction. A Vatican committee that spent years examining the medieval concept Friday published a much-anticipated report, concluding unbaptized babies who die may go to heaven.
That could reverse centuries of Roman Catholic traditional belief that the souls of unbaptized babies are condemned to eternity in limbo, a place that is neither heaven nor hell. Limbo is not unpleasant, but it is not a seat alongside God. Limbo, the commission said, "reflects an unduly restrictive view of salvation."Our conclusion," the commission said in its 41-page report, is that there are "serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and brought into eternal happiness."
The commission added that while this is not "sure knowledge," it comes in the context of a loving and just God who "wants all human beings to be saved."
In the 5th century, St. Augustine declared that all unbaptized babies went to hell upon death. By the Middle Ages, the idea was softened to suggest a less severe fate, limbo.
The document published Friday said the question of limbo has become a "matter of pastoral urgency" because of the growing number of babies who do not receive the baptismal rite. Especially in Africa and other parts of the world where Catholicism is growing but has competition from other faiths such as Islam, high infant mortality rates mean many families live with a church teaching them that their babies could not go to heaven.
Catholic conservatives criticized any effort to relegate limbo to oblivion. Removing the concept from church teaching would lessen the importance of baptism and discourage parents from christening their infants, said Kenneth J. Wolfe, a Washington-based columnist for the traditionalist Catholic newspaper the Remnant.
Mr. Bonzo remembers the concept of limbo from elementary school. Scary. He wishes the ability to change position on limbo extended to the ordination of women and the possibility of a married clergy. Ah well, if St. Augustine’s teachings can be softened then perhaps there is hope, but the timescale is a little depressing.
Ciao, Bonzo
Friday, April 20, 2007
Wolfie, we hardly knew you...
(Or, you've done a heckuva job, Wolfie)
Sameer Dossani nails Wolfowitz:
Over the years, the World Bank’s hypocrisy has been so extreme as to be taken for granted. The ironies of talking about ending global poverty, interest rates and export policies while staying at five-star hotels and attending lavishly catered meetings do get a bit tiresome for Bank-watchers like me to keep pointing out. But the latest developments involving World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz and his former partner, Shaha Riza, take this everyday hypocrisy to new heights.
The World Bank Staff Association itself, which represents more than half of the Bank’s employees, called for Wolfowitz’s resignation last week. In an unprecedented move, Alison Cave, the Chair of the Staff Association said that Wolfowitz “must acknowledge that his conduct has compromised the integrity and effectiveness of the World Bank Group and has destroyed the staff's trust in his leadership. He must act honorably and resign.”
Since Wolfowitz’s appointment, about half of the Bank’s senior managers, either unhappy with Wolfowitz’s style or under pressure, have left. These and other developments leave Wolfowitz open to the claim that he is “neo-conning the Bank”.
Wolfowitz hasn’t left yet but it’s unlikely he will last more than a few weeks longer. Whoever takes the job next will inherit an institution that has failed basic standards of accountability and transparency, and has not made a dent in its supposed mission of poverty reduction. The new president will certainly have work to do. Some good house cleaning, including implementing real accountability and transparency measures—for the bank and not just the countries that borrow from it—would be a good start. One more step may be to start talking about how the Bank can make reparations for its past sins, especially those of pushing a failed economic paradigm onto developing countries.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
The arrogance of power and the sense of entitlement that people like Wolfie demonstrate is both an embarrassment and a stimulus to action at both the local and national level.
One disgusted Bonzo
(Or, you've done a heckuva job, Wolfie)
Sameer Dossani nails Wolfowitz:
Over the years, the World Bank’s hypocrisy has been so extreme as to be taken for granted. The ironies of talking about ending global poverty, interest rates and export policies while staying at five-star hotels and attending lavishly catered meetings do get a bit tiresome for Bank-watchers like me to keep pointing out. But the latest developments involving World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz and his former partner, Shaha Riza, take this everyday hypocrisy to new heights.
The World Bank Staff Association itself, which represents more than half of the Bank’s employees, called for Wolfowitz’s resignation last week. In an unprecedented move, Alison Cave, the Chair of the Staff Association said that Wolfowitz “must acknowledge that his conduct has compromised the integrity and effectiveness of the World Bank Group and has destroyed the staff's trust in his leadership. He must act honorably and resign.”
