University Research Council Minutes
May 12, 2014
Members Present:
Joyce Shaw, Jorge Brown (University Libraries), Cheri Becker (Business), Christopher Barry, Teresa Welsh
(Education & Psychology), Carol Connell, Trent Gould (Health), Louis Kyriakoudes (Arts & Letters),
Bonnie Lee Harbaugh (Nursing)
Members Absent:
Douglas Rust (Arts & Letters), Fujun Lai (Business), Ras Pandy, Mohamed Elasri (Science & Technology),
Lachel Story (Faculty Senate)
Ex Officio Present:
Gordon Cannon (VPR), Sam Bruton (ORI), Marcia Landen (SPA)
Ex Officio Absent:
Syd Conner (SPA)
Others:
Shelia Johnson (SPA)
The meeting was held in McCain Library Room 203. The meeting was called to order at 3: 06 p.m. by
Joyce Shaw, chair.
1. Approval of agenda. Dr. Cheri Beck made a motion to approve by the agenda with a second by
Dr. Trent Gould; motion carried.
2. Approval of minutes.
Dr. Trent Gould made a Motion to approve the April 21, 2014 minutes with the recommended
changes with a second by Dr. Teresa Welsh; motion carried.
3. Update from Office of VP for Research (Gordon Cannon)
a. Dr. Cannon reported that they are working on a University Data Management Plan including
how to pay for it. They are also looking at what happens after a person retires or leaves. A
Program Manager called and wanted an explanation. Intellectual property is involved as
well. They are really busy right now because Congress has done its job and has a budget
now which he jokingly said means he has to earn his keep. They are working through 10-13
initiatives with congressional offices right now. He asked members to keep their fingers
crossed that some of them actually work out. Dr. Louis Kyriakoudes said his project is
literally data management. He asked on a broader sense, about research in social science,
political science, sociology, and even public health which involves data collected on
anonymous human subjects, if moving forward, would the university consider membership
in the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)? The previous
director of ICPSR, Dr. Myron Guttmann, transitioned to heading up the social directorate of
NSF. He felt the benefit would be that you avail yourself of a tremendous amount of
previously collected data, but can also deposit data; a data library. He felt it was a useful
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resource, especially for those involved in quantitative research. Dr. Cannon had concerns
about the appropriate amount of security. He did not know that the university has ever
entertained the idea of joining it, but though it might be worth looking into. Dr. Kyriakoudes
agreed to e-mail him information and a link to the site. After review, it will be discussed at
the next URC session. He added that most large universities are members of ICPSR. It is a
large data depository.
b. Dr. Louis Kyriakoudes asked Dr. Cannon about Dr. Rodney Bennett’s Strategic Planning
initiative and in responding how it is relevant to this committee. What are things to
consider when filling out the survey? Strategic Planning was discussed at length. Dr.
Cannon said he is not on the committee, but Mr. Chase Casper from his office is on it. To his
knowledge, they have been meeting and it comes from the president’s desire to put
together a strategic plan. It is a good thing although he has mixed feelings about it, as he
said he pointed out to Dr. Rodney Bennett. In his 27 years at the university, he has been on
three (3) strategic planning committees and he probably could find copies of all of those
final reports that were put on a shelf somewhere over in Johnson Science Tower and never
touched again. That is his reason for being a little bit skeptical. However, he felt Dr.
Bennett comes from a somewhat different background than some of our other presidents.
He Strategic Planning Committee is headed by Dr. Tom Burk who really understands how to
do strategic planning. Dr. Cannon said he came back from the ALPU meetings in November
2013 feeling very guilty and upset that as far as he knew there has never been a research
strategic plan on this campus. They sat down and talked about working through a strategic
research plan at about the same time as the president announced that he was coming up
with a University Strategic Plan. They decided to wait and see how it plays out and currently
he does not know much more than that about it. Dr. Kyriakoudes thought that as a national
research university for the gulf south, if you peel away what that really involves, USM, with
the strengths that this institution has, with the right positioning/marketing plan could really
stand out by emphasizing our diversity as one of the most diverse research universities in
the country, certainly in the south and not being in a large city, i.e., with all the work we are
doing in the Gulf region addressing the oil disaster and Marine Science, health, diet and
nutrition . . . a small city in the south. Dr. Cannon added that our vice president for finance,
not sure of his title, actually has a Ph.D. in higher education strategic planning from USC and
really knows his stuff. Dr. Cannon said that although his experience has made him a little bit
cynical he does take this very seriously. Also, our vice president for finance actually has a
Ph.D. in higher education strategic planning from USC and really knows how to do this stuff.
