On February 20th we got the news from the National Science Foundation Algorithms Foundations Team that long-time NSF program director Tracy Kimbrel, was leaving the NSF, and not by choice.
Along with many others in part-time status at NSF, my service has been terminated earlier than I intended or expected. It has been a great privilege and a great honor to serve the Algorithmic Foundations community over the last decade and a half. It's disappointing to have it end so abruptly. I will miss it and all of you.
Tracy is just one of many government employees losing their jobs but when you know someone it feels personal. Tracy has been a fixture at the NSF and often comes to theory conferences to talk about grant opportunities and the state of the NSF. In my yearly pre-covid pilgrimages to the foundation for panels, I always had great conversations with Tracy and watched him work, getting the information he needed from us to make the tough decisions of which projects to fund, always many more worthy than the available funding. The theory community loses with Tracy out of the NSF.
We did get some good news earlier this week with the NSF reinstating most of their probationary employees. And Trump did say near the end of his speech yesterday "we are going to conquer the vast frontiers of science" but apparently we'll do it with a much smaller NSF if Trump follows through with his plans.
Talking with some fellow academics at another university, they had almost given up. "What can we do?".
We can push back.
Start by doing nothing. Don't preemptively change your policies and your values. Too many universities and organization are abandoning DEI programs, changing their curriculum, freezing hiring of faculty and students, in anticipation of challenges to come. We may see a time that new policies will survive the courts and force us to change, but not yet.
While the democrats in congress seem powerless, many of the governors, including my own governor JB Pritzker, have fought back, mostly in the courts, and have stopped, for now, much of the damage to the NIH and NSF. The computing societies urge congress to protect our research funding, especially in a time when we need to compete technologically with China and other countries.
As individuals, we can take our own steps, participate in Stand Up for Science on Friday, reach out to our representatives at the national and state level, and just be part of the resistance. We can't let bullies dictate our future, we must control it for ourselves.
NIH grants now have a 15% overhead instead of around 50%. Some schools have now DECLINED NIH grants for this reason. Is that a good idea? I want to say that its a game through issue: If ALL schools do it then it would be effective, but some may defect. Unfortunately I'm not even sure that if ALL schools did it, it would do anything. Might NIH grants now go to industry instead of Universities? Side note- someone (it may have been Lance) pointed out that with only a 15% overhead, schools may be LOSING money when a professor gets a grant.
ReplyDelete50% overhead? How can things be so inefficient? In my country it has never been remotely this high, and any university trying to pull this off would have a big problem with its professors.
DeleteAs noted in another thread, industry overheads for things like DARPA grants are generally many times university overheads. They definitely aren't going to be interested in 15% overhead.
ReplyDeleteDo you know if Tracy was re-hired?
ReplyDeleteLance, thank you for this
ReplyDeleteno one i have worked with ever received any money from the NSF, only had it stolen as "overhead"
ReplyDeleteWe keep talking down to half-of-the-country like this: "We can't let bullies dictate our future, we must control it for ourselves." And of course, expect half of the country (who apparently are so dumb and callous that they voted for a bully and dictator) to keep giving us money.
ReplyDeleteUm ... if you look at *all* of the federal money, it mostly moves the other way (blue -> red).
DeleteLance didn't say he "expected" anything.
CA itself was almost 40% leaning the otherway. Yep ... no "expected" comment. Just a dean asking to be the resistance.
DeleteThe point is that *we* can make the case that what we are doing is worth it and also acknowledge that there are some changes that are needed and that we will respect that. Name calling isn't helping anybody.
Deleteif this is the start of this administration, it is going to get much uglier. do rather than do nothing or oppose fervently, we need a serious strategy if we are going to survive the takeover of the US government by maga fanatics.
ReplyDeletenot all those who voted for DJT are maga fanatics. there is real grievance against what Democrats have been cooking for many years. if you keep pushing for polarization and acting self righteously this is what you get.
and it is not the right attitude to try to focus on your small area, this needs a strong organized cross society push back.
Adding to the problem of polarization are "resistance" insiders doing willful misinterpretation of orders to make things more extreme and bait the "journalists" who love writing clickbait headlines themselves.
ReplyDeleteDo we really think an executive order's intent was for photos of the Enola Gay to be removed from some Pentagon image database and website postings? No. Are they really "marked for deletion" as has been reported? Maybe, but then is this "marked for deletion" some automated first-pass that will then be reviewed properly? Is the person reviewing and deciding a member of the "resistance" who wants to overreact to an overreaction?
Is it more likely that this "marked for deletion" set was either created by or leaked by a "resistance" member inside to sow more discord? Is it more likely that after an automated first pass flags tens of thousands that some far smaller percentage of that will actually be removed? I think the answers are yes. Sadly, I have no idea what sources to trust to inform me of the reality.