Your editorial "Uneasy academic divorce," July 21, like most divorces, makes no mention of the elephant in the living room: It's all about the money in the separation of the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering and the University at Albany.
All research grants and contracts in the State University of New York system must budget an indirect cost amount that typically exceeds 50 percent of the total project cost. This amount is usually divided between the campus president and the Research Foundation of SUNY. The campus president thus has a useful discretionary fund to support anything from library books to lab equipment, academic programs, staff increases, etc. With the increasing dependency on external funds to support the operating budgets of public research universities, indirect costs are critical for the survival and growth of such campuses as UAlbany.
I speak from personal experience as a now-retired UAlbany faculty member who generated more than $8 million in external grants that included about $4 million in indirect costs. These figures take on much greater significance when it comes to the more than $1 billion generated by CNSE.
Who now decides where the indirect cost amounts go on the University at Albany campus? Until now, it would go to the campus president. However, because of the recent decision by the Board of Trustees to create a separate, independent CNSE, these future discretionary funds will go directly to CNSE. All the talk about "new academic and research opportunities" is just cover for the power of who controls the purse.
Think of the implications of this decision for the other 33 (now 34) state-operated campuses of SUNY.
Vincent J. Aceto
SUNY Distinguished Service Professor, Collins Fellow, Albany