Dr. Cheri Becker said as people focus on where they are and their goals, the key part is the
plan and they don’t always put plans in there. Dr. Cannon thought that a very good point—
just defining a good mission. Dr. Cannon agreed that USM really does have a lot of
impressive research components, but it is almost as if they have sprung up by themselves to
some extent. . . First, of all just defining a good mission is important. He never really
understood what being a premiere research university for the gulf south meant. The
director for the National Institute of Health (NIH) came down here last year at the bequest
of Senator Thad Cochran and USM. We were concerned that he was going to cut a pretty
big part of our budget. He pointed out that we are one of the biggest research laboratories
in the world, being in the state of Mississippi and particularly in public health. He was a little
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bit aggravated at being commanded to come down here for one thing, but he really took us
to task. He said you guys are not doing anything. You write a lot of service programs, but
nobody is publishing any papers that is going to make change. Dr. Cannon thought in the
event the University Strategic Plan does not work and the Vice President’s office ends up
doing a Research Strategic Plan that is separate and considerably different from what they
are doing, it would give consideration just because of where we are and seek to take
advantage of the assets we have, even though a lot of people wouldn’t consider them as
assets. Dr. Kyriakoudes said he is not familiar with the literature and expert on planning but
he actually got an e-mail from his dean directing his attention to the web link and noting it
as an important thing to do; which he will do. The process is as important as the product.
Dr. Trent Gould related that in his last strategic planning committee they paid a lot of money
for a consultant and they did a mission, vision, values, and got all the priority areas and then
stopped short and did not go down to the strategist level. They did not even define what
the metrics were. In regards to putting it on a back shelf as Dr. Cannon mentioned, he
thought what most people don’t do is implement it. Then once implemented, put it back in
the cycle of evaluating it, modifying it, and re-implementing it again. He thought some
universities like LSU which is really close to us have done a great job at this. He does not
necessarily mean modeling LSU, but looking at how they have been so successful at
implementation. Dr. Cannon, speaking as a faculty member who has been around a long
time and he admitted he was being a little facetious about the strategic plans not being
implemented, they obviously haven’t, but implementation is tough because we have not
had anybody in place long enough to actually implement anything. He said he is just
beginning to see how slow it is to get anything done at a university. Considering this
evolutionary “E” number of how things evolve, it is not surprising that Horace’s plan did not
get implemented. Dr. Cannon agreed to contact Mr. Chase Casper, who represents research
on the Strategic Planning Committee to address the URC on what is going on, or to e-mail us
on anything he feels like the URC should know. Mr. Casper is now in St. Louis. Ms. Joyce
Shaw said she was curious that even without a Research Strategic Plan, how entities have
come up that are doing a good job. Dr. Cannon said even with a strategic research plan in
place say today, i.e., we are going to do things in the gulf because we are in the gulf, we are
going to do public health because we are in a state where there is a lot of public health
issues, and if it didn’t realign resources which is not a very easy thing to do, what would
happen is that you would encourage people in departments or in groups to sort of push
their way up and either go find resources in other places because this is what they want to
do. He said after a while, like it says in Matthew 25:22, them that’s got, gets, more or less.
What happens is units tend to self-coalesce. Dr. Cheri Becker thought evaluations of the
faculty members need to be tied to the strategic plan and we don’t do those kinds of
evaluations here. At some colleges where they use strategic plans they do evaluations of
management by objectives and the individuals being evaluated know what the strategic plan
is and they develop their personal objectives to work towards the goals in the strategic plan
and their evaluations are based upon what they committed themselves to do in the previous
year. In her opinion, if you don’t get commitments from the people who have to be actively
participating and following through on the plan, you are not going to get very effective
results. Dr. Bonnie Harbaugh added that in nursing their college level goals come from the
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strategic plan. The departments model theirs after the colleges and faculty members do
their objectives accordingly. She said they are currently in between places because they are
expanding last year’s and the year before. They have taken major portions of the
president’s speeches and tried to figure out direction. They are very conscientious because
she said it doesn’t make sense to flounder around out there. Dr. Cannon thought this a
worthwhile discussion and related a conversation he had with the Vice President from
Chevron one time, discussing planning and how things get done in universities. He said we
have got a board and the board sets the big goals, sometimes with input from the CEO,
sometimes not. It then goes to the CEO who passes it to the Vice-president, etc., but we
have one CEO whereas the university has 630 CEO’s. Dr. Cannon remarked that most
faculty, especially tenured faculty do not see themselves as having a boss.
4. Update from ORI (Sam Bruton) Dr. Bruton reported a few items he plans to focus on over the
summer.
a. IRB had one member to step down with an appointed replacement by Dr. Jeff Kaufmann of
Anthropology and Sociology.
b. (IACUC) Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee – going well, semi-annual inspections
with USDA just completed.
c. Three (3) year ORI assurance document done and seems to be going well.
d. Some small IRB forms that need attention, i.e., frequently asked questions document
e. Data Management issues as Dr. Cannon also reported.
f. August reminders on financial conflict of interest to go out, which previously went well, high
expectations for second time around
g. RCR training, integrity assurance program.
