This is also the first academic year that UCI will not have the brilliance and humor of our founding Dean, Fred Reines. Not enough can be said about the leadership and influence he brought to the foundational development of particle Physics and the School of Physical Sciences. As the recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics, the National Medal of Science, the American Astronomical Societies Bruno Prize, the J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Prize and as a member of the National Academy of Science, Fred helped propel UCI into the top tier of our nation's research universities. He will be missed but never forgotten.
Since I am the sixth and new Dean of the School of Physical Sciences, I will use this opportunity to outline what I see as the next challenges for our School and list some evolutionary changes I would like to foster over the next 5 years. Modifying an over-used real-estate doctrine, the three most pressing problems we have in the School of Physical Sciences are space, space, and space. All of you are keenly aware of our space limitations and its constraining effects on our existing laboratories and programs. Furthermore, our space shortage places severe limitations on recruiting faculty and expanding our educational role.
A reasonable question to ask is: "Why doesn't the state build the buildings?" As our undergraduate population increases, the state has a formula to determine the resultant growth of faculty and graduate students. Research space is not a variable in any of their equations. Thus, we are forced to find other sources to fund this necessary space.
There is some long-term good news; there are two ongoing capital projects. The first, a 33,290 assignable square foot Earth System Science building to house ESS, has been designed. However, 6 million dollars have been secured and 14 million more dollars are required before we can begin its construction. Every delayed moment increases its cost. Thus a first priority is to secure these monies. To help with this, the ESS building has become one of the three principal UCI Capital Campaign Projects. The second long-term capital project, a 73,500 assignable square foot state funded building (Natural Sciences I), is under design. Natural Sciences I is scheduled to have 31,000 square feet assigned to Chemistry and the remainder assigned to the School of Biological Sciences. The construction of Natural Sciences I should be completed in 2004 provided Proposition 1A on the November ballot passes. If you are concerned about space, then there is an obvious and important action you can take in November. Another generous and thoughtful action is to have you or a friend get out their checkbooks and, with a sufficiently large donation, have a building with their name on it!
These are two long-term projects. We cannot wait until 2004 for new space. The campus clearly understands our serious space problems, and we are currently working on several scenarios whereby new space will be available to our School within 2 years. I'll keep you posted as the picture evolves.
Our current space houses some of the best research on this planet. We are creating new compounds, creating and testing new fusion technology, verifying that neutrinos have mass, exploring the atmospheric consequences of proposed super-sonic air transportation, understanding the interchange of gases between the atmosphere and our natural land and ocean masses, exploring the fourth dimension, and understanding the structure of solutions to the partial differential equations that arise in our daily lives. These are just a small handful of the many internationally noted and funded projects underway within our School. We have 91 faculty with 134 research grants. These projects run the gamut between foundational and pure research through to the development of immediately useable technology. This excellence begets excellence; we are attracting better graduate students and excellent faculty. Again, we are back to space. Our reach for further excellence is being retarded by our lack of research space. Our excellent faculty have little problem securing funding for the creation and transmission of their ideas; however we need to develop new funding methods for securing the necessary research space.
Related to this problem, I see a miserable climate here at UCI for encouraging the development of spin-off technology and the nurturing of small faculty led incubator companies. As a first step, most of us do not consider whether our research ideas or products can be patented. For those that do, there is no smooth mechanism for these ideas to move into the development of a commercially viable product. The bottom line here is that the University, the individual investigator, and society at large should profit from the research being performed here at UCI. We should be nurturing the next Packards, Sun-Micro Systems, and Roche Pharmaceuticals. With the recently announced development of Irvine Research Park we should see to it that much of this space is occupied by small faculty led companies that license the research conceived right here in our own offices and laboratories. Any help and ideas are welcome.
Even if were getting money for space and nurturing the development of patents and spin-off companies, we still have other options for enhancing our teaching and research environment (and seducing external support). One of these is the development of Centers and Institutes. Currently, if we stand outside the university, we see a gaggle of schools in which there are departments with several outstanding individual research faculty. However, there are no obvious targets for private support. By clustering together appropriate groups of faculty, a Center or Institute can be created which would materially increase the likelihood of attracting research monies from private foundations/individuals. A side-effect is more dependable and high level infrastructure support for the clustered faculty. These Centers/Institutes would stand out as beacons of excellence upon which the outside community could focus. The School of Physical Sciences has many opportunities to create such Centers/Institutes. Our task is to identify the large Centers/Institutes funding sources and then cleverly craft the appropriate clustering to meet the requirements of these funding sources. I have discussed this with a few faculty and all the Chairs. Again, any help and ideas are welcome.
I have focused my remarks on the global issues affecting the School of Physical Sciences. Each department has their individual concerns and initiatives for improving and expanding their already outstanding teaching and research programs. The most important component of UCI is our faculty. This year the School of Physical Sciences will recruit 9 new faculty members. The search for and recruitment of outstanding faculty is an important responsibility of each individual faculty member of our School. Get to work!
A final note. On October 9, there will be a symposium at the Beckman Center in honor of our 1995 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry F. Sherwood Rowland. At 3:30 PM there will be a dedication ceremony that will rename PSI as Rowland Hall. Everyone is invited to attend. With Fredrick Reines Hall just across the patio, we have resisted the Registrar's attempts to refer to these buildings as RH1 and RH2.
I hope that the 1998-99 academic year brings us more good students and more success at research, that we attract more federal and private dollars, and that the year ends with our rankings higher than ever. We have come a long way in 33 years; we have more to do. We have an outstanding support staff in the Dean's office; our goal is to help secure the success of our faculty and students. I welcome your ideas, help and support.