Since Wolfowitz’s appointment, about half of the Bank’s senior managers, either unhappy with Wolfowitz’s style or under pressure, have left. These and other developments leave Wolfowitz open to the claim that he is “neo-conning the Bank”.
Wolfowitz hasn’t left yet but it’s unlikely he will last more than a few weeks longer. Whoever takes the job next will inherit an institution that has failed basic standards of accountability and transparency, and has not made a dent in its supposed mission of poverty reduction. The new president will certainly have work to do. Some good house cleaning, including implementing real accountability and transparency measures—for the bank and not just the countries that borrow from it—would be a good start. One more step may be to start talking about how the Bank can make reparations for its past sins, especially those of pushing a failed economic paradigm onto developing countries.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
The arrogance of power and the sense of entitlement that people like Wolfie demonstrate is both an embarrassment and a stimulus to action at both the local and national level.
One disgusted Bonzo
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
The BigU Regents Selection Process is Partisan Mr. Bonzo is Shocked, Shocked...
Mr. Bonzo has written earlier about the partisan election process for new members of the Board of Regents (BOR). Today the Daily has an article about the matter, below are selected excerpts. See the full article for amplification.
April 18, 2007
An Experiment Gone Partisan Although the board of regents is not political, the new regent selection process is that and then some.
At the Capitol, everything's political. Even things that shouldn't be.
As Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty weighed in on the process for the first time, the Capitol erupted in controversy over what lawmakers found to be a newly politicized process.
Ultimately, this new method raised questions about lawmakers' roles in regent selection and whether they have the University's best interests in mind or their own political ideologies.
Outgoing regents included Peter Bell, a Republican in Pawlenty's administration and chairman of the Metropolitan Council.
"The regent selection process has politicized (the board) to a degree that could be problematic," Bell said.
Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis, criticized Pawlenty for not taking the authority granted to him. He never met with any of the candidates, which meant legislators didn't give much consideration to his selections.
The governor could have had a better chance of getting his selected candidates - including Bell and outgoing Regent Cynthia Lesher, who lost reappointment to former DFL Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson - through the process had he personally interviewed them, Kahn said.
Kahn said the governor should have sat down with legislative leaders to negotiate the "regents' slate," compromising to allow both Johnson and Bell appointments to the board.
After a speech on campus Monday, Pawlenty said the regent selection process "was designed to be better, but it really was a disappointment."
"Without casting any aspersions on this year's finalists or appointees, I would say we have to do better at getting higher-quality regents for the University of Minnesota," he said. "This year's process doesn't look like it was any better in that regard than the last (one)."
Mr. Bonzo would also like to correct an apparent error. Regent Metzen, formerly the chair of the Board o
f Regents is listed as being from Congressional District 4.
The Daily should know better as they have previously published:
wo years after promising to move to the district he represents, a member of the Board of Regents still lives in his old residence.
Metzen, David
273 Salem Church Rd
Sunfish Lake, MN 55118
Members of Congress Representing ZIP code 55118-4742
A search was done for members of Congress representing residents of the following address:
273 SALEM CHURCH RD. SUNFISH LAKE, MN 55118-4742
Residents of the 55118-4742 ZIP code are represented in Congress by 2 Senators and 1 Representative.
Senator Norm Coleman (R- MN)
Senator Amy Klobuchar (D- MN)
Representative John Kline (R - 02)
In addition to his service on the BOR, Regent Metzen is also a motivational speaker who lists his regent service as one of his qualifications for giving lectures (at $2000 - $5000 a pop) on such topics as:
Mr. Bonzo has written earlier about the partisan election process for new members of the Board of Regents (BOR). Today the Daily has an article about the matter, below are selected excerpts. See the full article for amplification.
April 18, 2007
An Experiment Gone Partisan Although the board of regents is not political, the new regent selection process is that and then some.
At the Capitol, everything's political. Even things that shouldn't be.
As Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty weighed in on the process for the first time, the Capitol erupted in controversy over what lawmakers found to be a newly politicized process.
