Peter J. Riley |
“My Second UT Austin Career”
(Peter Riley -2019)
My First UT Career:
I Started at UT in 1962 in experimental nuclear physics and spent 10 years as a member of the UT Center for Nuclear Studies. I spent most of the next 20 years as a “suitcase physicist” working in medium and high energy Physics at the national laboratories, mostly Los Alamos, followed by Brookhaven (BNL – rare decays at the synchrotron; quark-gluon experiments). During 1983–1984, I served as Program Director (the unofficial title is “rotator”) of Intermediate Energy Nuclear Physics, NSF (National Science Foundation), and during my stint with the NSF I discovered that I enjoyed the field of bureaucracy. In the late 1980’s it was decided to convert the BNL synchrotron into a high-energy heavy-ion collider for the search for the “quark-gluon plasma.” (on-line by the mid 90’s). Interesting, but extremely difficult both experimentally and theoretically (this program is still ongoing in 2019, and I’m still not sure what the jury says). In addition, the experiments grew to a staggering size, complexity and cost, with many hundreds of collaborators!
At about this time (1992), the UT Physics Dept. needed a new Chairman; I applied for and was given the job by Bob Boyer, then Dean of College of Natural Sciences (CNS). The Chairmanship was perhaps the most fun of any job I had in my entire life! (the economy was good and it’s much easier being a bureaucrat in good than in poor economic times!)
Anyway, my time-line was 1962-1992, or 30 years as a nuclear physicist. From 1992-2012 (20 years) I worked as a bureaucrat. I retired in 2012, ending a 50-year career.
Note: In the following Peter uses many abbreviations. Here is a list for easy reference:
ACES Applied Computational Engineering and Sciences Building renamed The O'Donnell Building
ADA American Disability Act
ARL Applied Research Laboratory
BFL Brackenridge Field Laboratory
BME BioMechanical Engineering
BOD Board of Directors
CNS College of Natural Sciences
DPRI Dell Pediatric Research Institute Building
EHS UT Office of Environmental Health & Safety
ERB Estuarine Research Building
ESB Experimental Science Building
HET – Hobby Eberle Telescope
ICES The Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences
ICMB Institute of Cellular and Molecular Biology
IDC Indirect Cost Return
MBB (Moffett) Molecular Biology Building
MEP Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing
MSI Marine Sciences Institute
NHB Norman Hackerman Building
NMS Neural and Molecular Sciences Building
NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
OFPC Office of Facilities and Project Construction
OFPC Office of Facility Planning and Construction
OFPC Office of Facility Planning and Construction
OHR Office of Human Resources
OSP Office of Sponsored Projects
PMCS Project Management and Construction Services (now PDC "Project Design and Construction")
PRC Pickle Research Campus
TMM Texas Memorial Museum (Now Texas Science and Natural History Museum)
VPR Office of the VP for Research
My Second UT Austin Career
I had spent much of my ~20 years of research off-campus, at ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), LANL Los Alamos National Laboratory, and BNL(Brookhaven National Laboratory). I knew few UT researchers outside of physics, mathematics, astronomy, and chemistry, but not even very many of those. Except for my 3 years as Chair of Physics I had minimal broad College of Natural Sciences (CNS) associations. I had even less knowledge of off-campus research at Brackenridge Field Laboratory (BFL), Pickle Research Campus, (PRC), the Marine Sciences Institute (UTMSI), McDonald Observatory, or Stengl Lost Pines-and had much catching up to do!
Some 2018 College and Physics Department Facts:
- UT Physics: 50+ Faculty members; about 50-55 staff members total; about 300 graduate students, with about the same number of undergraduate students.
- CNS (the largest by far in UT Austin, and one of the largest in the U.S., with about 13,000 students (1200 graduate)), 700 faculty (~350 tenure, tenure-track), and more than 1200 staff members.
- For comparison, UT Austin has an administrative staff of 11,645, and an academic staff of 3,071, for a total of ~ 15,000. UT has somewhat more than 52,000 students, including ~13,000 graduate students).
- UT Physics is about the same size as it was in 1994; CNS has grown significantly, especially in the number of undergraduate students.
I moved my office from the (then) Robert L. Moore Building (RLM) to a huge office in W.C. Hogg with an equally large conference table. The equally huge office next door housed the CNS Associate Dean for Administrative and Academic Affairs. You may have heard of his name-Michael Starbird, Professor of Mathematics.
Regarding the term “Research and Facilities, “Research” refers to the research programs of our CNS scientists, most of whom carry on research at UT Austin. “Facilities” consists mostly of CNS laboratories and the research equipment housed there. Some research programs, such as those at MSI, BFL, or the Wildflower Center are not always carried out in laboratories, but most do need “facilities”. My interpretation of my job-title: help UT CNS members attract and maintain active on-going research programs. Research programs vary all the way from those in Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics, and at that time Geological Sciences, to Biological Sciences, Human Ecology (Nutrition, Design, and HDFS), and Marine Sciences. I knew nothing about the science of the last four programs, and that remains mostly true today.
My 1996 staff help consisted of oneI secretary. My predecessor maintained an active Biology research program and specifically worked as Associate Dean four hours/day. Few records were kept. My thinking on both my Physics and CNS jobs was that I would spend as much time as I felt was needed on my administrative positions and use any remaining time for research. I soon found that I had no “remaining” time free at all from either position. My research career effectively ended in early 1992.
I spent my first week as Associate Dean walking around, trying to introduce myself to College researchers and their laboratories, many (most?) of which were in old and decrepit buildings. Soon I was interacting with many of them. These interactions were perhaps the most rewarding and interesting part of my job–I got to know, respect, and enjoy many, many interesting people that I would otherwise have never met! It made my life and work worthwhile, and I still try to keep up with some of them today.
