Published: March 29, 2008 06:21 pm            

FLASHPOINT: ISU’s lame-duck leaders should back off current approach

Jim Hughes’ sophomoric and unprofessional letter of March 22 surely leaves Trib-Star readers with a bad impression of ISU faculty and wondering what in blue blazes is going on. It thus begs explanation.

First, some background. Science seeks new knowledge, and scientists form groupings that form and dissolve as old problems are solved and new questions arise. Nationally, around 1970, departments of botany, zoology and microbiology merged into unified biological science programs. In the 1990s, biological science progressed such that scientists interested in cell and molecular biology and others interested in whole organisms and their ecological interactions began to get in each other’s way. These disciplinary divisions frequently became personalized.

Consequently, numerous universities rearranged biology departments. For example, Indiana University’s single biology department is divided into two units that function independently. Universities where I once studied, Rice (3,000 students) and Michigan (40,000), formed separate departments. ISU has operated with a two-department structure for three years. As outlined in former Arts and Sciences Dean Diane Michelfelder’s letter of June 22, 2004, and other documents, the New Life Sciences Department (NLS) was directed to pursue cell, molecular, and medical biology, while Ecology and Organismal Biology (EOB) would address the ecology and biology of entire plants and animals.

Now, ISU’s mission statement begins “ISU, a doctoral research university … with a focus on community and public service …” EOB has pursued this mission vigorously. EOB houses the North American Bat Conservation Center, whose national service activities were featured last week (March 18) in the Trib-Star.

EOB student and faculty research has been featured recently in the New York Times, and on National Public Radio, the National Geographic channel, and in Great Britain on BBC TV. This gives ISU widespread favorable publicity which aids student recruitment. EOB has developed partnerships with regional businesses to solve environmental problems, and our faculty and students work with, and are often supported by, private, municipal, state and federal organizations.

Environmental problems are extremely complex. Therefore, EOB has worked with geology and anthropology faculty for the last year to form a Department of Environmental and Ecological Sciences (EES). This will allow us to train students to engage the larger community with a comprehensive approach to solving environmental problems.

On to Dr. Hughes’ letter. NLS has failed to develop significant community engagement in the medical, cell, and molecular areas, and has not established working linkages with Indiana biomedical industries. Rather, they have mercilessly harassed the ISU administration with a tortured interpretation of the documents establishing NLS and EOB. The NLS interpretation would arrogate the entire biology program to them. They would assign all of ecology to three junior NLS faculty with mixed interests in ecology as well as molecular and micro biology. Prominent ecologists such as John Whitaker and others in EOB/EES, including officers of international scientific societies and editors and editorial board members of international journals, would be left high and dry!

Dr. Hughes’ letter extends their campaign of harassment into the public arena.

Believe me; I understand the frustration of the ISU administration with NLS, for EOB/EES has been similarly abused. I refer the reader to Dr. Hughes’ letter for a rather mild sample. Unfortunately, frustration leads to anger, and anger to impulsive and ill-considered actions. Indeed, the Dean of Arts and Sciences recently lashed out, proposing that the Board of Trustees hurl all NLS and EOB faculty into one department, and thereby terminate consideration of EES.

A better solution is available. The ISU Handbook, approved by the Board of Trustees, makes the faculty responsible for the curriculum. Curricular conflict between departments is a routine feature of universities, and standing committees — including ISU’s Curricular and Academic Affairs Committee (CAAC) — exist to deal with them. NLS and EOB/EES should submit their curricula through the normal process and let CAAC sort out who teaches what.

The ISU administration has failed to distinguish their tormentors from other biologists who have worked long, hard, and cooperatively to realize ISU’s mission. If sustained, the CAS Dean’s impulsive action and the personalization of disciplinary differences caused by NLS’ incessant harassment of EOB will destroy the ability of EOB to continue our constructive engagement with the wider community, and will leave biology at ISU in ruins. The promise of EES will never be realized.

The Board of Trustees needs to encourage the current lame-duck ISU administration to back off, take a deep breath, and use established procedures to sort out the curricular conflicts between NLS and EOB/EES. Else, ISU, its new president, and the community will greatly regret the massive collateral damage resulting from impulsive action.

— George S. Bakken

Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences since 1988

Indiana State University

        

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