Lois R. Ember
C&EN Washington

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., is in the throes of reinventing itself, leading the nation in what some scholars call institution transformation. It has no choice.

Under the direction of its immediate past president, this school, once renowned for its science and engineering prowess, had become an institution better known for innovative undergraduate education than for research. Enrollment faltered, research funding declined, and fund-raising flagged.

It soon became clear to the faculty senate that Rensselaer was on the road to becoming an inconsequential institution, unlikely to be competitive in the 21st century. A vote of no confidence forced the president to resign. A search committee was formed to find an energetic, dynamic, forceful, and forward-looking candidate--one who could reengineer the institute into relevancy.

Enter physicist Shirley Ann Jackson , who, in July 1999, became Rensselaer's 18th president. Jackson has the determined vision, and now an ambitious plan, to move the institute in directions--biotechnology and information technology (IT)--that she believes will make it a key player in this new century.

But the plan, in the early stages of implementation, poses as many questions as it answers and has sired great anticipation and even greater anxiety among some faculty. In his meet-and-greet rounds, the new provost, G. P. (Bud) Peterson, has heard some of this anxiety, but he says, "The concerns are small and diminishing."

At the root of concern are these questions: Can--should--a university like Rensselaer with a relatively small endowment, modest research spending, and little recognized expertise in biotech and IT attempt to compete with long-term, successful players in those areas? Or should it build on what it has done best over the years--and do it better?

Jackson: at the helm [Photo by Peter Cutts]

Jackson has enthusiastically embraced the first option, saying Rensselaer will build on its strengths to find niches to compete with the big guns. And, she insists, the institute will also have the resources to improve on what it has done well, even in those areas that fall outside the research arenas to be stressed in the future.

The issue of resources fuels a large part of the anticipation: Can Jackson raise the resources necessary to make her vision a reality?

Jackson has set her own destiny and that of Rensselaer down a potentially perilous path. But many with whom C&EN spoke say that Jackson and the university really have no other alternative. "Rensselaer badly needed someone with her ambitions and goals to lead us. Steady state was not an option," says Glenn Doyle Daves Jr., former interim provost and former dean of science who is an organic chemist. "I don't see any risks except failing in public."

Roger L. Geiger, a professor of higher education at Pennsylvania State University who studies research universities in depth, says, "Up to 1997--the last year for which I have data--Rensselaer was really going downhill rather rapidly. It was losing its share of research support; income from its endowment was flat, whereas for most private universities it was rising; and its expenditures for student aid were increasing."

Indeed, during the reign of Jackson's predecessor, National Science Foundation figures show that Rensselaer's R&D expenditures fell from $44.1 million in 1993, with an overall ranking of 123, to $38.6 million in 1998--the latest data available--with a ranking of 143 out of 579 institutions surveyed.

"Rensselaer's experience suggests that the notion that an institution can be a good engineering school by stressing undergraduate education without a substantial research base is probably no longer viable," Geiger says. The university's reemphasis on research "is consistent with what's happening throughout the U.S. and the world--a recognition that research is needed for viable economic growth," he says. "It's a risky choice in some ways, and the problems of execution are many, but it's a bigger risk not to invest in the future. "

Like Geiger, Jonathan S. Dordick, chairman of the chemical engineering department, sees "greater risks in not implementing the plan." But, he cautions, the plan has to be implemented carefully, and "resources are critical" to ensure that the plan is implemented successfully. "Another critical component is faculty acceptance," he adds.

Martin E. Glicksman, professor of materials science and engineering, generally views the new directions positively, but he has some concerns. "I think there is an attendant risk with this. I'm willing to accept some risk if there's continuous monitoring of the entire process, so we don't do overall damage to the university and still wind up second or third rank," he says.

"The major response has been one of hope and enthusiasm over Jackson's view of science and engineering research, but many are waiting for the actualization of the plan," chemistry professor James A. Moore says. Moore hears many faculty members asking: "Is it too little, too late? Is it too big a step to take? Should we be shoring up or developing what is here already?" His department, he notes, is strong in polymer chemistry, molecular modeling, and drug design and development in medicinal chemistry, all of which are disciplines necessary to the new thrusts.