Some of the people I got to know and like early included Karen Artzt (Biology), Paul Gottlieb, then Chair of Molecular Biology, Jean Andrews, a member of Mary Ann’s Visiting Committee, Anne Molineux and her husband Ian, a Professor of Microbiology. I had known Eldon Sutton (Biology) long ago, when he was the UT VP for Research; Tom Griffy (Physics) since he joined UT; Roy Schwitters (Physics) since he was Director of the ill-fated super-conducting supercollider accelerator project (SSC). I’d already met with Clark Penrod, director of UT’s largest ORU (organized research unit), ARL (Applied Research Laboratory), on UT Committees. (He was also the last graduate student of my old-time running friend, Terry Wagner). I also got to know Frank Bash, Astronomer, fabulous teacher, and then Director of MacDonald Observatory, and many, many others.
The biggest McDonald project was then the large (11m) HET – Hobby Eberle Telescope. The HET is a joint project, consisting then of UT Austin, Penn State U, Stanford U, and two German Universities, with UT and Penn State the Senior members of the collaboration. (UT’s share ~50% - the Senior member). As Dean, Mary Ann was a member of the HET BOD (Board of Directors) which met twice yearly. Since she seldom had time to attend these meetings, I attended them as her representative. This was perhaps the most “fun” of any of my assignments, especially since the science was essentially “physics”. Frank had an awesome career, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with him.
The Dean’s Office, McDonald Observatory, and MSI each have a separate “Board of Visitors” consisting mainly of people recruited from outside the University, and whose main function is to help the respective unit in any way they best can, including (but not limited to) financial gifts and political influence. These units often serve to “bridge the gap” between the academic and non-academic communities. For example, why should ordinary people support a very large and expensive telescope, providing no obvious universal benefit to the world? Yet the people of Texas have and continue to provide enormous help to McDonald Observatory.
Overall, each day was almost certain to bring new problems – money issues, personnel issues, facilities issues (labs are supposed to be able to run 24 hrs/day, 7 days/wk), safety issues, legal issues, purchasing issues, grievance issues and so on – it was never dull! Eventually I worked with many different UT offices, including the , the UT Fire Marshall, UTPD (University of Texas Police Department), UT Austin Legal Affairs, UT System legal Affairs, VPR (Office of the VP for Research), OHR (Office of Human Resources), UT Real Estate, OSP (Office of Sponsored Projects), OFPC (Office of Facilities and Project Construction), and PMCS (Project Management and Construction Services). Some of these offices are/were solely UT Austin offices, and some are/were UT System offices (yes, big difference!). I enjoyed all these interactions, and I ended with an enormous respect for nearly all of the people involved.
The largest fraction of my time was spent either on renovations in old and decrepit buildings or participating in teams involved in the planning, design, and construction of new buildings. In most buildings many mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) systems (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) were close to failure, especially air-handling systems
- Nearly all of CNS buildings have several large “air handlers” rather than just one. Therefore, in an emergency, it is possible to replace one or more without totally closing the building – and this has now been done many times. A large Engineering building, completed in 1963 at the corner of 26th and San Jacinto St., had just one very large air-handling system. When it started to fail in ~2009, replacing it would have closed the building down for ~ 1 year. Instead, UT replaced the whole building. This building also housed the UT Center of Nuclear Studies, of which I was a member, and which remained active from about 1964-75.
In addition to on-campus CNS buildings, CNS has facilities and buildings at PRC (Pickle Research Campus), and three other major off-Campus units, namely the Brackenridge Field Laboratory, located adjacent to Lake Austin, the Port Aransas Marine Science Institute (MSI) at Port Aransas, and McDonald Observatory in the Davis Mountains. All three units have extensive buildings – especially MSI and McDonald Observatory, and by 1996 the infrastructures of many of these buildings needed attention.
In 2006 the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on LaCrosse Avenue in South Austin joined UT; Mary Ann Rankin and the Dean of the School of Architecture assumed joint administrative responsibility.
Modern scientific research buildings, and this is especially true for buildings with fume hoods (which themselves put huge loads on air handling system) usually require chilled water distribution systems, deionized water, liquid-air storage tanks and distribution systems, steam for dishwashers and sterilizers, explosion-proof refrigerators, complex chemical storage and handling facilities, which must comply with ever more sophisticated safety standards, and emergency power, usually supplied by an outside generator. Sometimes they need to house massive imaging devices with high-field magnets; sometimes they need to be designed for minimal vibrations*; sometimes they must house vivariums, one of the most expensive of all science facilities in terms of dollars per sq. foot, mostly because they require totally separate air-handling systems. The buildings must comply with ADA codes, UT standards and hiring practices, and pay the usual UT management fees. Today’s scientific buildings are much more expensive and complex than a standard office building, and some of this is reflected in the huge cost of modern CNS buildings as opposed to those built between1930-1970.
- Building vibrations can be caused by a variety of things, including wind, outside traffic, and building equipment such as large air handlers. (In the FNT building the air handlers are mounted on springs). The vibrations are usually in the range 4-250 Hz, and can be either horizontal or vertical; usually they are minimal in basements, especially if the building sits on bedrock. Buildings and bridges usually have “resonant” frequencies (as every engineering student who has watched the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows bridge in a light wind knows), and buildings are usually designed so that different floors have different resonant frequencies (you do not want the vibrations to shake the whole building). The measurement of building vibrations is non-trivial; when biology placed an ultrasensitive microscope in NMS in the early 2000’s, they wanted to know where best to locate it to minimize vibrations. Somewhere around 2000, I had hired a CNS Facilities manager, Ann Harasimowitz. So Ann sought the advice of Bernard Bhatti and arranged for measurements with Dan Johnston's research folks, Rick Gray especially. They measured the building vibrations in several different building locations and found a suitable room for the microscope. The scopes were eventually moved to NHB as the neuroscientists moved over. A few still in operation. (Bernard Bhatti was perhaps the most capable engineer ever hired by PMCS and was our good friend – sadly he died of cancer after a very few years at PMCS).
