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Features
Academic
Freedom, Individual or Institutional?
A Balancing Act: Competing
Claims For Academic Freedom
The
University Counsel: A Roundtable Discussion
Making Defensible Tenure
Decisions
Making
Accommodations: The Legal World of Students with Disabilities
A
Key Collaboration: Phi Beta Kappa, The AAUP, and the Future of the Academy
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From
the Editor
Sanctioned
Institutions
Censured Administrations
Book
Reviews
Washington Watch
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State of the Profession
From the General Secretary
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Academic Freedom and Tenure: University
of Virginia
Report of the 2001 Nominating Committee
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Chemistry Journal Reinstates Disputed Article
After postponing publication of a paper because of objections from an author's former mentor, the chemistry journal Langmuir has printed it with an unusual addendum. The mentor and three postdoctoral researchers state in the addendum that although they contributed to the work described in the paper, they are not comfortable being listed as coauthors. They claim that the work has not been replicated yet and that some of the paper's conclusions may be erroneous.
The author, Peter Schwartz, who is now a faculty member in the physics department at California Polytechnic State University, was a postdoctoral researcher in Chad Mirkin's lab at Northwestern University when, he says, he discovered a new patterning technology that makes possible the assembly of materials on the nanoscopic level, and demonstrates how nanostructures might subsequently be self-assembled using DNA linkage, a process that could have both computing and medical uses.
Schwartz's paper based on this research was accepted by Langmuir after outside reviewers praised the work, but its publication was delayed when Mirkin voiced his objections. "His contributions were minor and incomplete components of a much larger project," Mirkin opines, charging that Schwartz "has taken incomplete work from our group and presented it as his own."
Schwartz maintains that his paper is based on his own valid findings and argues that Mirkin's attempt to obstruct the paper's publication sends a chilling message to junior scientists, who must publish to advance in their careers. "Scientific investigation that produces results should be published, and as quickly as possible so that other scientists can replicate the work, critique it, and build on it," he says.
The controversy highlights the complexity of intellectual property issues in academic science and raises the question whether postdoctoral researchers need the consent of senior researchers to publish results. The usual practice in the physical sciences is for the lead researcher on a particular project, the lab chief, and everyone else who worked on the project to sign onto any publication of the project's results as coauthors. In this case, both sides agree that Schwartz offered coauthorship to Mirkin and to others in the lab, but was turned down; it wasn't his to offer, says Mirkin.
Disputes about who should get credit are not uncommon, but they usually center on who will receive the prestigious "first author" credit. A situation in which a lab chief refused permission to publish after a paper was submitted by a researcher does not seem to have arisen before. Most authorship disputes are worked out in private, says Northwestern University's vice president for research, Lydia Villa-Komaroff, who adds that "it's unfortunate that Peter Schwartz decided to play this out in public." The postponement of the paper's publication received considerable coverage in the science and academic press. In an exchange of letters published in Chemical and Engineering News, Villa-Komaroff points out that the dispute goes beyond concerns about professional recognition and the experiment's reproducibility; it also involves concerns about patent rights. In cases like this one, where the research at issue may have lucrative commercial applications, individual researchers in a lab, the lab head, and the university have financial interests at stake.Back to top
Medical Journals Strengthen Ethics Requirements
Editors of twelve medical journals announced this fall new ethics guidelines that, among other measures, will require authors of published articles, including editorials and review articles, to disclose all financial and personal relationships that "could be viewed as presenting a potential conflict of interest."
Revisions to the ethics section of a widely used biomedical publishing manual on which the journals rely also specify that researchers should avoid agreements with sponsors that may limit their ability to access, analyze, or publish data, and that they must disclose any role that sponsors have in designing studies, collecting or interpreting data, writing reports, or deciding when to publish results. In addition, the editors will not accept manuscripts based on studies conducted under conditions allowing sponsors solely to control or withhold publication of data. The group includes editors of some of the most prestigious medical journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Lancet.
In recent years, concerns have been raised about the ability of corporate sponsors to suppress research results that cast their products in an unfavorable light and about the objectivity of researchers being compromised by their financial involvement with the companies that sponsor research. (For more information on this topic and on the AAUP's position on it, see "Conflict of Interest Guidelines Proposed" on page 4 of the May-June 2001 issue of Academe and the Statement on Corporate Funding of Academic Research on page 68 of the same issue.)