He is looking for an inclusive name. There are some problems with people chaffing at
having to do this when they perceive it as having nothing to do with their job
responsibilities. The programs consists of CITI on-line modules, 4-5 on-campus workshops
and forums per semester at the coast as well as Hattiesburg, GCRL, Stennis, and Gulf Park
which are usually well attended although not really a requirement of the policy. Ms. Marcia
Landen helps conduct these workshops and they are often asked how many of these
workshops do they need to attend. The policy is murky on that issue. They do document
who comes to the workshops. The grad students have to have it, but nothing happens to
faculty if they don’t attend. Faculty is held accountable for CITI. Ms. Joanne Johnson the
CITI/RCR manager runs the stats every few months to see who has done it and the results
are ~80% which is pretty good. There is a very high rate of compliance with the policy as it is
now written. There is no requirement at present for live workshops and he did not know
what would happen if they suggested one (1) per year as proposed in today’s meeting. Dr.
Cheri Becker thought it a requirement to work with human subjects. He clarified, yes, for
the IRB. Ms. Marcia Landen said for NIH conflict of interest assurances, before the proposal
is submitted, they don’t go back and check, they rely on the (IAF) Internal Approval Form’s
compliance wording and rely on the integrity of the principal investigator (P.I.). If that is
insufficient for NIH, then we at the administrative level are not providing sufficient checks.
It is not the biggest risk, but it is one. That is for us to figure out, but she said there is no
systematic way. Dr. Bruton said he was not expecting an answer from the URC today, but
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did want to put these things on the radar screens of the members. It is not badly broken.
Dr. Trent Gould thought this would be an area where URC could have impact on policy as Dr.
Cannon suggested in the previous URC meeting. Dr. Bonnie Harbaugh thought as a baseline,
CITI training is OK. She suggested an RCR training requirement of 1 per semester of 2 per
year. There was discussion about the perceived relevance and people who just scroll down
and guess vs. those who complete it with conscientious effort. Dr. Harbaugh said the grad
students are told they have to do this in order to complete their dissertation and they need
to understand it, because there will be no hand holding and subsequently they have a buy
in. Dr. Bruton said they looked at 3 or 4 other institutions and found none that required RCR
training at all. Dr. Chris Barry thought that having these higher standards would actually
reflect highly on us as a university. Dr. Bruton said it is something that has to be done every
five (5) years and we are still within the initial five (5) years. It could be that the next time
around it is harder to get people to do it. Even the theater majors have to do it and he gets
lots of complaints from theater that it does not apply to them. The CITI basic course is
currently required of all grad faculty and all grad students, and all honors college students
for their thesis. They have to show completion to get the degree. Also, it would be a
requirement of any projects that require human subjects. CITI is completely generic and has
nothing to do with USM. Therefore, they try to explain in the live workshops how it works
at USM. However, he is constantly asked about the ambiguity in the policy which he
constantly has to “tap dance” around. NSF leaves the content of it totally up to institutions
how they will train grad students working on NSF grants. Nationwide, 70% of institutions
rely on the CITI modules for all of the training. NIH has language in its regulations requiring
eight (8) hours of recommended live training, but it applies only to those working on NIH
training grants (T series) which USM have none. Mr. Jorge Brown thought while it may not
be perceived as useful now, especially the plagiarism part, a time may come when they are
further along in their research that it appears more relevant. Maybe there might be a way
to look at customizing it further for the humanities to make it appear more relevant. Ms.
Joyce Shaw said that if they are told to do it or a check in the box, they will do it. They have
a good response at the research lab. She has also have them ask how many and giving them
a number will be helpful. She asked if the URC then has a recommended number that we
can give Dr. Bruton. Would that help? Dr. Harbaugh asked what problem it addresses and
said she did not see any regulatory problems. Dr. Kyriakoudes said the CITI training is
required and most people are compliant. He wanted to know the need for the additional
training. Ms. Marcia Landon said the grant requirements are so complex, at least in her
world, and Research Administration will continue to offer these workshops on how you
manage/apply for a grant whether or not they are required simply because it is so complex.
There is always knowledge given and gained. She has seen at other universities faculty who
are part of other disciplines, i.e., (nurses, attorneys, engineers, doctors, etc.) requiring
continuing education do not put up much of a fuss. Then folks like you say, wait, why do I
need to do this? Dr. Cheri Becker said if you are doing the workshops, the attendance
would be even better since the faculty across campus have different issues, if it were more
narrowly defined addressing specific and different issues. In the faculty we have across the
university, different disciplines have different issues. Dr. Bruton said they are pretty narrow
now: Intellectual Property, IRB, IACUC, grants, etc. He said the sense he is getting from the
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committee is not to change it. He said he did not mean to take anything away from Dr.