By the time I began work in the dean’s Office (1996), UT had started to upgrade its Life Sciences Facilities and was in the process of building what would be called the (Moffet) Molecular Biology Building (MBB), the first thoroughly up-to-date CNS science building by 1990’s standards. MBB (built on the site of the Anna Hiss Gymnasium swimming pool) housed the researchers of the newly formed Institute of Cellular and Molecular Biology. The new building enabled Mary Ann Rankin to recruit a nationally prominent molecular biologist, Alan Lambowitz, to serve as the first director of the institute. Also in the late 1990’s the 1959 Welch addition suffered a major fire; UT spent ~$30 M in rebuilding, and in the process, upgraded the MEP systems (mechanical, electrical and plumbing, including the air-handlers) in that wing of Welch.
My first few years as Associate Dean passed rapidly – and I think I learned quite a lot about the job, and about what needed to be done, which was a lot. In 2000, the 4 years of my appointment came up, and when I asked Mary Ann if I should resign, she declined. She did ask me, though, if I wished to move into Mike Starbird’s old position as Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs (the senior Associate Dean position), as he’d resigned shortly before. But I was starting to feel comfortable in my CNS position, and thought I could have more impact and do more for CNS in Research and Facilities than in anything else and asked to remain in that position.
(I know, an ambitious person changes jobs frequently enough that most sins can’t keep up, but I was not in that position in my career)
During my time as Associate Dean the very rapid growth in all of CNS building facilities continued, perhaps especially in the fields of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Neuroscience, all of which needed modern life-science laboratories, and especially numbers of fume hoods, and I spent much of my time serving on committees to decide on building design teams, construction teams, and then provide some oversight of both processes. Ann had to work extremely hard to resolve and satisfy the ever-changing building safety regulations, especially regarding chemical storage and handling issues; we both wore hard hats much of the time! Much credit for this growth should be given to the CNS Dean, our boss, Mary Ann Rankin, for obtaining the support of the “Higher Administration” for her plans and then in the raising funds to assist in the funding of new college programs such as UTeach, in the construction of some of our new buildings, and in the hiring of new senior faculty. She used a unique combination of charm, skill, determination, and energy in talking to people, and especially to prospective wealthy donors.
Our new buildings eventually consisted of the Moffat Molecular Sciences Building, (MBB, 1997) (which also has a Waggoner Wing), the O’Donnell Building for Computational Sciences, (ACES, 2000), the Neural and Molecular Sciences building (NMS, 2005), the Faulkner Nanoscience & Technology Building (FNT, 2006), the Dell Pediatric Research Institute Building* (DPRI, 2008), the Jackson Geological Sciences Building (~2007), the Biomedical Engineering Building (BME, 2008), of which CNS occupies one floor, the Gates-Dell Computer Science Complex (2010), the Norman Hackerman Building (NHB, ~2010), and a new ~$50 M Estuarine Research building at UTMSI made possible by a grant from the Federal agency NOAI (~2012). You should realize that the date given for a building is usually the date of “substantial completion” – which does not normally mean that the building is finished, but more realistically “sorry, guys, but we’re out of money – we can’t go further until we get more” (kind of similar to “first light” for a telescope, which means that further on down the road you hope there is a lot more light!). It often meant that we’d leave part of the building “shelled”- usually research laboratories, which made sense because you could wait until you’d hired someone to fill the space and then fit out that space according to his/her needs using funds set aside to recruit that scientist in the first place. NHB, our most expensive (>$300 M), most complex, most modern, and largest new building (~300,000 gsf-gross sq. ft.; 162,000 asf-assignable sq. ft) was only fully completed and occupied by ~2016.
The complete list is below:
MBB – home of ICMB (Institute of Cellular and Molecular Biology).
NMS – home of Neural & Molecular faculty displaced from ESB
ACES – home of ICES, headed by J. Tinsley Oden (Engineering)
FNT – Nano and Molecular Sciences. (Chem. & Molecular Biology)
BME – BioMechanical Engineering (CNS has 2nd floor teaching labs Geosciences Bldg. – home of the Jackson School of Geosciences
Gates-Dell Complex – then home of CS (Computor Sciences)
NHB - (Norman Hackerman Building) - Chemistry, Neurobiology, Imaging, Vivarium, Greenhouses.
DPRI – formerly Nutrition & Pharmacy, now Dell Medical School, and located at the site of Austin’s original municipal airport.
ERB - Estuarine Research Building, home of NERR & MSI Research laboratories at MSI, Port Aransas.
