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| START > 1967-1972 | 1972-1980 | 1980-1993 | 1993-2002 > Remaining Chapters |
1980-1993. Maturity: The Years of Broadening and Deepening
Relations with the University Departments and Administration
This era in the life of CIRES was marked by the diversification of the scientific thrusts of the Institute beyond the concentrations on atmospheric and solid-earth sciences that characterized its beginnings. The details of the broadening of the research foci and the development of each of the scientific sectors are presented in chapters five to nine.
By the late 1980s, fellows from seven university departments were active participants in the Institute. This required the leadership of CIRES to deal with a broader set of departmental interests and cultures. A particularly stressful issue was the appropriate division of the indirect cost recovery on externally funded research between the Institute and the department in which the fellow who had acquired the funding had academic appointment. This issue emerged after the State approved a policy of returning to the University the money received as part of the budget of externally-funded research as reimbursement for indirect costs of that research. In turn, the University developed a formula by which part of these recovered funds would go to the unit that had generated them through successful proposal activity. For CIRES this issue was complicated by the fact that, as CIRES expanded, an increasing number of its fellows had their offices and research space within their departments and, thus, were partially supported by those departments. Equitable agreements were negotiated by which the recovered funds were divided according to the extent to which the academic department provided support for the work of the fellow, a factor that varied from one department to another. One step taken by CIRES to build goodwill was the allocation from its discretionary funds of support to the departments for joint seminars by distinguished speakers on subjects of mutual interest.
The continued viability of CIRES depended on the leadership and support of the University's Central Administration and the Boulder Campus leadership. President Arnold Weber was called on to make some hard decisions and wise investments of University resources during a time when the State froze the student enrollment on the Boulder campus in what proved to be a failed attempt to force Colorado resident students to enroll in other state-supported colleges and universities. President Gordon Gee gave the go-ahead for the construction of the CIRES building and proclaimed environmental sciences as one of the areas of emphasis for the University in the 1990s. Space science had been established as an area of emphasis for the 1980s and the Center for the Study of Earth from Space (CSES) was created in CIRES and is described in detail in chapter six.
The academic leaders of the Boulder campus, in particular Bruce Ekstrand, vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, Carol Lynch, dean of the Graduate School and vice chancellor for Research, and Everly Fleisher, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, all were key to the functioning and further development of CIRES during this era. Each valued excellence in all aspects of academic activities and was willing to make the hard choices sometimes needed to achieve that goal. Each encouraged interdisciplinary research and instruction, to which CIRES had a primary commitment.
Because of his own academic and intellectual attachments, Chancellor James Corbridge was also strongly supportive of CIRES. As an expert water lawyer he had a professional interest in excellence in environmental studies.
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