Subject: Research Per Faculty Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 Good Morning Lou, On two occasions, you have stated that the FY2004-05 research expenditures equate to $135,000 per faculty member. When I divide the $94,656,147.10 by $135,000 I get 701. Please let me know what data points you are using for this calculation. Thank you! Denise Barlow Office of Vice Chancellor for Finance & Administration ---------------------------------------------------------- Denise, I used the UT System Budget document using the figures for Knoxville under grant and contract revenue for 2005. To compare to 2004-5 salaries, the total is $144M and the unrestricted amount is $17M so this gives $126M from restricted grant and contract funds which, divided by 931 (Knoxville - these figures I assume do not include the Ag campus grants and contracts) faculty is $135K. I realize that these are not expenditures for that year but income. The Research Office used to supply a useful breakdown each year of reserach funding obtained, broken down by unit - I haven't seen one of these for several years. I do not know why they stopped producing this. I do not have any documentation for the $94.6M figure you mentioned. I had previously added up the figures on the College Budget Hearing sheets for 2005 (Sponsored projects expenditures and F&A) and got $96.067M for expenditures. I cannot find anything from the Research Office site on this except old reports. This gave me a figure of $103K per faculty member for external grant and contract expenditures for 2004-5. However, the System Budget document revenue figures are significantly higher than these expenditure figures and, given that I am unware of any significant grant and contract funding here that arises from anyone other than faculty, I assume that these funds are generated by faculty members somehow. If I am mistaken, please let me know. Cheers, Lou 9/17/06 ---------------------------------------------------------- Subject: RE: Research Per Faculty Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 Hello Lou, You used the $135,000 of research dollars generated per faculty member again yesterday. I disagree with this number because the numerator is incorrect. You state in the email below that you are using the revenue estimate in the Probable Budget 2005 for Knoxville. That is just what the number is 'an estimate' or projection of revenue reimbursement for the grant and contract expenditures. The actual grant and contract expenditure or revenue for 2005 was $94.6 million but I will agree to go with the $96.067 million you got from adding the academic summary sheets. In the denominator, you are using 931 for the faculty headcount. Can you tell me the source of the 931 faculty count? Also, does this just include full, associate, and assistant professors? I assume this is the same source used to support the statement of no growth in faculty? Thank you! Denise Barlow Office of Vice Chancellor for Finance & Administration ---------------------------------------------------------- Denise, I did not use Probable Budget 2005 for Knoxville. Rather I used the Actual 2005 Grants and Contracts Revenue figure (Restricted funds) of $126,063,498. This is listed in the FY 2007 Summary for Knoxville. I assume this does not include any Ag Institute Grants and Contracts. My assumption is that the Ag Inst faculty who are based in Knoxville have their Grants and Contracts go through the Ag Institute. Thus my figure for number of faculty (yes this is only those at professorial ranks - I am unaware of any significant grant or contract activity by those in lecturer or instructor positions) excludes faculty with appointments in Ag. To calculate the number of faculty, I used the figures you handed out at the Budget Hearings last year (Academic Unit Statistics), adding up the figures for each College (except Ag) listed under Filled T/TT non-research positions - which gives 931.34 total faculty for 2004-2005. As I stated before, I'm not clear why there is such a huge discrepency between the UT Budget figures of $126M Renevue and the $96M figure of Expenditures. How can UT book so much more revenue on grants and contracts than were expended? At any rate, I've been clear in my public statements that I am talking about revenue generated, not expenditures. Regarding no growth in faculty, I looked at the figures for 2001-2002, 2002-2003, 2003-2004 and the above 931.34 figure for 2004-2005 (I assume we'll see 2005-2006 figures in this year's budget hearings), all taken from the Academic Unit Statistics forms handed out at budget hearings. The numbers are Total UT Academic Unit Filled T/TT non-research faculty 2001-2002 2002-2003 2003-2004 2004-2005 904.75 982.98 970.22 931.34 My statement about these figures is to simply note that there is no significant change in faculty numbers over this time period. Thus I could say the faculty has dropped by 5% over the 3 years from 2002 to 2005 or has increased by 3% from 2001 to 2005, but these are frankly meaningless given the variation (in the standard statistically significant sense). You also handed out figures on faculty position FTEs last year that were distributed to the Senate in the March 6, 2006 minutes. These figures on unrestricted funded faculty positions are about 180 higher than the above numbers I calculated, I assume because these count total FTE's whether filled or not and whether there is actually money to fill them or not. These also show no significant changes in T/TT faculty numbers over the time period from 2002-2005, but they do show an increase of about 16% over this time in instructor/lecturer positions (I do not know if these are filled or not). Until you can provide me with some rationale for changing my calculations, I will continue to state them as I have above calculated. Cheers, Lou 10/24/06