Noting that most decisions about medical treatment are ultimately based on the published findings of clinical trials, the editors say that the public assumes that data from such trials have been gathered, and are presented, in an objective manner. But, they note, this "precious objectivity" may be threatened by current research conditions that increasingly put corporate sponsors, instead of scientific investigators, in control of the design of clinical trials and of the interpretation and dissemination of their results. "[T]he use of clinical trials primarily for marketing," the editors say, "makes a mockery of clinical investigation and is a misuse of a powerful tool."Back to top
Faculty Diversification Not Progressing in Chemistry
The top fifty chemistry departments in the United States have made no progress toward diversifying their faculties in the last decade, according to Science magazine. Reporting on a study led by Donna Nelson, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Oklahoma, Science noted that although the number of Ph.D.'s awarded to blacks has more than doubled since 1990, only one black candidate has been hired as an assistant professor at a top-fifty department in that time. Nelson defined the top departments as those carrying out the most research. Together, blacks and Hispanics constitute a mere 1 percent of tenured or tenure-track faculty members in those departments.
Several chemistry department chairs told Science that despite the increase in the number of Ph.D.'s granted to under-represented minorities, the pool of candidates remains very small, making hiring difficult. Others suggest that academia has been unable to match the compensation offered by businesses that are also trying to increase minority hires. But some chemists suggested that other practices, such as marginalizing minority faculty members and overloading them with introductory courses, contribute to the problem.
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is concerned about the issue and is assembling a task force to look into it, says Paul Walter, a member of the ACS council and a past president of both the ACS and the AAUP. "It's disturbing that at the same time that the number of underrepresented minorities awarded Ph.D.'s is increasing, the number in assistant professor positions is dropping," Walter says, adding that "even from a selfish point of view, it's something chemists need to worry about. If the proportion of blacks and Hispanics among chemists doesn't keep up with the proportion of these groups in the general population, who's going to do chemistry in the future?" Meanwhile, Nelson says that her research suggests that the problem is not confined to chemistry. She has completed similar surveys of chemical engineering and physics departments, and reports that the results are almost as bad. Surveys on several other scientific fields are
under way."One thing universities can do to ameliorate the situation is to pay attention to what the women and minorities in science departments are saying," Nelson says. "Such individuals are best positioned to see the disincentives that may be keeping others out."Back to top
VSU Board Dissolves Faculty Council
The Virginia State University's board of visitors voted in August to dissolve the university's faculty council. Relations between the board and the council had been tense for several years, and the faculty council had publicly criticized the university administration. According to the administration, the recent decision followed an incident in which the faculty council chair refused to provide copies of minutes, reports, and other documents requested by a committee charged by the board with evaluating the council. The board announced that a council consisting of faculty and staff will replace the dissolved faculty council.
At its first meeting of the 2001-02 academic year, the Faculty Senate of Virginia, which represents faculty members at all of the state's public and private two- and four-year colleges and universities, unanimously endorsed the following statement regarding the dissolution of VSU's faculty council:The Faculty Senate of Virginia has followed with mounting concern and dismay the unfortunate events at Virginia State University in Petersburg, culminating in the dissolution of the peer-elected VSU Faculty Council by the institution's Board of Visitors on August 3, 2001. The Faculty Senate of Virginia deplores that action because it has eliminated at VSU one of higher education's most time-honored traditions: shared governance with peer-elected faculty representation, which has characterized and contributed significantly to the excellence of institutions of higher education in the Commonwealth of Virginia and in the rest of the nation for over a century. The Faculty Senate of Virginia urges the Board of Visitors of Virginia State University to restore the VSU Faculty Council.Back to top
Gap to Rise Between Rich And Poor Institutions
The economic structure of higher education promises to become more unequal over time, according to the authors of a report on institutions' savings habits. In Savings, Wealth, Performance, and Revenues in U.S. Colleges and Universities, researchers Gordon Winston, Jared Carbone, and Laurie Hurshman examine data on savings rates and extrapolate into the future. Because the ability to save depends heavily on present wealth, for the most part, the rich will get richer, the report predicts.
The ramifications of financial inequities are particularly sweeping in higher education, because its "product," education, almost always costs more than institutions charge for it. Colleges rely on their accumulated wealth to make up the difference between what they charge for tuition and the actual cost of educating students. The scale on which they are able to do so varies greatly according to their wealth. The report estimates that institutions currently offer their students subsidies ranging from about $2,000 to $25,000 a year. The "subsidy hierarchy" translates into a quality hierarchy, as the richest schools are able to attract the best students and engage and retain the best faculty.The report is part of the Williams Project, an ongoing research project on higher education economics that is centered at Williams College.Back to top
For-Profit Programs Proliferate
The for-profit sector of higher education is growing fast, and nonprofit institutions increasingly emulate its techniques, according to a report issued in July by the Education Commission of the States. The report is based on a study funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which supports research and other projects relating to for-profit and online education.
