Members of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee have expressed in no uncertain terms their overwhelming displeasure with a policy issued by the administration last December that requires all researchers to include the cost of graduate student tuition in grants.

Jaylan S. Turkkan, vice president for research who attended the FSEC's March 28 meeting to address the issue, said the policy falls in line with protocol at other universities.

"It's very frustrating when you find out that other universities have cleverly been putting the graduate-student tuitions on their budgets," she said, noting that a friend of hers who is a National Science Foundation program officer told her that UB "is a little bit behind the curve."

Frank Gasparini, professor of physics and vice chair of the College of Arts and Sciences Policy Committee, presented the case -as laid out by a unanimously agreed-upon resolution approved Feb. 28 by the committee-for rescinding the directive, which, he assured senators, would result in a potentially disastrous decline in the number of graduate students at UB and a "second-rate" reputation to follow.

Under the policy, effective Dec. 14 via a mem to deans from Turkkan, graduate-student tuition-scholarships that are funded by a line-item in the SUNY budget that now will be managed by the Provost's Office-must be included on grant applications, a provision that can be waived "only with the approval of the dean and vice president for research," the memo states.

But, Gasparini said, including graduate tuition as a direct cost in a grant proposal translates to less money for researchers.

"The reality is, things are going to have to be cut," he said, such as graduate students, supplies and equipment. Another ramification is that the cost of graduate students becomes comparable to the cost of post-doctoral students or technicians, who have to be trained less frequently, he said.

Essentially, the only subsidy researchers receive from the university is the tuition scholarship, he noted, and if that's taken away-as well as having to "pay through the nose on overhead (indirect costs)"-researchers will find themselves lagging behind the competition.

"These are all negatives at this university (that make) us second-rate, relative to what we would like to compare ourselves to," he said.

Turkkan also cited as part of the rationale for the new policy Provost Elizabeth D. Capaldi's tendency to bring in "best practices from other sites."

"She made this recommendation to me as well-this is what they've been doing in (the University of) Florida for years," she said.

Speaking as a former National Institutes of Health "funder" of grants, Turkkan said that, with one exception, she never hesitated to award a grant based on how expensive it was. She also noted that modular budgets-which require less detail-make it more difficult to cut funding from the grant proposal.

Turkkan, who pointed out that after issuing the policy she received correspondence that resembled hate-mail, suggested investigators also consider negotiating with program officers, a tip she received from the NSF.

If the cost of tuition is not covered through the grant award, however, the university would foot the bill, Turkkan explained-although a determination of who will and will not be covered seems a lingering loophole.

“You ask for the money and don’t get it, OK,” Turkkan said.

“Who’s going to decide who gets tuition waivers then?” Gasparini asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Turkkan.

One of the biggest gripes given voice at the meeting was the way in which the policy struck like a “lightning bolt,” as one professor put it.

“There was consultation—maybe not in a form you would prefer,” Turkkan told FSEC members, referring to initial meetings with the deans.

“Consultation occurs before dissemination,” pointed out Samuel Schack, professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics. “The problem is (faculty) weren’t talked to about this…before there was an attempt to institute such a policy.

“Policies with this kind of impact should never come out in a memo,” he added.

Joseph Mollendorf, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and chair of the senate’s Research and Creative Activities Committee, called the policy “another example of (faculty members) not being asked for any input at all.”

Turkkan noted that Capaldi “has established a process of advice and information dissemination to the deans,” and that when both she and Capaldi met with the deans, no one took issue with the policy. Turkkan also noted that as an insurance measure, the policy memo was sent via email to all faculty after it had been presented to the deans.

“I think it’s certainly true that if you communicate with the deans, that’s probably a dead end,” said John Boot, professor and chair of the Department of Management Science and Systems. “But if you communicate with the active research faculty, I think that’s a good point.”

Charles Fourtner, professor of biological sciences, argued that the graduate student is the “pawn” in this change of policy.

“The real interest is in generating more dollars…for the university to use otherwise,” he asserted. “I’d hate to think of the administration here as thinking that the research faculty are essentially a flock of sheep that’s going to follow a particular order.

“I don’t think you want to handle us that way,” he added.

Turkkan again defended the policy, stating that “if the government allows us to ask for this kind of money”—referring to what she said was an 11th-hour directive issued by President Clinton directing federal agencies to pay graduate tuition included in grants—“I think it behooves us to be savvy enough to ask for it when it is allowed.”

That directive actually is a clarification stemming from a 2000 Clinton policy and issued by the federal Office of Management and Budget that supports the inclusion of graduate tuition on federal grant proposals—but does not guarantee or mandate the agencies to provide funding, according to the Council on Governmental Relations.

Mollendorf questioned what will happen if the new policy doesn’t work—specifically, if researchers end up substituting technicians or post-docs for graduate students.

“I don’t know what to say,” Turkkan replied, adding, “I think part of the mission of the university is to train graduate students.”

“Then why shoot ourselves in the foot?” Mollendorf responded.

The issue was referred to the Research and Creative Activities Committee, which was asked to come back with a recommendation.

In other business, Schack, chair of the senate’s Tenure and Privileges Committee, brought to the FSEC a resolution drafted by his committee that reinforces faculty support of a policy on faculty responsibility “overwhelmingly approved” by the senate in 1993. The resolution is a response to a November memo circulated to the deans by Capaldi on faculty workload.

The memo stated that faculty members whose research output has been evaluated as not meeting the standard for their particular school or college for two consecutive years should be assigned to increased teaching and service responsibilities.

“You can feel very confident that if anybody tries to implement (the provost’s) policy,” he told faculty, “…there will be a war, it will result in grievances, it will result in a national black eye whose only virtue would be that it would obscure a little bit our basketball scandals.”

The FSEC passed a slightly amended resolution, which is slated for discussion at Tuesday’s Faculty Senate meeting.