UNIVERSITY RESEARCH COUNCIL MINUTES
August 27, 2012
Members Present:
Lachel Story (Health), Sharon Topping (Business) , Dana Fennell & Louis Kyriakoudes (Arts &
Letters), Christopher Barry, Richard Mohn (Education & Psychology), Ras B. Pandey (Science
and Technology), Syd Conner (SPA)
“Via teleconference”
Jorge Brown (Library)
Members Absent:
Trenton Gould (Health)
Mohamed Elasri (Science and Technology)
Joyce Shaw (Library)
Denis Wiesenburg (VPR)
Michelle Shows (SPA)
Others Present:
Gordon Cannon (VPR)
Marcia Landen (SPA)
Samuel Bruton (Office of Research Integrity)
Shelia Johnson (SPA)
The meeting was held in McCain Library Room 200. The meeting was called to order at 3:30
p.m. by Dr. Sharon Topping. The agenda was distributed.
1. Approval of Minutes
Dr. Topping sent electronic copies of the April 30, 2012 minutes for review. The minutes were
discussed and some questions clarified. Dr. Topping will review the minutes, incorporating these
changes with some editorial changes, and give the corrections to Mrs. Johnson.
MOTION: To approve the 4/30/2012 minutes with discussed changes by Dr. Richard
Mohn and a second by Dr. Dana Fennell.
ACTION ITEM: Ms. Johnson will make the necessary corrections and send the approved
minutes to Mr. Syd Conner for publication on the website.
2. Meeting Date Change
After discussion, a new meeting date will be agreed upon by e-mail consensus. Our current time
is unavailable. Efforts will be made to keep it on Monday. Dr. Topping will get with Dr. Gordon
Cannon to check his calendar and notify all members of the new agreed upon meeting date.
3. Membership Roster
Membership needs:
Health needs a member:
ACTION ITEM: Dr. Topping will contact the Dean of Health about a new member.
Nursing needs a member: Dr. Bonnie Harbaugh who is in charge of research in Nursing was
recommended by Dr. Lachel Story.
ACTION ITEM: Dr. Lachel Story will contact the Dean of Nursing and speak to Dr. Bonnie
Harbaugh about naming a new member from Nursing.
Business: Dr. Mike Wittmann stepped off to take on an associate dean role. College of Business
is actually getting ready to vote and will probably be the first to have a real election.
Faculty Senate Rep: Dr. Lachel Story related that at the Faculty Senate retreat last week there
was discussion about a Faculty Senate Rep on the URC. Dr. Mary Ann Adams, the president will
be contacting Dr. Topping about a Faculty Senate representative on the URC because they like to
have a representative on all governance organizations. She told them she did not know but the
URC will certainly invite anybody who is willing to work. Dr. Topping asked if they served Ad
Hoc or as a voting member. Dr. Story thought it depended on the governance body. For some
they only participate in discussions while others they vote. Dr. Story did not think there would be
any controversy or inappropriateness on any URC vote. They were just looking at the list of
committees at the university. Dr. Topping stated that there are a number of Ad Hoc and Exofficio members on the URC and she did not foresee a problem with Faculty Senate being
included.
4. Update – Office of Vice President of Research – Dr. Gordon Cannon
Dr. Cannon introduced Ms. Marcia Landen, the new AVP for Research Administration (SPA)
who comes from Indiana University. She will oversee the entire operation of Sponsored
Programs Administration, which coincides with the new changes in SPA, moving all three
sections, pre-award, post-award/compliance and accounting which used to be a part of Finance
(cradle to grave treatment of a proposal) which is the new trend at a lot of the universities of our
size across the nation. Ms. Landen will oversee the entire operation. Her two weeks here has
already reduced the number of calls to Dr. Cannon’s office and time on his telephone. He wishes
her the best of luck in her new duties and is happy to have her. She will now be attending
meetings instead of Ms. Michelle Shows.
This past summer there were two faculty fellowships that were funded out of the VP’s office.