According to the report, enrollment in for-profit degree-granting institutions has grown by 59 percent over the past decade. During the same period, the number of two-year for-profit degree-granting institutions increased by 78 percent, and the number of four-year institutions in that category increased by 266 percent.
The report attributes the growth of the for-profit sector largely to student enthusiasm for its career orientation, noting that "skills (versus theory) and practical subjects (versus the liberal arts) receive greater emphasis at for-profit institutions than at traditional colleges and universities." The report also states, however, that degree programs in all sectors of higher education have become more career-oriented, noting that a majority of all degrees are now granted in fields such as business, education, engineering, and the health professions rather than in the liberal arts and social sciences. And it asserts that nonprofit post-secondary institutions are "being encouraged" to emulate their for-profit counterparts in areas such as entrepreneurship, the establishment of for-profit divisions, and responsiveness to the wishes of employers and "clients."Back to top
Favored Campus Projects Get Boost from Congress
Congressional spending on the projects of specific universities hit a high of $1.668 billion for fiscal 2001, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. "The 2001 numbers stand out by any measure: the largest single-year increase, the largest number of institutions receiving money, the largest number of projects," the newsweekly reported.
Awards targeted at certain projects, called earmarks, are granted at the behest of members of Congress who work to bring money into their own districts, rather than through an organized or competitive process. A state's chances of getting earmarks are greatly increased if its representatives serve on the right committees in Washington. For example, the Chronicle reported that New Hampshire, the only state with no earmarks in 1995, leapt to seventh among states this year after one of the state's senators became the chair of an appropriations subcommittee and began working to secure money for his state.
Projects supported by earmarks this year are varied. Dartmouth College was awarded $18 million for a study on the prevention of "cybercrime"; the University of New Hampshire was awarded $14 million to build a coastal marine laboratory and a pier for docking research vessels; and the University of Alaska at Fairbanks got $645,000 to develop a machine to debone wild salmon, according to the Chronicle.
Although earmarks, along with other forms of pork-barrel spending, are widely criticized as being both wasteful and unfair, there is little chance that they will disappear any time soon. Universities are unlikely to discourage such windfalls, and legislators have little motivation to stop a practice that wins them friends in their home states. Back to top
Vatican Will Not Open Archives to Scholars
A panel of Catholic and Jewish historians charged with studying the role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust disbanded in July after it was denied access to documents in the Vatican archives. The panel, originally composed of three Catholic and three Jewish members, was jointly appointed in 1999 by the Vatican and the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC), which represents a number of Jewish organizations. One Catholic member subsequently retired, and her successor had not joined the panel when it disbanded.The panel started work with about a dozen volumes of archival materials relating to World War II that had been published by the Vatican. Last year, it issued a preliminary report that raised a number of questions and suggested that they could be answered only through recourse to additional unpublished materials relating to Pius XII, who was pope from 1939 to 1958. In a letter to the panel, the Vatican's president of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews replied that records for the years up to 1923 are accessible, but that access to later documents "is not possible at present for technical reasons." In a letter signed by all five active members, the panel responded that "without access in some reasonable manner to additional archival material, we cannot make substantial progress." Panel members concluded that "we must suspend our work."
The group had been empanelled with the hope that its research might help to resolve an ongoing rift between the church and many Jewish groups that suspect that the church was indifferent to, if not complicit in, the slaughter of millions of Jews during the Holocaust. Instead, the panel's activities have reignited the controversy. Some suspect that the Vatican's refusal to open the archive arises from a desire to conceal damaging evidence, while others accuse the Jewish members of the panel of acting inappropriately by making premature and critical statements to the press about the controversy. The issue is made more heated by the church's having begun the process of beatifying Pius XII, a step on the way to sainthood.
Defenders of the Vatican's action characterize as reasonable the Vatican's explanation that the materials sought are as yet uncatalogued and thus not ready for scholarly use. Some also note that delaying the release of archives for decades after the events they chronicle is not unique to the Vatican but is, in fact, common practice among most Western democracies. Critics of the Vatican, including the IJCIC, note that select scholars have been given early archival access on other occasions, and urge the Vatican to grant the same access to the panel. Back to top