War on Universities, Lawyers & Expertise

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Is your idea that only folks that have experience in academic research or administration get to participate in this topic?
A bit of knowledge might help. There's a reason why the "overhead" costs are high. If you don't understand -- which it seems clear that you don't -- then why are you participating? You should be asking questions.

What Dunning-Kruger idiots like you don't understand is that your ignorance is like a fucking disco ball. Anyone who knows anything about the topic can see that you know shit. It's because you have no idea what you don't know. I did that once during the CA wildfires. I got too carried away talking about a few things I do know (like gravity) that I started talking about shit I didn't know. And somebody who did know could immediately see -- like right away -- that I was talking out of my ass. He pointed it out, and unlike you, I stopped because I realized I had gotten way over my skis. Generally speaking, though, I do a very good job of talking about what I know and asking questions about what I don't.
 
Imagine Zen as an infrastructure project director:

"Sir, where should we build the wall? What does the research say about where flooding will occur? "

Zen: umm, lemme see, uh, near the water I reckon.

"Sir, how high does it need to be?"

Zen: Uh, pretty tall. Not too tall. Don't waste tax dollars.

"Sir, how strong?"

Zen: concrete strong should do. Maybe put some fill dirt in the middle to save a little bit of money.
 
I didn't say we should stop studying it. I said we don't need the federal government funding 20 different universities to study it.

I actually agree with this. Likewise, we should endow a new university called Cancer University to stop so many universities from studying such a tiny human problem. Only Cancer U can study cancer! Go fighting Chemotherapies!
 
Add in going after international students which is a big money maker for schools.

At some point I'm expecting some Trump admin official to openly wonder about capping international student slots at American universities. Would fit in nicely with America First.

Right out of the Orban playbook
And capping international students at college and universities would help handicap them financially and make it easier for the Trump administration to force them to make the changes to their curriculum that they want. It really is the Viktor Orban handbook playing out in the USA.
 
Is your idea that only folks that have experience in academic research or administration get to participate in this topic?
Not at all, but like many issues, this is one where actual knowledge of the details vs common perceptions matters.
Based on what I've read about the overhead associated with these programs. The biggest thing that stood out to me was private actors in general putting a much smaller limit on the amount of the grant that could go to overhead.
Those lower caps on F&A from NGOs or other entities are typically not sufficient to cover the actual administrative costs incurred doing the work that is the subject of the grant. The baseline paperwork and accounting require significant man hours from someone who is knowledgeable about state, federal, and grantor requirements as well as university business procedures. The work involved for a $25k grant isn’t really much less than that for a $1million dollar grant (other than purchase/account reconciliation and human resource expenses, which typically scale more proportionally) so getting $2500 from that small, private source is a net loss.

There was some semi-serious discussion here several years ago about setting a minimum bar for overhead costs below which we would not submit grant applications but these are usually small pots of money that are frequently received by junior faculty, make up a tiny fraction of total grant funding (and losses more easily absorbed), and the optics of a university refusing money because it’s small potatoes are rather poor so that never came to be. Still, there is a lot of bitching from grant administration about what a time suck those little awards are.
 
I actually agree with this. Likewise, we should endow a new university called Cancer University to stop so many universities from studying such a tiny human problem. Only Cancer U can study cancer! Go fighting Chemotherapies!
Now I kinda agree that we should evaluate funding cancer research. I think NIH funds around 8 billion/year in cancer research...

Everybody dies of something some time and with most cancers, it's older people who are close to death's door...

That said, so many younger people die of auto accidents, and drug overdoses...

Shouldn't we decrease our 8 billion dollars to cancer research and shift those dollars to researching ways to reduce auto accidents and make street drugs safer ?
 
Not at all, but like many issues, this is one where actual knowledge of the details vs common perceptions matters.

Those lower caps on F&A from NGOs or other entities are typically not sufficient to cover the actual administrative costs incurred doing the work that is the subject of the grant. The baseline paperwork and accounting require significant man hours from someone who is knowledgeable about state, federal, and grantor requirements as well as university business procedures. The work involved for a $25k grant isn’t really much less than that for a $1million dollar grant (other than purchase/account reconciliation and human resource expenses, which typically scale more proportionally) so getting $2500 from that small, private source is a net loss.

There was some semi-serious discussion here several years ago about setting a minimum bar for overhead costs below which we would not submit grant applications but these are usually small pots of money that are frequently received by junior faculty, make up a tiny fraction of total grant funding (and losses more easily absorbed), and the optics of a university refusing money because it’s small potatoes are rather poor so that never came to be. Still, there is a lot of bitching from grant administration about what a time suck those little awards are.
I guess we'll see. I suspect that some administrative bloat can be cut, like pretty much every bureaucracy, and some cuts will be too deep and we will lose out on valuable research. Hopefully not too much.
 
Not at all, but like many issues, this is one where actual knowledge of the details vs common perceptions matters.