One of them went to Dr. Dan Camper and he spent the summer going through possible
foundations that may be used in funding research at USM. He put together a great index which is
annotated. I think there are approximately 6000 on CD which have not yet been distributed, but
will be in the next week or so. Dr. Camper completely cut out the ones that he did not think
would work for us. Dr. Cannon thinks it is going to be a very helpful living document that can be
updated.
Dr. Danny Beard was the other person who took on a job more related to this council. He took
all the research policies as could be found and put them into a very consistent format. He used
different models from different universities to come up with a very nice standard policy format.
The original plan was to look through the ones, particularly, that we were not so familiar with and
screen them through URC to review and make recommendations and approve or not approve
them and ultimately post them on the web. One complicating factor in all of that was that the
university as a whole decided to do the same thing on the academic policies earlier in the summer
and got USM attorneys involved. We, midstream, started changing our profiles to the same
profile that the university uses. We ended up with 31 or 32 policies to be reviewed and they will
be given to URC before the next meeting; or at least portions of them. Some of them clearly were
approved at some point and the new format indicates when they were approved. If we can’t find
the approval date, Dr. Cannon would like to have them approved again so that we can note the
date they were approved, who approved them, who they affect, how often we expect them to be
updated, and when was the last time they were updated. An example cited was how to deal with
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overruns in cost centers. Some of the previous Vice-presidents would write a policy when they
would have a problem and put it into a file cabinet. It fixed that problem, but most of us didn’t
know about that policy. When Dr. Wiesenburg was here about a month, he discovered these
policies and we are trying to get them standardized. Those are two things that will be coming
down the pipe that will involve the URC. Any new policies will come to URC first and will fit
the new profile. Dr. Topping asked if there were any glaring gaps. He answered, yes. Dr. Sam
Bruton is involved with how USM will display policies on the web. In some cases it was not so
much that policies were being missed, but there were three different versions of a policy on three
different web pages which is not good. Our objective is to get that cleaned up for display on the
Vice-Provost of Research web page with one version of all policies.
Also, at the URC meeting last October on Halloween day when both Dr. Wiesenburg and Dr.
Cannon were notified by the Department of Health and Human Services that they would no
longer accept USM’s Misconduct Policy. Dr. Cannon spent almost all of Christmas revising it to
send back but heard nothing back. Dr. Sam Bruton has gone back and forth with them and talked
them into accepting the revised Misconduct Policy about a week and half ago. The next task is to
get the Faculty Handbook Committee to accept it, but they will not be much of a problem. This
new policy that Dr. Bruton finished is so much stronger and better than the old one. If it makes
Health and Human Services happy, it makes USM happy. Dr. Cannon thinks we went from 11
pages to 21 pages and we need to figure out how to package that in the faculty handbook.
Finally is the NSF EPSCOR program in which there are 31or 32 states that receive less than
two percent of the federal funding for science nationwide. Mississippi is in this category of being
an EPSCOR state giving us an opportunity to apply for EPSCOR grants which are statewide
grants that fund investigators at the research universities within the state. More importantly, it
means anyone who submits to NSF from Mississippi in a regular NSF program, if they get close
or if there is a little bit less money than what was asked for, the program manager can go to the
EPSCOR budget and pull that money out. That is really a very big advantage. This is an old
program that started about 25 years ago. It runs in five year cycles. The current cycle is housed
primarily at Mississippi State and brings about four and a half million dollars into the state. It is
called Computer Modeling and Biological and Chemical Systems. It may be that over the past
two cycles things have been concentrated a little bit too much at Mississippi State. He really
would like to see this cycle be distributed throughout the state more, particularly the part that
comes to USM.
The call for proposals went out last Monday. The way the system works, faculty
members/groups of faculty members put together a white paper up to eight pages long on
anything that NSF funds. Collaboration across university lines is a very important positive. Dr.
Cannon’s strategy is collaboration with Ole Miss which is a very important strategy this cycle.
