Director’s Narrative
Let me preface this section with a few general
comments as most of the remainder of the section deals with “issues”. In general we have been very pleased with
the way the CERSP has come together in these first few months. The initiative
for the CERSP came largely from three professors (R. G. Carbonell, G. W.
Roberts, and me) who were heavily involved in the Kenan Center for Utilization
of Carbon Dioxide in Manufacturing. We
had the vision to establish another center, that for conducting fundamental
research to underpin the entire CO2 initiative. Obviously, we are viscerally invested in
this technology. The degree to which others in the CERSP have “bought into” the
vision has been very gratifying. We are
dependent upon the leadership of our thrust area leaders and social
scientists. To date, generally, that
leadership has been exhibited. Our social scientists have been extremely
valuable. Denis Gray has functioned as
a one-man EAB, drawing upon his experience with other STCs. And Diane
Sonnenwald and her group have been extremely valuable in facilitating
collaboration, especially assistance in videoconferencing and development of
our websites. We are also pleased with the leadership exhibited by Molly Broad,
President of the Consolidated University of North Carolina system, in
supporting our effort to incorporate NC A&T as a full partner, supporting
our use of existing facilities for video-conferencing, and supporting our
patent initiative.
We have refined our administrative
procedures since our preliminary report in March 2000. Both staff meetings and thrust area seminars
are routinely held on Thursday afternoons to encourage greater participation. Videoconference/seminars are beginning to
become more productive, both administratively and scientifically. They are used
to communicate CERSP “business” as well as technical content. For example, we used one seminar to review for
all CERSP personnel the presentation we made to our External Advisor Board
(EAB) in an attempt to provide newcomers with background and to refresh our
objectives in the minds of long-time participants. Student leaders have been designated for each thrust area to
arrange for speakers, to provide highlights of each presentation and to take
attendance to gauge the degree of interaction within and among the various
thrust areas. Students have been
instructed on effective video presentations, with highlights and templates
being posted on our website.
Videoconference meeting rooms are booked well in advance for 2001 to
facilitate remote collaboration.
We have modified our weekly staff
meeting format at the suggestion of our EAB.
About half of our meetings will cover general administrative topics and
half, “special topics”. Thus, not all of the management team need attend all
meetings. For example, this summer we
invited all thrust area leaders to one meeting to review objectives and to
reiterate expectations of these leaders.
We identified potential trouble spots and are following up with a series
of meetings with all PIs of each thrust area.
Our intent is to assure that all who receive CERSP support understand
our objectives and focus their supported programs on meeting those
objectives. We are just beginning the
first of what we intend to be semiannual program reviews to assure alignment
and commitment. Lack of alignment
and/or commitment will have consequences.
To this end, our management team participated in a day-long seminar lead by Russ Osmond, funded by the Kenan Institute. We learned that our management team is strong on vision and analysis, but relatively weak on execution and interpersonal relations. We developed a plan to help address our weaknesses. In a second session we identified a few issues on which to focus and developed a very brief mission statement now on our website homepage:
We
use CO2 research to develop and share knowledge profitably among:
*
students
*
scientists
*
industry
* and
society
for a cleaner environment.
Our website is functional and is being used
increasingly to communicate internally as well as externally. For example, the semester’s schedule of thrust area seminars is posted. We have will participate more broadly in
Departmental seminars; i.e., we are arranging for speakers of interest to the
CERSP (eg., Prof. Esin Gulari) to speak and for the seminar to be beamed to all
four CERSP sites.
We have
always recognized the societal obligations we have as scientists and factored
that into our planning. The students
clearly “get it”, and our success in recruiting some very bright students from
under-represented groups is testament to that fact. The environment clearly “sells” as does broadening opportunities
throughout society for those willing to make the commitment.
World-class science is our number one
objective. We have assembled a team
capable of reaching this objective, and we have put into place systems to
facilitate collaboration among the members of the CERSP. However, we recognize from the outset that
it is possible to have 30 individually successful scientific projects, and yet
fail in our mission as an NSF Center.
Thus much of our attention as technical managers has gone and will go
into assuring that we address the “soft” side of science—the human as well as
scientific issues that fire the imagination and maintain the high degree of
enthusiasm we now enjoy. The “issues”
listed below largely relate to those “soft” factors.
