Hector DeLuca has seen his share of contentious campus issues since arriving at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for graduate school in 1951. There were the Vietnam War protests in the 1960s and the heated debates over merging UW-Madison and the Wisconsin State Universities into the University of Wisconsin System in the early 1970s.

But DeLuca says he hasn't seen anything in recent years that has "awakened the faculty" quite like the current debate over a proposal by the university administration to create a new office separate from the Graduate School that would manage the university's $900 million in research projects.

"I think this has upset a lot of the faculty," says DeLuca, a professor of biochemistry who has been a member of the UW-Madison faculty for half a century.

The newly created Office for Research would be headed by a vice chancellor for research, who would report directly to the chancellor and be charged with managing research grants, handling compliance issues and connecting the university with funding agencies in Washington and elsewhere. University leaders say this proposed move would address such problems as delays in the processing of research grants, and compliance matters related to a lack of safety inspectors and animal care issues.

Yet some faculty are calling this move a "power grab" by the administration because faculty weren't consulted on the front end of this proposal. Others question why a successful enterprise is being tampered with and complain that UW-Madison leaders have provided too little detail about how this new structure would solve perceived problems related to research on campus.

"I think the structure we have now is one of the key reasons our university is such a great research institution," says Gregory Tripoli, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences. "I really think it would be a grave mistake to start changing it."

Under the reorganization plan, the university would still have a dean of the Graduate School charged with overseeing issues related to graduate education. Martin Cadwallader, who currently oversees research and graduate education on campus by holding the dual title of vice chancellor for research and dean of the Graduate School, declined comment on the administration's reorganization proposal.

UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin and Provost Paul DeLuca, who is not related to Hector, say the proposed reorganization is due largely to the growth of research on campus. Over the last decade, UW-Madison has nearly doubled the amount of money it receives for research, but the resources and structure needed to keep the research operation running smoothly haven't kept pace.

They also say that a handful of safety and compliance problems have led to fines and threatened the future success of research on campus. Due to a lack of safety inspectors on campus, the provost says that the university last spring had a backlog of nearly 300 biological safety protocols, which are required before a biological research project can move forward. The university was forced to spend about $250,000 to hire an outside consulting firm to come in and oversee the protocols so it could pass a National Institutes of Health review.

While many on campus concede that the Graduate School has been stretched to keep up with the growth of research on campus over the past decade, few also seem ready to follow the administration's lead on this reorganization without further details.

"Up to this point, the chancellor and provost have been talking publicly in generic terms about vanilla problems," says Noel Radomski, the director of the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education, a higher education think tank on campus. "We all agree that if there are problems, we have to address them now. But I don't think it's clear what the most significant problems are, and whether what the administration is proposing will adequately address those problems. "

The controversy over the proposed research shake-up may be the first public relations misstep for Chancellor Biddy Martin, who's just more than a year into her tenure at UW-Madison. Pushing through a change on campus with little or no feedback from faculty is a major no-no on a campus which values its faculty governance.

Provost Paul DeLuca first presented the reorganization plan to the University Committee -- the executive committee of UW-Madison's Faculty Senate -- in July. Those present say it was clear the administration hoped to fast-track the plan, with at least partial implementation beginning early in the fall semester.

"I really think this was a power grab by the administration away from faculty governance," says Tripoli, who is a faculty senator. "I've been here 23 years and I've never seen anything like this. We're willing to listen to new proposals, but we're not willing to have someone just pull the rug out from under us without even asking for our input. Otherwise, faculty governance is just a farce."

But others simply want to know why the administration is trying to overhaul a part of the university that isn't broken. In fact, UW-Madison -- which is expected to conduct nearly $900 million in research across all fields this year -- has remained among the top five institutions in research expenditures for at least two decades. "We've been in the top five for so long, people are really concerned that a reorganization might do more harm than good," says Bill Tracy, chair of the University Committee.

The lack of details also is troubling to many faculty.

"Quite frankly, some of the problems that have developed in various aspects of compliance over recent years could be taken care of without reorganization," says Eric Sandgren, who oversees animal research on the UW-Madison campus. "It's more a matter of resources. As a faculty member, I am certainly willing to consider anything that will strengthen the university. But the compliance issues don't provide a very strong rationale for me."

For now, faculty and academic staff have been successful in taking the administration's proposal off the fast track and in engaging school leaders in debate. Not only has Paul DeLuca met with the deans of every school and college, but over the last month he held five "town hall" meetings at venues across campus to promote his vision and take questions from the audience. Additionally, the University Committee and Academic Staff Executive Committee have each appointed ad hoc committees to take a closer look at the proposal and the problems that gave rise to it. Martin and DeLuca have said they won't move forward with any significant reorganization until those groups report back on their findings, hopefully by the end of 2009.

"What's the rush? If we are going to do significant change on campus, let's make sure we do it right," says Radomski, who is chairing the ad hoc committee assembled by the academic staff. Hector DeLuca chairs the one put together by the University Committee.

To guarantee this process will move at a slower pace, the sociology department will present a resolution at Monday's Faculty Senate meeting which states the faculty oppose such a reorganization "until the administration provides a fully developed written plan" in response to the UC ad hoc committee's report.

"Before we move forward, we need to figure out if this reorganization is going to make things better or is it going to throw the baby out with the bath water," says Hector DeLuca, who has agreed to meet with Radomski at some point to share notes on this topic. "We're just gathering facts right now. We're not trying to prejudge the provost and chancellor's proposal, but we want to make sure we as faculty have looked at this closely and weighed in."

Martin and Paul DeLuca seem surprised by the stir the reorganization proposal has created among faculty.

Martin says she's heard frequent complaints during her first year on campus about the length of time it takes for grant paperwork to be processed and about the research delays that ensue. She says many faculty also have noted concerns about research backlogs due to the lack of safety inspectors, and still others expressed a desire for the university to have a presence in Washington, scoping out research opportunities.

In a letter to faculty, staff and students written on Oct. 21, Martin maintains that the proposed reorganization is meant to address these issues: "Our goal is to find solutions to the problems that many of you have brought so insistently to our attention, and to find ways to take advantage of new opportunities. The goal is NOT to force any particular outcome. There is too much at stake to do anything except seek the best possible way forward."

Paul DeLuca says the lack of details in the current plan is by design: "If I had gone out and written a detailed plan and put it out there, we'd have spent eight months going over every period and comma." Anyone who has ever seen the UW Faculty Senate dissect a proposal knows that such an observation isn't far-fetched.

"My goal was to get out there in front on a sensible proposal that addresses the needs, and now let's discuss how we can get the job done," he adds.

The provost also counters concerns among some faculty that the reorganization might negatively affect graduate education or how various units on campus are funded.

"One of the guiding principles is that we do nothing to affect graduate education and graduate training and graduate research," he says. "So I have yet to hear any reason why, or an example of how, it would be negatively affected."

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