Ultimately, this new method raised questions about lawmakers' roles in regent selection and whether they have the University's best interests in mind or their own political ideologies.
Outgoing regents included Peter Bell, a Republican in Pawlenty's administration and chairman of the Metropolitan Council.
"The regent selection process has politicized (the board) to a degree that could be problematic," Bell said.
Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis, criticized Pawlenty for not taking the authority granted to him. He never met with any of the candidates, which meant legislators didn't give much consideration to his selections.
The governor could have had a better chance of getting his selected candidates - including Bell and outgoing Regent Cynthia Lesher, who lost reappointment to former DFL Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson - through the process had he personally interviewed them, Kahn said.
Kahn said the governor should have sat down with legislative leaders to negotiate the "regents' slate," compromising to allow both Johnson and Bell appointments to the board.
After a speech on campus Monday, Pawlenty said the regent selection process "was designed to be better, but it really was a disappointment."
"Without casting any aspersions on this year's finalists or appointees, I would say we have to do better at getting higher-quality regents for the University of Minnesota," he said. "This year's process doesn't look like it was any better in that regard than the last (one)."
Mr. Bonzo would also like to correct an apparent error. Regent Metzen, formerly the chair of the Board o
f Regents is listed as being from Congressional District 4.The Daily should know better as they have previously published:
August 10, 2005
Regent lives out of range
David Metzen has lived outside his district since the 2002 redistricting.
wo years after promising to move to the district he represents, a member of the Board of Regents still lives in his old residence.David Metzen, the former board chairman serving his second consecutive term for the 4th Congressional District, currently lives a few blocks outside his district.
Metzen was first elected to represent the 4th Congressional District in 1997. But the 2002 redistricting left him on the outside looking in when his term expired in 2003.
Unable to win legislative support in the 2nd District, where his home is now, Metzen promised to move to a new home if he was re-elected to represent the 4th District.
Metzen has said he would be willing to step down from his post if that's what is called for.
But Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, of legislative District 54, which is within the 4th Congressional District, said such a move would be a little drastic.
"It's not like this is scandalous," [sic] he said.
[Our standards are apparently not that high here in BigState, at least for political appointments like the BOR.]
Marty said he and other legislators would like to see Metzen make a serious attempt to move into the 4th District, but asking him to step down would be too much.
[Two years have passed - how long is this going to go on? Or are some pigs more equal than other pigs?]
Mark Rotenberg, general counsel for the University, said the University is not legally liable for anything relating to David Metzen's living status.
"It's not a problem for the University, it's a problem that arises from the Legislature's selection of individuals, none of whom are currently (residing) in the 4th Congressional District," Rotenberg said.
Given his current address, it appears that he still lives in Congressional District 2:
Metzen, David
273 Salem Church Rd
Sunfish Lake, MN 55118
Members of Congress Representing ZIP code 55118-4742
A search was done for members of Congress representing residents of the following address:
273 SALEM CHURCH RD. SUNFISH LAKE, MN 55118-4742
Residents of the 55118-4742 ZIP code are represented in Congress by 2 Senators and 1 Representative.
Senator Norm Coleman (R- MN)
Senator Amy Klobuchar (D- MN)
Representative John Kline (R - 02)
In addition to his service on the BOR, Regent Metzen is also a motivational speaker who lists his regent service as one of his qualifications for giving lectures (at $2000 - $5000 a pop) on such topics as:
Leaders are Learners
Change or Die
Building a Learning Organization
How Great Boards Work
It’s All About People
You Can’t Win Without Teamwork
Inspiring and Motivating Your Staff
Barriers to Change
Moving out of your Comfort Zone
Change or Die
Building a Learning Organization
How Great Boards Work
It’s All About People
You Can’t Win Without Teamwork
Inspiring and Motivating Your Staff
Barriers to Change
Moving out of your Comfort Zone
Sounds like Regent Metzen may want to move out of his comfort zone so that we can all learn how great boards work. After all, building a learning organization is all about people and you can't win without teamwork. Inpiring and motivating your staff involves removing barriers to change.
A shocked and awed Bonzo
A shocked and awed Bonzo
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