Communication/collaboration
across distances. Our initial concerns
regarding integration of UT has been largely assuaged by the
videoconferences. Collaboration among
North Carolina and Texas researchers in Thrust Areas A and D, and to a lesser
degree Thrust Area C, has been excellent in recent months and continues to
improve. However, we still have a
problem collaborating with our European affiliates to the desired degree due to
distance and time difference. While we
had Prof. Selva in our laboratory, collaboration was excellent. But with his leaving, we’re reduced to
periodic teleconferences and e-mail. While data can be
transmitted electronically, active exchange of ideas needed for true
collaboration is difficult. As a
possible solution, in order to expedite the future operative plans of the group,
the Italian partners propose to have support from NSF through a research
subcontract within the program. An alternative--tying in
Europe as we have Texas via videoconference--is probably out of the question
due to their lack of infrastructure.
This will be explored, but it is unlikely.
Full
partnership of NC A&T in the CERSP.
Researchers there had very little background in CO2 processes
(e.g., operating high pressure processes) and little of the equipment needed to
conduct research in that medium. We
have expended considerable energy assisting them to install equipment (e.g., CO2
headers in the laboratory) and training faculty and students. Numerous one-on-one
meetings have been scheduled between PIs at NC A&T and PIs at UNC-CH and
NCSU. These visitations have had a
significant impact on launching the collaborations. In several cases, the students from NC A&T will actually work
for weeks at a time at either UNC-CH and NCSU in order to raise their level of
know-how with the CO2 systems and to make broader collaborative
connections. We view the extra effort as a long-term
investment in the CERSP as undergraduates at NC A&T exposed to this
research may decide to go to graduate school and choose one of the other North
Carolina universities. This is already
paying off. For example, NC A&T
faculty have recently been retained as consultants by Corporate partners.
We have recently made a conscious effort to
install NC A&T personnel into leadership positions (e.g., Thrust Area B
faculty and student leaders.) This will
be a challenge for them as NC A&T faculty have very heavy teaching loads
and thus have less time for research or other participation in CERSP
activities. We have spoken with
Chancellor Molly Broad, head of the 16-campus consolidated University of North
Carolina about this. She supports our
position in principle, but together we are searching for a practical
solution. This will take time.
Commitment of
PIs on the periphery. Most of the PIs have
cooperated and contributed to the CERSP beyond their own narrow research
interest. However, a few have not shown
this commitment. This is most evident
in Thrust Area B, which has been slow to gel. This area has numerous high-powered
researchers with many commitments.
Finding leadership able to devote the time needed for this group has
been a challenge. Some collaboration is
taking place, but most of that existed before the advent of the CERSP. Recently, V. N. Kabadi has enthusiastically
assumed the position of Thrust Group B leader, and CERSP technical leadership
has become more strongly involved in establishing an active group with numerous
collaborations within the group and with other groups. Alternative organizational structures will
be considered if recent changes are unfruitful. We plan to allow six months with the current organization. If the group is not working together we will
try reorganizing. Thrust Area B could be dissolved and PIs assigned to other
thrust areas with the most natural collaboration; e.g., Sanchez might be
assigned to Thrust Area A as he is already collaborating with Johnston. Thrust Area C might also be divided as it is
already rather large. Slow development
in Thrust Area B was predictable, but confidence is high that the degree of
collaboration will grow quickly and soon.
Lack of focus. There is a great deal of enthusiasm in the
CERSP. We realize that we have the
opportunity to have significant impact on several fronts, and we’re impatient
to get on with it. We must fight the urge
to try to do everything at once. We
have engaged Russ Osmond as a management consultant to help us focus and are in
the process of identifying three or four critical issues to attack. Russ also helped us recognize that most of
our management team tend to be analytical and visionary, but are relatively
weak in interpersonal skills and execution to a schedule. We are developing a plan to deal with these
weaknesses; e.g., a more detailed five-year plan and specific focus on
interpersonal issues led by our social scientists.
Parochialism. Our
concerns of parochialism among the various campuses have so far proven unfounded,
but we need to be vigilant lest it develop.
We will be alert to any signs and nip any problems before they develop
into something serious. This is a
leadership issue, and it’s up to leaders at the various sites to avoid such
problems. Again, our management team is
diverse enough to recognize and deal with this early.
Start-up Problems The Bruker 500 MHz NMR was non-functional for six months. In addition, some minor delays were
experienced in delivery of the Varian 600 MHz NMR and the new Bruker 400 MHz
NMR. All are expected to be operational
by September 2000. Delays of up to six months in filling certain key post
doctoral positions have delayed the start of specific programs, but impact
within the five-year timeframe of the Center should not be significant.