Those lower caps on F&A from NGOs or other entities are typically not sufficient to cover the actual administrative costs incurred doing the work that is the subject of the grant. The baseline paperwork and accounting require significant man hours from someone who is knowledgeable about state, federal, and grantor requirements as well as university business procedures. The work involved for a $25k grant isn’t really much less than that for a $1million dollar grant (other than purchase/account reconciliation and human resource expenses, which typically scale more proportionally) so getting $2500 from that small, private source is a net loss.

There was some semi-serious discussion here several years ago about setting a minimum bar for overhead costs below which we would not submit grant applications but these are usually small pots of money that are frequently received by junior faculty, make up a tiny fraction of total grant funding (and losses more easily absorbed), and the optics of a university refusing money because it’s small potatoes are rather poor so that never came to be. Still, there is a lot of bitching from grant administration about what a time suck those little awards are.

That's pretty interesting...especially the way that you describe it. Might it be that the small grants are also foundational in regard to the careers and experiences of those junior faculty receiving them?
 
Rutgers is proposing collective action for the Big Ten.




Resolution to Establish a Mutual Defense Compact for the Universities of the Big Ten Academic Alliance in Defense of Academic Freedom, Institutional Integrity, and the Research Enterprise


Whereas
, recent and escalating politically motivated actions by governmental bodies pose a significant threat to the foundational principles of American higher education, including the autonomy of university governance, the integrity of scientific research, and the protection of free speech;


Whereas, the Trump administration and aligned political actors have signaled a willingness to target individual institutions with legal, financial, and political incursion designed to undermine their public mission, silence dissenting voices, and/or exert improper control over academic inquiry;


Whereas, the Big Ten Academic Alliance represents not only athletic competition but also a longstanding tradition of academic collaboration, research excellence, and commitment to democratic values and shared governance; Whereas, the Big Ten Academic Alliance includes 18 universities with thousands of instructors serving over 600,000 students;


Whereas, the preservation of one institution’s integrity is the concern of all, and an infringement against one member university of the Big Ten shall be considered an infringement against all;


Be it resolved that, the Rutgers University Senate urges the President of Rutgers University to formally propose and help establish a Mutual Academic Defense Compact (MADC) among all members of the Big Ten Academic Alliance;


Be it further resolved that, under this compact, all participating institutions shall commit meaningful funding to a shared or distributed defense fund. This fund shall be used to provide immediate and strategic support to any member institution under direct political or legal infringement;


Be it further resolved that, participating institutions shall make available, at the request of the institution under direct political infringement, the services of their legal counsel, governance experts, and public affairs offices to coordinate a unified and vigorous response, including but not limited to: Legal representation and countersuit actions; strategic public communication; amicus briefs and expert testimony; legislative advocacy and coalition-building; related topical research as needed.


Be it finally resolved that, this resolution be transmitted to the leadership of all Big Ten universities and their respective governing boards and shared governance bodies, and that the President of Rutgers University take a leading role in convening a summit of Big Ten academic and legal leadership to initiate the implementation of this Compact.


 
Right out of the Orban playbook.
Yep. That and Christopher Rufo. The NY Times just posted an interview with him where he is described as an influential Trump adviser in going after "Marxism" and DEI in American universities. I'm somewhat surprised that Trump didn't just make him Secretary of Education. When it comes to American education I've thought for awhile that Rufo is one of the most dangerous adversaries of American universities. He'd love nothing more than to turn every American university into Liberty or Hillsdale College type institutions, as he's been busily doing to the once respected New College in Florida as a DeSantis-appointed trustee.
 


“[describes government oversight of the leading universities in Egypt and Turkey undermining the quality of those universities] …

This sorry condition of major universities in the Middle East should be a warning to everyone who cares about higher education in the United States, American competitiveness, and U.S. soft power. There is no other country whose universities can keep up with the pace-setting, world-class nature of those in the United States, whose faculties and students can (until recently) pursue knowledge without fear of state interference.

The quality of American higher education built and nurtured on the principles of free inquiry is the reason why people all over the world want to send their kids to college in America.

Three of Erdogan’s children went to Indiana University. In Jeddah, it is hard to find a member of the Saudi business elite who has not attended UCLA or USC, and there are a noticeable number of Harvard, Yale, and Tufts graduates in Riyadh. When I was studying for my doctorate at Penn, there was an army of Turkish and East Asian students in attendance.

… All that said, any objective observation of what has gone down on campuses over the last 18 months makes clear that American universities have a range of problems, many of which are their own making. The stories of timorous leadership, rank antisemitism, left-wing dogmatism, and political activism masquerading as research are well-known by now. It seems that a large number of graduates are credentialed but are neither well-educated nor curious about the world—steeped as they are in the moral absolutism of contemporary pedagogy.

These are real problems, but, of course, the news stories and commentary about campus excess purposefully overlook how universities are critical to the development and understanding of artificial intelligence, discovering cures for various forms of cancer, developing a vaccine for AIDS, advancing quantum computing, understanding de-democratization, and gaining insight into ancient civilizations, to name a few random and notable examples.

In its zeal to punish universities and establish control over them, Team Trump—which is chock-full of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other elite school grads—is risking current and future achievements, inventions, and innovations. …”
 
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