START  >   1967-1972  |   1972-1980  |   1980-1993  |   1993-2002  >   Remaining Chapters

1967-1972. The Beginning: Out of Chaos, Order, then Complexity

Birth of CIRES

The rejection of this proposal by DoD in early 1967 was followed by a flurry of activity during the following spring and summer. Among the accomplishments of the steering committee were the formulation of strong support for the joint institute and the adoption of the name, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), as suggested by Warwick. The record of the debate over the many suggested names reveals the diversity of opinion within the committee regarding the emphasis and scope of the new organization. The committee also assembled lists of names and began to consider candidates for director of CIRES.

J.C. Harrison

A crisis arose at the end of the spring semester, 1967, when George Benton and James Archer both decided to leave Boulder. Benton was to return to Johns Hopkins University, where he was a professor of meteorology, and would soon be elected president of the American Meteorological Society (1969-70). Benton was concerned that with the departure of the two senior proponents of CIRES and a steering committee that was divided on basic issues, the whole concept might die unless strong actions were taken promptly. He therefore proposed and the steering committee agreed at its last meeting that spring semester that the institute should be started the coming fall. Wait and George Reid of ESSA and Warwick and Harrison of CU were the founding fellows,and Harrison was selected to be the founding director.

Many drafts of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between ESSA and the University are in the files. In these various versions of the objectives and structure, prospective scientific staffing, and housing for CIRES are spelled out. Heated debate on the breadth of the natural science to be included and whether an institute devoted to the science of the environment should include participation by the social sciences, economics, and biology is documented in exchanges of letters and memoranda. Deliberations and actions on these issues have continued throughout the history of the Institute. A "Conference on Present and Potential Contribution of the Social Sciences to Research and Policy Formulation in the Quality of the Physical Environment," sponsored by ESSA and CU, was held January 31-February 2, 1967.

A letter from Dean Archer to Vice-President T. E. "Ted" Manning, Dean of the Faculties, July 24, 1967, with copies to George Benton and Wesley Brittin as chair of the Steering Committee for the Establishment of CIRES, asks Manning to "solicit endorsement of our Board of Regents for the establishment of a Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Science (CIRES)" and summarizes the developments to that date, as well as his personal reactions to the direction of those developments. This letter reflects the central role played by Archer in the creation of CIRES, the interest of Vice-President Manning in furthering this development, and the conflicts and compromises accompanying its birth, some continuing to the present, as will be reflected in the chapters to follow.

The basis of this cooperative venture has been explored over the past year by members of the University faculty who were appointed to a subcommittee by the President and members of ESSA who were appointed by the Director of the Institutes for Environmental Research.

A document has gradually evolved out of these discussions, and I believe, that this document is now acceptable to you.

This document has been examined by our resident counsel, Mr. John Holloway, as well as the legal counsel of the Environmental Science Service Administration. Both legal counsels find the details of the establishment of CIRES to be acceptable and I, therefore, urge that this be brought to the attention of the Regents and they be encouraged to support the establishment of the Cooperative Institute.

As you know, I have worked for the past two years to bring about a cooperative venture of the ESSA, so that the University could take advantage of the unique opportunity of having the Institutes for Environmental Research as our near neighbors.

It was my hope that we could establish a broadly-based Institute that would encourage the interaction of many disciplines. It was also my hope that we of the academic world at the University could take advantage of the more practical and service oriented aspects of ESSA and they in turn would take advantage our of special interests and competence in more theoretical problems. Regrettably, the Institute that has evolved, CIRES, tends to be more restrictive than I had hoped. It tends to emphasize the theoretical and laboratory physical science side of environmental studies, to the nearly complete neglect of the social, biological, and economic aspects. This is unfortunate, but a shot gun wedding did not seem in order. We, therefore, propose to establish CIRES which will primarily emphasize the physical and environmental sciences and at a later time develop a parallel organization which will investigate the inter-relationships of man and his social and economic environment....

I, therefore, urge that you recommend to the Regents the endorsement and establishment of the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences.

On August 9, 1967, George Benton sent Manning the proposed agreement between CU and ESSA to establish CIRES, after it had been reviewed and approved by ESSA and the Department of Commerce. He wrote that he understands that the proposal is to be presented to the Regents at their August 14 meeting and asks that, after approval by the Regents, the agreement be signed by University president Joseph Smiley and returned to him for signature by Robert White, aAdministrator of ESSA. This agreement, signed by both Smiley and White, dated September 29, 1967, signifies the beginning of CIRES.

In this first MoU, the personnel of CIRES are defined as fellows, members, staff, and visiting members. Appointments of IER (later ERL) persons as fellows or members required concurrence of the University, and appointments of University faculty as fellows or members required the concurrence of IER. Visiting members were to be selected on recommendation of the Council of Fellows and appointed by the University. It specified that selection was not to be restricted to U.S. citizens.

The category "fellow" was defined as professional staff with "tenure rank," meaning associate professor or professor for University faculty and IER scientific staff members with equivalent proper scientific qualifi- cations. Some University department chairs expressed concern about the ambiguity of the term "tenure rank." "Member" was defined as a professional staff person with the doctorate or equivalent. These requirements were modified later to meet changing personnel policies and needs. The title "professional research assistant" did not exist in the University at the time, and research associates, now a large fraction of the total scientific personnel, are not mentioned. Although PRAs and RAs were not part of the original staffing projections, they have become an essential part of the technical competence of CIRES.

Among the details of structure and policy in the MoU, the projected size of CIRES is of interest in the light of the current status. There were to be 15 fellows and 10 members from IER/ESSA (ERL/NOAA), 15 fellows and 50 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from the University, 10 to 15 visiting members on stipend and five self-supporting, and a clerical and technical staff of 50. "The ultimate space required to house CIRES appears to be about 65,000 square feet ... estimated cost is about $2.6 million ... It is imperative to start immediately making plans and fi- nancial arrangements for the structure."

The actual number of fellows in June 2001 was 11 from NOAA, 28 from the University, and three emeritus fellows, retired from the University faculty. There were six visiting fellows, about 60 graduate research assistants, 187 professional research assistants, and 165 research associates on the CIRES scientific staff. There were 17 on the administrative staff and seven on the technical staff.

Although CIRES has never realized a free-standing building capable of housing the entire activity, as envisioned in this paragraph, it did occupy in 1988, under the leadership of Director Robert E. "Bob" Sievers, a newly constructed building on the main campus of the University. This structure provided 20,000 square feet, built at a cost of $3.5 million, and CIRES later acquired and remodeled, at a cost of $1.8 million, an additional 12,000 square feet of space in the Ekeley Science Building (see Chapter Three). CIRES personnel also now work in space distributed among a number of other buildings in Boulder, including the David Skaggs Research Center of NOAA.

CIRES was born on September 29,1967, with Harrison as director. Isabel Pelander was hired as assistant to the director. Some modest space in Willard Hall was allocated to the new Institute and served for two years. Suitable candidates for the Visiting Fellows program were quickly identified through personal contacts in order to get that key element into operation. In July 1969, Jeanette Trebing joined the staff to begin her long career in CIRES, ful- filling many functions, beginning as a technical typist extraordinaire.

Next > Getting Established