Papers will be submitted first to Dr. Cannon’s office for a very limited review and then forwarded
to MRC where the more in depth review will occur. The four vice-presidents will decide which
ones will be put together to create the state theme that will then be submitted as a full proposal
and will cover the next five years. It involves a grand total of over twenty million bucks. So it is
not a little thing. Dr. Cannon doesn’t know politically what the chances are of getting it housed at
USM, but he would like to see it divided up a little bit better than it has been for the last two
cycles. It seems that the Vice president for Mississippi State pretty much runs its office on
EPSCOR and sends drips and drabs to us and Ole Miss. Dr. Ras Pandey mentioned that he had
not been involved in the last ten years, but in his experience NSF was very sensitive and would
come and see who was involved and how that money was distributed in a meeting conference. In
those days, there were clusters i.e., Mississippi State, Jackson State, and other colleges and
universities. This time he thinks clusters were not required but they highly encouraged
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university collaboration. NSF would look closely and say, “You have been given funds for say
one to two cycles to improve/be competitive. Why are you still there?” Dr. Canon said they still
do, but we don’t have to worry too much at USM because we have not been able to pry too much
out of the hands of Mississippi State. We are in good shape in that regard. All depends upon
what the subject ends up being. What they did last time was cyber infrastructure. State is going
to always be the primary group to do that within Mississippi. One of the things NSF does is
require that the project that is accepted does something to strengthen the cyber infrastructure.
That doesn’t mean it has to be a cyber infrastructure proposal.
Dr. Cannon encourages everybody to go back and talk to your constituency. NSF is a pretty
broad agency and they have the SBE directed by an ex USM faculty member: Ms. Joanne
Krudow. It doesn’t hurt to have a deputy director familiar with your proposal when it comes
through. Every time I meet with her she encourages us sending more proposals to her directorate.
These program managers have portfolios and if they have eight of their twelve proposals from
Harvard, it doesn’t fly too well. They are supposed to spread it out. What really helps them is if
they have a proposal from an EPSCOR state, depending on how the EPSCOR pool is doing that
year, they can get three EPSCOR states for one non-EPSCOR state. So it really is a big benefit.
Also, if there is a good bit of money in the pool when your proposal comes up for funding, they
tend not to cut your budget. The whole story of NSF is if you write a budget, you could expect at
least a 15% cut, not so much with EPSCOR. It is a good program and has been poorly mimicked
in most cases by all the other agencies. In fact there is talk now that they are going to redo the
Energy and Dept. of Defense EPSCOR. NIH has their IDEAS program which is very important
to MS and USM because we are the home institution for INBRE which is one of the IDEAs
program. It brings about four to five million for us and schools we are associated with and does a
lot of good for us here. Dr. Francis Collins, Director for NIH promised he would not touch the
IDEAS program if they would allow him to start a new institute. Two weeks after congress
approved the new institute, he announced a fifty million dollar cut. Several of us in MS and LA
contacted Senator Cochran, mainly, who put together a bill that passed which increased IDEAS
by one hundred and twelve million dollars. As a result of that, Senator Cochran made a
request/invitation of Dr. Collins, in a way that he could not refuse, to come to Mississippi and he
will be here on campus October 12, 2012, if any of you are interested. There is a good chance
that Senator Cochran will be with him as well and it will be a big event on campus.
If you put together a real strong proposal from all four schools, Dr. Cannon believes it may be
successful. Realistically in Mississippi, you have got to figure out what the four vice presidents
are going to fund. This is my speculation, if you got together with Ole Miss, Jackson State,
Mississippi State and put together a really strong proposal with participation from all four
schools, it may succeed. The deadline for the white paper is September 17, 2012. The full
proposal is due mid next year. It takes a long time to get these together since it takes all four
institutions. This cycle will begin 2015. You would need people from the institutions committed
to work on it.
5. Introduction, Dr. Samuel Bruton, Director of the Office of Research Integrity
Dr. Sam Bruton discussed his working on clarification of a couple of policies: the Misconduct
Policy and the Financial Conflict of Interest Policy. He is trying to get clarification from the
general council and the Provost on the procedure for getting these approved. At some point, he
will want to get URC input on it.