Siltanen, but this policy was rushed into being in a sense and he is not sure it ever got the
discussion like he heard at this meeting. He hears extreme comments from both sides. He
always passes out feedback forms at the end of the workshops, but they do not get a lot of
feedback or suggestions.
Ms. Joyce Shaw suggested the members go back to their areas, specifically Arts & Letters,
and ask what would be relevant for your area? She felt the members are in a good position
to recommend to Dr. Bruton what kind workshops would be more relevant in their
respective areas and desirable for continuing education credits, which she felt would
promote buy-in.
5. Update from Research Administration (Marcia Landen)
a. Final Reports on grant funded projects
Ms. Landen want URC opinion on whether the current practice of using Research
Administration as a depository for final reports is more desirable. If not, you individually or
your department would be responsible for maintaining the final report. This is a
programmatic thing. An auditor could say, show me the final report, and we would refer
back to you just like we do with other things. Department chairs have never been in this
position. She is proposing that someone has to be responsible for these beyond the
individual in case the individual leaves the university. There are pros and cons. Many of the
reports are submitted electronically and we require a copy be submitted to us. There is
nothing regulatory to maintain them centrally. We file paper copies and maintain them
centrally, following the retention policy of disposing of them after five (5) years. The
rationale is that final reports are a contractual requirement of the sponsor and we need to
insure that those things are done. Contractually, we do not close out until we are assured
the requirement has been met. She has done a poll of her colleagues on this practice with a
50:50 result, about half follow the same practice. Dr. Bruton asked if she did not want the
administrative burden of doing it and she answered, well yes, she would prefer not to have
them, but if it is a convenience, she is not unwilling to keep them in Research
Administration. We don’t require data or anything else. You submit to NIH electronically
and it goes in their system. She asked why in the world you are going to print out a copy to
send me that goes into the file to never see the light of day so that we can check a box and
say that it has been done. She would of course want some reassurance from the faculty
that they have done the final report. She has at times received that assurance by means of
just an e-mail that it has been done, which is fine. They do get notices from the agencies
when there is an overdue final report and will continue to follow up on that. Sometimes
people leave from the university, but the university is still responsible for that final report.
In which case, it would be up to the chair who in some cases never even knew the person.
She said physical control of a copy of that final report to her seems like an extra step for
you. Dr. Kyriakoudes thought the researchers should be responsible for it. Ms. Joyce Shaw
said that from the library perspective, tracking down final reports is a nightmare in her 20
year library experience and she would not want to see them destroyed. She related stories
of the loss of 25 years of reports in Hurricane Katrina that were saved because they had
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archived copies. She said they get many requests for final reports and in her opinion they
do have some intrinsic value for university archives. She did not know if Mr. Haliwell, their
university archivist wanted her to say that, she was just speaking from her own experience.
They have to reside somewhere. Ms. Landen responded that even if Ms. Shaw came to her
requesting a final report, she would not release it without P.I. approval. Final reports have
patent, Copyright, and confidentiality issues many times. After further discussion, it was
suggested this may need to be presented to the Council of Chairs for their input as well.
6. Old Business
a. A date still needs to be set for URAD. Dr. Kyriakoudes said he has not finalized the date, but
he has narrowed it down to Friday, November 7, 2014 or Friday, November 14, 2014. Both
of the dates are “away” football games. He has a compact disk to pass on to his
replacement and recommended his replacement take advantage of Dr. Gordon Cannon’s
offer of help from his assistant, Ms. Denise Casey, who felt she was not as involved as in the
pass.
b. Dr. Bonnie Harbaugh volunteered to be the replacement chair for URAD. She was told there
would be a designated chair for both the poster and the hallway display session, and a core
of other helpers who do not want to chair, but will do anything the chair asks them to do.
Dr. Kyriakoudes committed to give her everything he has including forms letters and to be
available for any questions she might have. She was told she needs to choose the date,
look for any conflicts with the chosen date, call Ms. Polly Odom to check the president’s
schedule and put the date on Dr. Rodney Bennett’s calendar, and also have Ms. Denise
Casey reserve space at the Thad Cochran Center and help by sending out the letters, etc.
Mr. Chris Barry said he has a similarly pretty detailed outline for the new poster chair as
well.
7. New Business – None.
8. Meeting schedule for 2014-2015. Mr. Jorge Brown motioned to table setting up the schedule
for 2014-2015 and Ms. Shaw agreed and said no vote was needed.
9. Meeting adjourned @ 5:05 p.m.
Next meeting TBA.
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