CONTENTS
BUDGET, APPROPRIATIONS, TAX ISSUES
- Under NDD United, 2500 Organizations Urge Congress to Provide Budget Sequester Relief
- Research Community Requests Retention of Current HHS Extramural Salary Cap
EXECUTIVE BRANCH
- Campus Leaders Ask Education Department to Allow SAM Links in Online College Tool
- Associations Comment on Proposed Overtime Regulations
- Associations Offer Guidance on Preparing for New Public Access Rules
OTHER
- Third Set of 2015 Golden Goose Award Winners Announced
BUDGET, APPROPRIATIONS, TAX ISSUES
UNDER NDD UNITED, 2500 ORGANIZATIONS URGE CONGRESS TO PROVIDE BUDGET SEQUESTER RELIEF
Under the banner of NDD United, a group of 2,500 organizations, including AAU, sent a letter to all Members of Congress on September 10 urging them to replace the sequester-level budget caps in a balanced manner for both defense and nondefense discretionary (NDD) programs.
The letter notes that NDD programs—which range from education and job training to housing, science, and veterans services—have already incurred deep funding cuts since 2010 and that “current NDD funding is the lowest level on record dating back to the Eisenhower administration, relative to the size of the economy.” The organizations add:
Such sequestration relief must be equally balanced between nondefense and defense programs, as strong investments in both NDD and defense are necessary to keep our country competitive, safe, and secure. There is bipartisan agreement that sequestration is bad policy and ultimately hurts our nation.It’s time to end the era of austerity.
RESEARCH COMMUNITY REQUESTS RETENTION OF CURRENT HHS EXTRAMURAL SALARY CAP
A group of 175 organizations and institutions, including AAU, wrote to leaders of the House Appropriations Committee on August 21 asking them not to reduce the extramural salary limit for researchers funded by agencies in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The letter is directed at that the FY16 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill approved by the Committee on June 24, which would reduce the salary limit for investigators funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by eight percent. The cut, says the letter, would reduce the incentives for physicians to become researchers and force institutions to spend more on investigator salaries at the expense of other investments in research.
--AAMC Op-ed Describes Impact of a Reduced Salary Cap
The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) published an op-ed on August 11 that further describes the impact of reducing the salary cap:
The cut is an especially powerful deterrent to recruiting physicians—such as surgeons, oncologists, cardiologists, psychiatrists, and other specialists—into research at a time when the NIH itself has raised alarms about too few new physicians entering research careers.
EXECUTIVE BRANCH
CAMPUS LEADERS ASK EDUCATION DEPARTMENT TO ALLOW SAM LINKS IN ONLINE COLLEGE TOOL
Presidents and chancellors representing more than 360 colleges and universities wrote to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on August 31 asking him to ensure that the Department’s pending college information tool allows schools to link to their institutional data in the Student Achievement Measure (SAM).
In their letter, the university leaders express concern that the Department’s means of determining an institution’s graduation rate is misleading because it is limited to the success of first-time, full-time college students who graduate from their original institutions. In contrast, SAM data also include progress and college completion information for transfer students, part-time students, and those who enroll in multiple institutions. The letter adds:
We strongly support and encourage the inclusion of a dedicated link within the new tools that would allow institutions the option to link to their SAM data and provide additional information on the success of their students. Doing so would help ensure the integrity and reliability of the new consumer information and tools.
ASSOCIATIONS COMMENT ON PROPOSED OVERTIME REGULATIONS
Last week AAU joined CUPA-HR and 16 other higher education organizations in filing extensive comments on the Labor Department’s proposed changes to overtime pay requirements for certain “white collar” employees.
Among several proposed changes to the white collar exemptions is a proposal to increase the annual salary threshold of $23,660 to $50,440, a 113-percent increase. The associations say they agree that the salary threshold should be raised, but argue that the proposed increase is too high and “would require many colleges and universities to reclassify employees that work in jobs that have always been exempt and are well-suited to exempt status.” For research universities, this would include postdocs.
If the Department will not consider lowering the proposed salary level for all employers, says the letter, it should do so for nonprofit and public employers and/or consider expanding to certain learned professionals the exemption from the minimum salary level. The letter adds that the Department also should phase in the salary threshold increase over time to allow employers and employees time to make adjustments and preparations.
It is unclear when the final regulations will be issued.
ASSOCIATIONS OFFER GUIDANCE ON PREPARING FOR NEW PUBLIC ACCESS RULES
Three associations, including AAU, sent a memorandum to campus senior research officers on August 19 detailing how campuses should comply with forthcoming agency grant rules on providing public access to the results of federally funded research. The associations’ memo includes background information and potential campus preparatory actions, as well as a list of online resources.
The guidance memorandum was prepared by AAU, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and the Association of Research Libraries.
OTHER
THIRD SET OF 2015 GOLDEN GOOSE AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED
For their visionary interdisciplinary research on how human populations are distributed by altitude, Drs. Joel E. Cohen and Christopher Small have been selected as the third winners of the 2015 Golden Goose Award. Their pioneering research on hypsographic demography has provided crucial insights in areas as diverse as food production and packaging, semiconductor manufacturing, and biomedical research and development.
The scientists will be honored, along with the two other teams of researchers, at the fourth annual Golden Goose Award Ceremony at the Library of Congress on September 17.
The two other groups of award winners were announced earlier this year. Walter Mischel, Yuichi Shoda, and Philip Peake will receive the award for their creation and development of the Marshmallow Test, which has had an enormous impact on our understanding of human development, self-control, education, and the complexity of human behavior.
David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel will receive the award for their pioneering work on neuroplasticity, which has led to extraordinary progress in understanding brain processing, and to better treatments for childhood vision disorders and teaching computers how to process images.
The Golden Goose Award was founded in 2012 by a coalition of business, university, and scientific organizations, including AAU, to recognize seemingly obscure, federally funded research that has led to major advances in such areas as public health, national security, energy, the environment, and communications. The Award was the brainchild of Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), who first had the idea for the award when the late Senator William Proxmire (D-WI) was issuing the Golden Fleece Award to target wasteful federal spending and often targeted peer-reviewed science because it sounded odd. Rep. Cooper believed such an award was needed to counter the false impression that odd-sounding research was not useful.