I was never well informed of the politics/support behind DPRI, or exactly how/why it seemed to end up the responsibility of CNS, but it did in my time. Now DPRI is under the aegis of the Dell Medical School. The project seemed to be spearheaded by UT System officials interested in bringing a medical school to UT Austin. They insisted that the building, properly managed, would easily support itself through the research generated by its scientists. They were referring to the “medical school model” used by expanding medical schools, such as the UT Anderson Medical school in Houston. Unlike the traditional UT laboratory model, the medical schools build flexible and “open” laboratories, with movable benches and without walls between different investigator laboratories; DPRI was built that way. If an investigator gets an extra grant, her/his laboratory can easily be enlarged, and vice versa. It is an efficient way to run laboratories, and the newly renovated 1978 wing of Welch is built this way, but it breaks tradition, and is not universally popular. I did sometimes despair when I found some of the rooms of the large laboratory of a very senior faculty member stuffed with “priceless” old equipment better suited to a museum, at a time when entering young faculty were desperate for lab space, and this sometimes did happen. Medical schools, it appears, have ways of being much more “efficient” in terms of research dollars generated per square foot of laboratory space than does UT Austin. At the time DPRI was built I ran a comparison of UT System predictions for DPRI compared with grant funding then generated by molecular biology in MBB. We didn’t even come close, and my comparison was ignored. (Although it turned out to be true, later on, for DPRI after it was completed). DPRI was not one of my favorite buildings – designed by committee (and showed it); needed to comply both with UT bureaucracy, and even worse, the city of Austin bureaucracy, and never had a viable funding plan. However, it was true, and perhaps still is, that UT should monitor more carefully its allocations of research laboratory space.
In the process of buildings, we tore down – replaced – ESB and Taylor –in both buildings the infrastructure was worn out and not worth replacing. Many people were strongly attached to “old ESB” (1950-2007), and there was strong support for just “renovation”. But it was not well designed and in addition far smaller than what we needed. I wanted it torn down and replaced by the largest possible building we could fit into the “footprint”. When we were finally allowed to do this, we made the new building substantially wider (by moving some of the biggest oaks beside it and then replacing a few after construction) and taller. We had some difficulty in getting approval for the design – this was soon after the new design (by Swiss Architects) for the Blanton had been rejected by the Regents, but in the end our NHB design was approved. It includes a basement imaging center and vivarium, above which are 6 very sophisticated floors, including undergraduate Chemistry teaching and many complex research labs. Even the flat part of the roof (~25,000 sq. ft.) has recently (~2017) been used to house modern greenhouses, which have replaced those formerly on the roof of Welch and stayed there too long. I claim absolutely no credit for the large “canoe” display just outside the building at the corner of 24th & Speedway, but that’s a different story!
There is a clear shortage of building space on the UT Austin Campus (~430 acres). The new CNS buildings used up much of the “close in” possible CNS space – one reason I wanted NHB to be as big as we could is that we needed a “workhorse” to replace old ESB. UT has height restrictions and design restrictions, set essentially by the “Campus Master Plan”, and did not purchase (in the days that it could have), land to the East, West, or Northeast as possible expansion space.
My most time-consuming job involved oversight of CNS renovations, mostly for new faculty recruits, who would usually be moving into available laboratory space held by their department, and which could be renovated to fit their research needs. If the University accepts a research grant from a funding agency it has the responsibility of making suitable research laboratory space available to the researcher. In 1996 all our buildings were old, and almost all laboratories required major renovations before occupancy by incoming faculty.
Renovations must, by Regent’s Rules, be performed by PMCS (Project Management and Construction Services - a large UT service organization—now PDC "Project Design and Construction"). My Facilities job also consisted of assisting in the planning for new buildings. By Regent’s Rules, all UT projects over ~$1 M were (then)under the aegis of the Office of Facility Planning and Construction (OFPC), a large UT System Organization housed in the down-town UT System offices. This meant almost a clear separation of renovations being done by PMCS and new building projects by OFPC. Recently, ALL building renovations & upgrades were given to PMCS. The OFPC office has been eliminated this year due to cuts in UT System Budgets; some of their staff members were absorbed into UT duties.
With a faculty of ~350 tenure-tenure track scientists, most of whom occupied a single specific laboratory in a specific building, we had an expected turn-over, including retirements, failure to gain tenure, and leaving for a position elsewhere, of ~20/year, just to maintain our current faculty. If we were to grow, we would need to recruit more. That meant ~20 renovations/year, since our buildings were all old, and most laboratories needed renovation before being reused.
The renovation procedure went as follows: CNS (my office) would send a request to PMCS that rooms xx needed to be renovated for faculty member y in building z and would provide a short description of the renovation needed. Facilities Services would assign a project manager, almost always an architect, to the project, who would contact the faculty member directly. After visiting with him, the project manager would work out a schedule and cost estimate, and proceed, meeting; as necessary with the new faculty member.
The system worked, and is, I think, still used today, but for us had severe drawbacks. We often weren’t well informed regarding the progress (or lack of it) in the renovation process. The Director of PMCS was an architect, and so were nearly all the project managers – good engineers were scarce and often demanded salaries higher than PMCS could afford. Often, project managers didn’t know the condition of the building infrastructure (nobody did). For example, could the air-handlers accommodate more fume hoods or could they not? PMCS had no competition – they were the “only game” we had. The Director of PMCS met weekly with the Vice Provost to discuss UT renovations in general, but not with individual colleges. Finally, CNS had no way to control costs; the project managers tended to buy furniture requested by the “client”, i.e. the individual faculty member, so we couldn’t standardize furniture purchases. Costs were critical, since we paid for renovations from a set budget, and if we exceeded that budget in a given year, we couldn’t recruit further. For several years after I joined the Dean’s Office, I always explained to each newly recruited faculty that their renovations would take longer and cost more than their project manager had estimated, and that was always then true. After we hired Ann, and she started estimating renovation costs, things started to improve, especially in the time taken and cost of renovations.
There is an old saying (partially true!), that a building designed by an engineer should be torn down, while a building designed entirely by an architect will fall down!
