The Academic Staff Ad Hoc Committee on the Research Enterprise delivered a resounding message to University of Wisconsin administrators late last week, finding that the UW Graduate Education program is “strong, effective and needs no restructuring.”

Formed last September in response to Provost Paul DeLuca Jr.’s proposal to overhaul the structure of UW’s top-ranked graduate school and connected research enterprise, the seven person committee was charged with assessing the current research enterprise and determining whether an alternative structure is needed to address identified issues.

In their final report, the committee strongly opposed DeLuca’s current proposal, saying its presentation was hurried, lacked faculty input, specific information and substantiated rationale.

Though the committee identified a number of areas where UW’s research enterprise could be improved, many of which were consistent with those outlined by DeLuca, their proposed solutions were notably different.

“While the Committee recognizes that there are problematic areas of the research enterprise that are not functioning optimally…the current consensus of the Committee is that this is not due to the organizational structure per se,” the report said. “The Committee heard no compelling arguments for separating research and graduate education into distinct offices.”

DeLuca’s proposal would divide the current roles of current Dean of the Graduate School Martin Cadwallader, by creating the new position of vice chancellor for research. This new vice chancellor would manage UW’s $900 million in annual research expenditures — a number that continually places UW as one of the top three research universities in the country.

Noel Radomski, chair of the committee, said the majority of those interviewed as part of the review believed the union of graduate education and research at UW is a primary cause of its success.

Of the immediate needs identified in the report, Radomski said he was most surprised to discover UW’s Institutional Official lacks an annual budget.

“This is a federally mandated role, defined as the ‘individual who is authorized to legally commit on behalf of the research facility’ and required to enforce several university policies related to research compliance,” the report said.

Another finding, Radomski said, was that a number of issues identified in the report had been identified before and efforts had been made to address them. However, these were not followed through because of a lack of accountability and insufficient resources.

One such issue was extreme shortages in qualified staff for certain areas of campus.

“Environmental health and safety on campus have less than one-third the staff they had twenty years ago, despite research expenditures growth from 300 to nearly 900 million dollars a year,” the report said.

There is currently a proposal submitted to the chancellor and vice chancellor of administration to fund multiple positions in safety and compliance, according to the report.

The committee strongly recommended this proposal be revived and acted on immediately.

Issues with award management were another serious concern identified in the report.

In 2007, the number of award proposals being managed by one full-time employee at UW was 334, where there was an average of only 148 proposals per full-time employee in the Big Ten as a whole.

Of the many recommendations made in the report, the most central, Radomski said, was the development and implementation of a strategic plan and comprehensive, campus-wide analysis.

“The Committee finds that shortcomings have arisen primarily due to lack of strategic planning, resulting in a decade of limited investment in the research infrastructure,” the report said.

Wary of threatening the continued success of UW’s research enterprise and feeling DeLuca’s proposal was being fast-tracked without due faculty input and shared governance, many professors and academic staff voiced strong opposition to the plan at a series of five town hall meetings hosted by DeLuca last semester.

Some faculty claimed the proposal was an effort to centralize power at the top administrative level.

Another committee comprised of faculty members is slated to give another review of the proposal and research enterprise by the end of the month.

DeLuca declined to comment until he has the chance to review and analyze both reports.