The Graduate School is launching a new research assistantship incentive program designed to bring in a greater number of research assistants during the 2010–11 academic year.
The incentive plan was announced in a September 2009 memo while it was pending Corporation approval for the funding needed for its launch, Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
"The RA incentive program is intended to enable departments to bring in additional external funding to support graduate education through research assistantships," Bonde wrote. "The program reflects Brown's strategic aim of fostering a culture of excellence in research."
The incentive program is meant to provide "a mechanism for programs to grow by gaining external support that can alleviate the demands placed on the graduate school to support students," Associate Professor of Medical Science and University Resources Committee Vice Chair David Sheinberg PhD'94 wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
"For every three new RA appointments above a baseline established by the Graduate School, the program will be able to fund one additional student," Bonde wrote.
This is beneficial to professors, because the money they give to the University for three new students will come back to them in the form of an extra fellowship, said Professor of Applied Mathematics and URC member Jan Hesthaven.
The program "puts incentives in place that would try and get faculty members to write more grants," Hesthaven said. "If you bring in more money, you get more money."
"In late January, each of the departments that qualified this year for a share of the funding were advised of the amount that would be provided, so that they could factor it in to their doctoral admissions process this spring," Bonde wrote.
When professors get money from outside resources to fund assistantships, there is an overhead that has to be paid to the University, Hesthaven said. Through this program, the "overhead pays for the fourth student" and "doesn't cost the University," he added.
"In the ideal world, it's a win-win," he said.
The program will commence in the next academic year and be available to any department that brings in external funds to support research assistants, Bonde wrote. This share in revenue will enable graduate programs and researchers to plan for growth in a future fiscal year, she added.
While the program is meant to aid all departments, it is meant to specifically target science and engineering departments, Hesthaven said.
A number of faculty members proposed and collaborated on this program with the Graduate School, including Provost David Kertzer '69 P'95 P'98 and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Beppie Huidekoper, Bonde wrote.
"The budget for FY 2010-2011, which was approved by the Corporation, includes a one-time allocation of $250,000 from the Provost's budget to launch this RA incentive program," Bonde wrote.
The URC "certainly discussed the request and the requested amount," Sheinberg wrote, and "determined that if the program as described were to work there would be a minimum amount that would make sense to get it going."
After this initial allocation of money, the program will be self-supporting, using research dollars brought in by grant recipients for research assistantships, Bonde wrote.
"The rationale behind the one-time allocation is that this allotment is designed to provide a bank for the program that can allow it to provide incentives to existing programs that will, themselves, fund the program by winning external awards to pay for RA-ships," Sheinberg wrote.
The program is a model aimed at incentivizing growth of the graduate programs "at little or no cost to the University," Hesthaven said.
The $250,000 allocation is a way to get the process started, and eventually the program "pays for the cost," he said.
This is a "once-in-a-lifetime allocation," he added.
The program is meant to be long-term, Sheinberg wrote. "The one-time allocation is not intended to be a short-term fix, but rather to serve as seed money for a program that can be self-sustaining."