Eventually, we knew exactly whether or not we could install additional fume hoods in our buildings, and if so, just where. “No” for Painter and for most of Welch, BIO, and GEA. TAY, Hogg, (and really) RLM were not designed to accommodate fume hoods!
Perhaps the only time that Ann nearly stepped out-of-line happened when Alex, a young, good-looking, able and energetic Russian-born Physics faculty member acquired a new large device for molecular-beam epitaxy studies – a device for thin-film deposition studies in materials physics. I liked Alex – a promising young experimentalist in a developing field – and of course, he was desperate for money and technical help. Well, his new device arrived at his laboratory needing to be assembled and tested, and Alex had no money to hire technical help. Ann happened to wander by his laboratory, saw this new interesting device, and was quickly recruited by Alex to help. Ann loved technical challenges…(and was extremely capable!) After a few days had passed without my seeing Ann, I made a few enquiries, and quickly found out here she was and what she was doing. Some slight suspicion arose in mind, but I also knew Ann pretty well! I called her in to talk. “But Alex really needs the help” - she said. “Please don’t spend too long on it” I said. And she didn’t. Soon the epitaxy machine, which barely, when fully assembled, fitted into Alex’s laboratory, was up and running, and producing good science, and for all I know, it may still be doing so.
PMCS also improved. They started hiring good and sometimes excellent engineers, but had, and almost certainly still have problems keeping them on their staff since their pay levels are low. With engineering skill in place, PMCS was able to evaluate infrastructure conditions in our older buildings, and eventually to implement major building upgrades as needed to several of the oldest buildings, with priority to those needing it most. We started to hold weekly meetings with PMCS staff assigned to CNS projects (nearly all renovations), of which were almost always about a dozen in progress at all times. At first these meetings, held in CNS, were sometimes stormy, and a senior PMCS manager attended. I would sit between Ann and Paul, the senior PMCS Project manager, as they tended to argue. But we all talked and discussed in productive ways possible solutions to renovation issues – and there were often serious issues. One week Paul did not show up for our meeting, and when I asked, “where’s Paul?” Ann herself replied with “oh, he has family issues to deal with today”. I knew we were “out of the woods,” and we were. CNS established and maintained an excellent and highly productive relationship with PMCS (or perhaps it was the other way round), and I grew to like and appreciate all that they were doing and trying to do for the College and the University. We worked as a smooth team and worked together to resolve problems with projects; Ann and I attended PMCS parties and looked forward to them. Paul is now retired, but we are still friends.
I believe UT only declined one faculty-hire offer because we could not (affordably!) replicate in the laboratory his needed saltwater coral reef – the subject of our prospective faculty member’s research. A green-house project turned out to be rather expensive (~$500 K), but we were able to get permission of the Vice Provo to proceed, and it turned out to be highly successful – and visible while driving past BFL on lake Austin Blvd– the brightly lit (and fully computerized) greenhouse. (mostly been used in genetic studies using arabidopsis plants.)
We also worked with PMCS to upgrade infrastructure in our existing old science buildings, including Painter, Gearing, BIO, Patterson, and perhaps especially Welch ’29 – a large ~$30 M completed in ~2011. Since none of our buildings had been built with sprinkler systems, UT spent a large part of a year installing sprinkler systems in essentially all its buildings, which included all our old buildings. Ann played a key role in the CNS part of this effort.
McDonald Observatory (Ft. Davis), and MSI (Port Aransas).
McDonald Observatory near Ft. Davis, and MSI (Port Aransas) were both large operations, with many buildings (~60 total at MSI) and well separated from UT Austin. At times, both seemed to me a little like “orphans”. Both report to UT Austin; each has unique problems and difficulties, a somewhat different “culture” from that in UT Austin, and misunderstandings sometimes arise. The McDonald Observatory scientists, for the most part, don’t live in West Texas. At MSI, the faculty live in/near Port Aransas - and miss the research advantages provided by a giant research-oriented university, such as faculty with similar expertise, shared research equipment, and a huge computing center, but still are expected to compete with UT Austin faculty in terms of tenure and wage issues. This has been especially difficult since their total faculty number of ~ 13 is marginally small (we felt that this number touched the lower limit of “the critical mass”.) Sometimes I felt that MSI was perhaps being unfairly treated. But MSI received a huge boost when, in ~2006, it was awarded a large NERR (National Estuarine Research Reserve) of ~200,000 acres on Texas coast adjacent to Port Aransas by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) – the only one on the Gulf Coast West of the Mississippi.
Eventually, facility issues at both McDonald and MSI grew larger and needed more and more attention. The West Texas McDonald staff houses (~15) built in the 70’s did not comply with fire codes (and were to some extent fire traps); the McDonald sewage plant needed replacement; trees and shrubs growing on the mountainside were becoming an increasing wildfire hazard. Finally, the water supply came through leaky pipes from an uncertain source well outside the Observatory land, and was totally inadequate for fire fighting, should the need arise. (Water supply issues are still, and probably will remain, a major problem at McDonald Observatory, where the only water on observatory land is deep underground-and also somewhat radioactive). The terrible West Texas fire of 2012-which by good fortune encircled but then missed the Observatory-was impressively photographed. After that fire, University Administration officials became much more aware of infrastructure issues and helpful in dealing with them, especially those relating to the water supply (still a major issue).
At MSI in Port Aransas the deterioration of buildings in general was becoming serious – the environment on the Texas coast is harsh and building maintenance much more difficult than at Austin. For example, many of the larger MSI buildings built during or before the ‘70’s did not have epoxy coated rebars reinforcing the concrete; consequently, these bars rusted out and had to be replaced – an expensive project. Project managers sent down by PMCS from Austin to manage MSI renovations sometimes did not have experience in building on the coast, and insisted in building in exactly the same way as they did in Austin.