Dr. Topping advised Ms. Marcia Landen that URC would help her in any way possible if she
wants to get anything passed through the council or if she wants us to look at it. Ms. Landen
thanked the members and stated that she would be interested in seeing the drafts on some of these
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policies. One of her concerns in coming here, and looking at the website was it seemed to be a
little “policy short”. That is also what she is hearing from faculty and staff. Also, we need to be
careful not to turn procedures into policy. Seeing these drafts will really help her do all of the
right things to help her in educating in that area. Dr. Topping stated that we have had lack of
policy and lack of information about policy. However, with Dr. Wiesenburg, Dr. Bruton, Dr.
Cannon and Ms. Landon, she is confident that this is going to be taken care of.
Dr. Topping asked Dr. Bruton about continuing education credits for RCR. He stated a couple of
workshops are scheduled for this semester which count towards RCR credits:
September 27, 2012
Plagiarism Workshop @ Noon
Gonzalez Auditorium
October 22, 2012
Community Based Research
Gulf Coast
with David Reznick from NIH
(by popular demand on handling this by IRB)
He is trying to schedule more things on the coast as well. In the past we have had those folks just
plugged in, but he is going to go down there and do some things in person. Posters and e-mails
will go out announcing dates and times for all workshops. Dr. Topping asked how many credits
are needed for certification. He stated that this is the kind of ambiguity he is trying to clear up on
what NIH calls face-to-face training. He is putting together an Ad hoc committee to look at our
RCR training policy as it exists right now in slightly different versions on different websites.
Currently the university requires going through the CITI on-line modules. CITI certification is
currently the only requirement being checked in the sense that only if you lack the CITI
certification are you ever denied anything. You are supposed to be also attending some of these
face-to-face sessions. We keep track of what people are attending, but people are not right now
being denied anything even if they haven’t attended any. The recommended number by NIH is
eight, but it is not official university policy. A credit correlates roughly to an hour. You couldn’t
do eight a year because we haven’t been putting on that many. We keep track of what people are
attending. If you apply for a grant, they will check that you have done your CITI certification.
Dr. Topping stated as Chair of this committee she had three goals this year: Website, bylaws, and
a full election process by the end of spring. She would like to see these checked off by the end of
the year as done. Dr. Sam Bruton remarked that they are in the process of reorganizing the VP
for Research website and we do have some help. They made some changes over the weekend and
some things are starting to happen. Dr. Topping was pleased and planned to take a look at it.
6. Discussion: Website Changes – Dr. Lachel Story
Dr. Story said she Dr. Jorge Brown met and made a list at the end of last semester. There was no
progress to report since they were told to wait due to other pressing priorities. She would like
collaboration with Dr. Bruton and his help on incorporating the changes we talked about last year.
Perhaps changes implemented on the VPR website can be incorporated into our website. She
would like to see the Innovation Awards electronically submitted and feels the infrastructure is
there to support that goal. Dr. Topping felt that a lot of publicity and PR were achieved from the
URAD and pictures. She believed Dr. Sharon Rouse would be a good contact to get pictures
from past awards.
ACTION ITEM: Dr. Lachel Story will e-mail Dr. Sam Bruton and Dr. Jorge Brown to set up a
website meeting in the next week or two.
7. Bylaws Committee Report - Dr. Richard Mohn
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Dr. Richard Mohn distributed an annotated copy of the edited April 2011 Bylaws incorporating
things talked about last year and a copy of the March 1, 2010 approved Bylaws of the Academic
Council, a 6-page Academic Council Elections (not suggesting 6 pages on our elections, but an
example). He planned to walk through the comments and discuss it at the next meeting. The
annotations involved comments that were previously discussed. Dr. Topping asked if he had
come up with something that would allow the committee to make Bylaw changes and he was
confident that he had.
-
Page 1, II. b. Clinical Positions regarding visiting special adjunct: Dr. Topping asked if
this was answered at the Elections Committee. Dr. Dana Fennel said they just wanted
more information on how many exist and what kind of role they have, permanent or
temporary, etc. Dr. Topping planned to go back and look at her notes on this.
ACTION ITEM: Dr. Topping will e-mail Dr. Bruton and Dr. Brown to set up a Website meeting
in the next two weeks.