Hurricane Harvey, in 2017, came ashore at Port A, and hit MSI and the whole town directly. It was a disaster, and repairs are ongoing for both. The bill for MSI was/is ~$45 million. MSI had just fully completed its new and expensive Estuarine Research Building, all built to code (with solar panels as well to give LEEDs Gold). The structure withstood the storm, but the roof did not – one corner worked itself loose, and the roof flew away, letting rain and water into the whole building – all the brand-new equipment was ruined, and has finally been replaced. The building roof has now been much strengthened, but it’s hard to tell if it would withstand another Harvey!
After I retired from UT, I joined the BOV of both McDonald and MSI – I enjoyed their meetings, which I had attended regularly as Assoc. Dean. These was just too much fun for me to walk away from totally, so I didn’t. It lets me feel that I’m partly able to “keep up” with what’s happening. (I’m clearly getting old! Last summer when Eva and I drove out to McDonald for the annual summer BOV meeting, Daniel contacted me in advance, told me he too would be attending the meeting, and gave me his cell phone number to call in case we had any trouble!)
Hanging it up
Dean Appling is now entering his 7th year as Associate Dean. CNS is much different from my day and provides much more research support. Ann and Daniel both have expanded responsibilities and titles, Ann as “Director For Facilities and Safety”; Daniel as “Director, Facilities and Project Development”. Daniel spends his time overseeing the McDonald and MSI facilities, and Ann on-campus facilities. DPRI has reverted, thankfully, to the Dell Medical School. CNS Funding for TMM has been slashed; it serves as a public museum but is out of the “collections” business, some of which included the VPL (vertebrate paleontology laboratory) at PRC. Many of the CNS scientific research buildings now have building managers to oversee smooth and safe operation of the buildings and its laboratories (these days critical). CNS had none in 1996.
University research science has much changed and evolved over the past ~25 years. It has become much more interdisciplinary; the days of the “single investigator” are fading, and research groups are growing in size. Federal research funding is becoming more and more competitive. Bureaucratic issues (such as “compliance” issues) have become more and more difficult for individual researchers to cope with. As scientific equipment becomes ever more expensive and complex, there is an ever-increasing need for shared, or “core” facilities in nearly every scientific field and department. CNS Core facilities are essential to help support the research of UT Scientists. These facilities are many and include Chemistry facilities such as NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance), biomedical facilities, including a DNA and genomics facility, a microscopy facility, an imaging research center, and nanotechnology core facilities.
Today Dean Appling’s office functions officially as the clearinghouse for research and facilities activities and projects. It manages all college space and approves all college-related renovations and building projects, including faculty recruitment space needs, teaching and research labs, and shared facilities. On the research side, the office manages the indirect cost budget, oversees college core facilities, and runs the CNS catalyst Grant competition, an internal CNS program meant to help interdisciplinary research teams obtain external grant funding (and many have!).
My former office EA (executive assistant), Mary Mansfield, retired in 2018 while serving as EA to the Associate Dean in the Dell Medical School. Dean, Ann’s first hire way way back, is now Director of Facilities of the Dell School. Dean Appling, Mary, Ann, Daniel and I have met for years for an occasional lunch at UT’s Faculty Club in the AT&T Building–mostly, I suspect, to give me a chance to catch up on what’s happening. I’m a member of the Board of Visitors of Both McDonald and of MSI-both were too much fun for me to give up totally!
Some Memories:
1) MBB “Moffett” Building–Protest groups were not supportive of the MBB “Moffett” Building, so we decided that this building should be very secure. It would be equipped for “card key” access-the first UT building to have this feature. However, MBB was the least secure building on campus for over a year. It took that long to get the card key system to work–the doors and hinges involved must be made to rather precise mechanical specifications! There were no issues with the “protest groups” and no security breaches (that I know of) during the 1½ years needed to get the key-card system working properly.
2) Indirect Cost Return–My least favorite job was dealing with Indirect Cost Return, or IDC.)! Laboratory space implies substantial cost to the university, and a policy called “indirect cost recovery,” or “overhead” has been developed to ensure that Universities can recover (partially, at least!) the cost of research programs. Science research programs are usually supported by some Federal Governmental agency (DOE, NSF, DARPA, NASA, a specific branch of the armed services, NIH, and so on). Overhead rates are negotiated between the agencies and the university. For UT Austin the rate is ~50%, meaning that if a professor is awarded a $10,000 grant to carry out a research program, only $5,000 of that is actually available to the investigator to carry out the research – the rest is paid directly to the University. Of the overhead funds it receives, the university usually pays back to the college from which the grant originated 25% of the funds it received, or 12.5% of the total funds generated by the grants. In 1996, CNS generated ~ $50 m annually in research grants. Of this the University retained ~$25 m as indirect cost return. By ~2012, annual grant funding generated by CNS reached ~$120 m. I think that UT generated more federal grant support than any other US University without a Medical School except for MIT. On average, CNS returns to the departments, centers, and ORUs 50% of the IDC funds it receives, although this amount may vary in accordance with previous agreements. In my time, IDC time meant a very difficult week trying to grind out the numbers as accurately and fairly as I could. Researchers were usually not satisfied with the process!
3) Money! – very important to my office, and I quickly got to know the approximate federal grant support funding generated by almost all CNS research scientists. Since I disbursed IDC funds, the numbers seemed to just stick to me – I didn’t try to remember them. I do not, and didn’t even then, equate grant support to scientific significance of the research. For one thing, research grants these days are too often based on the possible “benefits” of the research to people. What possible benefit were the thoughts of Einstein, sitting at a desk in an obscure Swiss patent office? Or even of a young Steve Weinberg, as a young MIT theorist in the early ‘60’s trying to bring some sense to unifying the electromagnetic and nuclear (weak) interactions – even though that research led to much of what is now called the “standard” model? Perhaps even today that has not led to practical applications. Perhaps a lack of “practical” applications led to the demise of the SSC, but it did not prevent Europe, collectively, from building the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) and finding the Higgs, or from the U.S. in building LIGO, and finding gravitational waves.
4) Collections:– UT maintains a staggering number (>4 M) and diversity of Collections housed in almost every conceivable site, department, and facility. I suspected then that CNS had far more collections than its share, although today that may no longer be true. Collections include numerous collections at TMM, including almost everything from guns, flying dinosaurs, to extremely rare dinosaur tracks. Pickle Campus houses the Vertebrate paleontology laboratory (VPL), as well as ichthyology (fish), the world’s largest herpetology collection (amphibians and reptiles), and the world’s largest cave arthropod collection (invertebrate animal) collection. The Plant Resource Center, housed in old UT library space in MAI, contains >1 M specimens of dried plants. Brackenridge Field Laboratory houses a worldwide entomology (~500,000) collection (insects). I’m also fairly sure there are collections at the Wildflower Center and at Stengl Lost Pines, down near Bastrop. Finally, the Culture Collection of algae (UTEX), housed in BIO, contains ~3,000 strains of living algae.
In my day many of these collections were considered as separate organized research units, each with a director and reporting to the Dean. These included UTEX, VPL, and collections at PRC, BFL, TMM, and the Wildflower Center. I’m not sure that the remaining collections (other than VPL) at PRC had anyone to report to, so mostly they came directly to the Dean’s Office (which often meant me).
The Collections almost uniformly were underfunded and housed in dismal and poorly maintained space in old buildings. The curators and research scientists in charge of
Collections are as hard-working and dedicated as any you’ll find – usually, their major complaint was that they needed more space to add to their collections! The Collections are important, but I wished that they were funded better – perhaps that has changed. Today many of the collections are now under the umbrella of the Department of Integrative Biology at UT and are a part of the UT “Biodiversity Collections” – which now include most of the Collections housed at Pickle Campus (except for the VPL, now taken over by Geosciences – where it should always have been), and the TMM collections. TMM itself has not been taken over by IBB; its budget and its staff have been drastically cut, but it remains open as a public museum. There is now also a genetic diversity collection, which maintains more than 30,000 samples for molecular research.
We tried to help those Collections that seemed to need it most. TMM MEP systems were much upgraded; the VPL was out at Pickle was renovated, as were some of the other PRC facilities. We did some upgrading at Brackenridge, and a little at the Wildflower Center, without spending high dollars on either. I nearly had a heart attack when one day, after I’d sent Dean down to the Wildflower Center, I went down myself to check on things and found Dean balanced on top of a ~ 20 ft. high ladder changing light bulbs in their high-ceilinged auditorium. He said, “well, they’d never been changed, and most were burnt out!” I think that we tried most to help UTEX, the Culture Collection of Algae, because it seemed that it needed help more than most of the other collections, and we were in a position where we could help.
5) UT Tokamak Disposal–After ~20 years of productive research in the basement of RLM (where it occupied about 10,000 sq. ft. of space and weighed many, many tons), the large UT plasma physics Tokamak device was shut down declared surplus, and abandoned by the US Dept. of Energy. They assigned no funds to dispose of the machine. PMCS estimated that the removal and disposal cost would cost ~$3 M, but then a university in China wanted it. My UT lawyer friend told me not to bother. “It will be far too complicated legally to send it to China. Far too many restrictions.” But negotiations with China worked, and saved UT ~$3M. This was a group effort, made possible by Ken Gentle (former Tokomak Lab Director), and his Chinese Postdoc–who was our interpreter. China sent over (several) delegations; we met in my office, and the postdoc translated for both sides. In the end China met all her commitments, sent money over and technicians to do all the work, and we worked through all the red tape. The Tokomak ended up at a Chinese university and is reported operating and used. Total cost to UT=0. We gladly used all the space for different experiments.
6) Graduations.– When I joined the Dean’s office, one of the first things I did was to order full academic regalia. It turned out to be a very wise purchase! Over the next 17 years I attended many UT graduation ceremonies, both for undergraduate and graduate students. Although rather long and somewhat boring, they were happy, cheerful events. I especially enjoyed the graduate ceremonies, since the dean of each respective college would hood her/his students on stage. There often was a time conflict between undergraduate and graduate ceremonies, and since Mary Anne felt her undergraduates to be her primary responsibility, I was often delegated that job at the graduate ceremony. Each time we all practiced “hooding” the candidates before we went on stage – I felt sorry for those “Deans” (or their delegates) who had very, very few students to hood since they had very little “on-stage” time and were less likely to do a flawless job of the hooding procedure. I did hear a few too many graduation speeches – to this day I believe that very few students listen, and don’t miss much!!!
7) Plaques from ESB restroom stall tiles.– One of the Experimental Sciences Building’s restrooms had restroom stall walls fabricated with polished marble. When we demolished the building, I just couldn’t bear to see all the marble discarded but saved a few marble slabs. Ann’s assistant, Dean, volunteered to cut and polish the marble into small pieces suitable for paperweight souvenirs. Each one has a brass plate firmly glued to it with the
Inscription:
“The University of Texas at Austin
College of Natural Sciences
Experimental Science Building
1950 - 2007”
We gave one to each person wanting them – and many, many did – nearly 200. Many faculty, staff, and students had happy memories of that old building!!