- Page 2, II. c. Added College of Nursing to elected representatives.
- Page 2, II. g. Added Elections Committee with notes to add additional details as needed.
Reviewed the very lengthy (6 pages long) Academic Council Elections document and
decided to just stop right there for now at this point and time. Dr. Topping stated that the
committee that was meeting last spring had some specifics on this and she will look at
that and get back to the Council.
ACTION ITEM: Dr. Topping to get with Dr. Mohn on what she finds on the Elections
Committee and will copy everybody.
- Page 2, II. i. Elections to be held in March as agreed upon.
- Page 3, c. College Research Committee (CRC): There was an outstanding issue about
whether or not College Research Committees should be in the Bylaws. There were some
colleges that did not have CRCs. We can delete it, modify it to make CRC optional,
make the wording more generic to allow the deans to select how to make research
concerns known to the URC. There are lots of options. Dr. Topping suggested every
one really think about this. Dr. Fennel encouraged members to talk to their deans about
this. She was pretty sure that for now CoAL is OK with not having it in there, but they
are still kind of up in the air about whether they would like the wording in there or not.
Maybe some of your colleges have a clear preference. Dr. Topping stated that this is one
of the things Dr. Denis Wiesenburg as Provost needs to be involved in, talking to the
deans about what we need and don’t need in terms of this. They may not even care, but
they will need to be in on the discussion.
ACTION ITEM: Dr. Topping will talk to Dr. Wiesenburg and Dr. Cannon about the College
Research Committees (CRCs).
- Pages 3, e. Standing committees were listed out. Elections were added as agreed upon. I
changed “are to” to “can” be selected from the faculty at large because there are no
faculty at large people on any URC committees in the paragraph above.
- Page 4, x. “These Bylaws can be amended, repealed, or suspended, in part or whole,
through a two-thirds majority of those present and voting.” Dr. Topping encouraged all
members to think about this and come prepared to vote next time on whether this should
be added, therefore allowing a process that make us legal in changing Bylaws. Dr.
Topping thanked Drs. Mohn and Fennell for a great job on the Bylaws. Ms. Joyce Shaw
said she would help serve on it too. She also invited the URC to come to the Coast to
meet and perhaps go out to lunch.
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8. 2012 Innovation Awardees
Dr. Lachel Story reported that Dr. Jay Dean who is receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award is
excited and wants to have his students play music, including moving in a piano, on Awards Day.
She gave him the date and time of the award, but has not notified all of the other nominees yet.
The start time will be between 8:00 and 8:15 a.m. The Awards Day Ceremony is November 9,
2012. She will e-mail the Innovation Award Winners to Dr. Louis Kyriakoudes. The call for
posters was excellent last year and Dr. Fennell I would like to replicate that this year. There was
general agreement on the effectiveness and satisfaction with the event last year.
9. URAD – Friday, November 9, 2012
Dr. Topping and Dr. Kyriakoudes agreed to get together to transfer Dr. Topping’s step by step
information on URAD. The spaces have been reserved and a charge account is needed from Dr.
Cannon’s office. We need to get it on as many university calendars as possible. We failed to do
that last year. Dr. Fennell asked about grad students and possible conflict with Grad Students
Day. Dr. Story suggested it be offered to grad students who have completed their work and are
on their way out. Dr. Fennell agreed not to advertise for grad students and just see what is
submitted. Dr. Topping shared that the McNair Scholars who were recognized last year were
thrilled to be acknowledged at lunch. It was the first time they were ever acknowledged. Dr.
Topping suggested inviting the graduate award winners to do a poster because that person does
not speak. There are four of these winners and they could all be invited to submit. She will send
these names to Dr. Fennell. Dr. Topping suggested telling these four students they would have a
place of honor. Dr. Story said there were some students who had just completed their doctoral
work and were faculty and she would encourage them to present their doctoral work.
10. Other Business: There was no other business to discuss.
11. Next meeting: TBA by e-mail.
12. Adjournment
Meeting adjourned at 4:50 pm
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