8) 2012 West Texas Wildfire –started near Marfa – whizzed up past Fort Davis into the Davis Mountains. McDonald Observatory took spectacular photos of the mountains and hills surrounding the observatory engulfed in flames. The fire (fortunately) missed the Observatory – did we have water? Could we have fought it successfully? NO!! UT soon decided to fund long needed observatory water and waste-water upgrades!
The fire turned out to be a great event for the observatory!
9) Frank Bash and the HET.– At my very first meeting of the HET BOD, Frank, the BOD Chair took me aside and gave me advice. “Just sit beside me and vote as I do”. Well, I soon learned what he meant by that – there weren’t any votes and never were – they weren’t needed! All issues were thoroughly discussed until agreement was reached. That’s how the BOD worked – all members of the collaboration were needed to help support HET and its operation costs. Although “first light” was declared ~1997, the telescope was built at low cost and was of a totally new (and low cost) design, using much new and unproven technology. It really started operation ~2000 and was continuously upgraded. In ~2006 three of UT’s “best and brightest” young astronomers proposed a new experiment called the “dark energy experiment” (HETDEX), which would involve a total rebuild of the entire telescope. After much agonizing, the HET BOD agreed, even though it would take years to implement and cost far more (~$45 M.) than the original telescope. One of the collaborative members said, “I’m in favor, because it’s the right thing to do, but my institution can’t afford the telescope down time”, and withdrew, but the rest stayed on and others were eventually added. Measurements are now in progress – the new telescope is a success and is and vastly improved over the original! It is a unique and highly competitive player in the astronomical telescope world. I believe that about 1/3 of the ~$45 M. in funds were contributions either by or due the efforts of the McDonald of Visitors; another third State of Texas funds, and the final third Federal (National Science Foundation.) support.
10) Greenhouses?– A very necessary component of plant sciences research. Why put greenhouses on roofs? No other place to fit them in on campus! They are now on the roofs of Patterson & NHB, and no longer on the roof of Welch. Our plant growth researchers need them! The main disadvantage of placing greenhouses on roofs is that eventually the roof will need replacement! (and that happened to the Welch roof)
11)Restroom Conversion:–My success in getting an ESB restroom converted from a “man” to “woman”! (Up to then there was a shortage of restrooms for women in that floor of ESB.)
12) Serving with HR (Human Resources)– they almost always gave what I considered was sound advice – usually the application of “common sense”.
13) Land Acquisition:–Helping to acquire land for UT from the Fennessey ranch near Refugio. I accompanied the UT Real Estate Office Director to Refugio, where we met and (he) negotiated with the owner for UT to acquire part of the ranch (3 miles in extent along the Mission River). This land, part of the NERR, will now be a nature preserve in perpetuity. (he did the negotiating, but it was interesting for me to sit and watch!)
14) MSI Boat Purchase:– I received a call from my friend in the UT Legal Systems office: “Why does Ken at MSI need to buy such a big Boston whaler-28 feet long-for his Arctic research?” “I have no idea, but I’ll find out”, I replied. I phoned Ken, whom I knew pretty well. Ken, an outstanding MSI professor, (and someone born and raised in Alaska), had been awarded a large NSF grant to study effects of climate change on the northern Canadian and Alaskan coastlines. His reply was brief. “Polar bears”!! He went on to explain that Canadian policy was very strict regarding the killing of polar bears – his boats carried a rifle but filled only with blanks. “If I were to kill a bear for any reason, they’d put me in jail,” he said,”So we want to be able to sleep in the boat, and away from likely contact with bears.” I called up legal and gave my friend a one word reply -“polar bears!” The response was “Oh,OK!” The request was granted.
15) Counseling–One day near the end of my Associate Dean career, one of the very best and brightest of our CNS scientists, Andy, and one who generated more research funding than almost anyone else, came into my office and sat down heavily in a chair. “What are you here for Andy?” I asked? “Your job”, replied to Andy. “You must be thinking of retiring pretty soon. My boss has lost confidence in me. I might as well quit research.” Andy was one of the ICMB scientists, directed by Alan Lambowitz, and I knew both Andy and Alan pretty well. I sat back in my chair and laughed. “Your boss has not lost confidence in you, Andy. You’re far too valuable in research to take my job!” Almost without a word he got up and left, and I never heard anything more of it. As far as I can tell Andy is still, years later, churning out vast amounts of outstanding research– attracting prodigious amounts of grant funds, and using it to support many students and postdoc researchers.
16) What's Important:–What is it that really makes a university such as UT a wonderful place to live and to work? On thinking it all over surely, it’s the presence of the young, energetic, and eager students-a very large part of our country’s future! I have been fortunate to spend most of my life in an academic position (well, mostly academic!) at a university. The students make it all worthwhile!
17) Final thoughts! – I am finishing this at the age of 91, (it is now 2024) and 12 years past my retirement. It is true that Mary Ann and I didn’t communicate much during the final ~2 years of her UT Deanship. I believe that those were difficult times for her – the Office of the Dean had expanded considerably, and it turns out that she communicated very little with nearly any of her staff during these final days. My office was able to function almost normally by itself, even though we were not always kept informed of financial decisions. This past summer, when I attended the summer meeting of the McDonald Observatory Board of Visitors, of which I am still a member, I was astonished to find she and her husband, now living in the D.C. area, also at the meeting. They are new McDonald BOV members! We talked of old times together and hugged – it was very good to see her again – even though both of us, and especially me, are much older now!!