A string of firsts

When Jackson became president, she entered a marriage of firsts. She is the first black woman to lead any U.S. technological research university, let alone the nation's oldest technological institution, founded in 1824.

Jackson is no stranger to firsts, given U.S. history and her gender and race. She was the first black woman to earn a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology--in any discipline--and one of the first two to receive a Ph.D. in physics in the U.S. She was the first black woman to be appointed a commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and then to head the agency, a position she held for five years before coming to Rensselaer.

Sanderson [Photo by Gary Gold]

She appears to carry the burdens of being a role model and of smashing barriers lightly and with aplomb. "First of all," she insists, "I'm just me. Maybe it's a reflection of our society and where we are. That's really how I feel." Being the first of anything was not what she aspired to, she remarks. As she explains, "Windows of opportunity opened, and I was ready to step through." What's really important to her, she tells C&EN, "is the legacy of accomplishment I leave behind."

During her barrier-breaking career, Jackson has faced and overcome many challenges. But her latest challenge--turning a research university that was withering into irrelevancy into what she terms "a first-rate technological institution with global reach and global impact"--may be her most daunting.

That's not to say that her earlier experiences were not hair-raising. As an undergraduate at MIT, Jackson was one of fewer than a dozen, mostly male, blacks in an undergraduate student body of 4,000. She at first was ostracized and isolated. She recalls being spat upon and called ugly names on campus, and once even being shot at in Boston. But she knew what she wanted, and she calmly persevered. Over time, she became a sought-after mentor to other students--both white and black--and a leader of a growing black student body, a growth she helped foster.

Jackson earned a B.S. in physics in 1968 and chose to remain at MIT for graduate studies. She received a Ph.D. in theoretical elementary particle physics in 1973. Her postdoctoral years from 1973 to 1976 were spent at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., outside of Chicago; the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva; and other research laboratories.

In 1976, she joined AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill, N.J., where she conducted research in theoretical, solid-state, and quantum physics. Her focus was the study of electronic and optical properties of atomic particles within layers of various materials, research key to the design and manufacture of semiconducting materials. In 1991, Jackson severed her full-time ties to Bell Labs to become a professor of physics at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J., and a sometimes consultant on semiconductors to Bell Labs.

In 1995, Jackson was nominated by President Bill Clinton to head NRC. During her tenure at the agency, she was able to rationalize the regulatory process to the satisfaction of both industry and environmentalists, enhancing the agency's credibility in the process.

Over the years, Jackson has been recognized for her research, teaching, and public policy skills. In 1998, for example, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and even earlier had been named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and of the American Physical Society.

Jackson was born in 1946 of middle-class parents and grew up in the then-segregated city of Washington, D.C. In the early 1950s, she was bused to an all-black grammar school several miles from her home. But by the time she graduated from elementary school, the Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education had outlawed segregation in public schools, and she was therefore able to attend a desegregated high school, where her intellect and inquisitiveness were stimulated, challenged, and channeled.

The 1957 launching of Sputnik fanned fears that the U.S. was trailing in the Cold War-inspired space race and prompted the government to pump more federal dollars into the support of science and engineering education and research. Jackson benefited hugely, receiving scholarships and then fellowships to support her university science education.

But it is her innate intellect and her ability to remain focused, as well as her dedication to excellence, that have allowed her to succeed in academia, industry, and government. She brings her varied experience--unusual for a university president--to her current position. And, in a life filled with irony, nothing tops her current status: a black woman physicist at the helm of a university where a majority of the students are white males.

Refocus on research

Jackson intends to transform Rensselaer into "a more fully realized research university" offering more research opportunities that will attract eminent faculty. And she aims to change the university's ethnic and gender makeup by attracting more minority and female students and faculty. But to do this, she must first repair the tattered academic reputation of Rensselaer.

In addition to expanding its research portfolio to include a focus on biotech and IT, Jackson plans to raise the current $730 million endowment substantially to recruit world-class researchers. It's a tall order, but chemist Mary L. Good, who cochaired the presidential search committee and who may now be one of Jackson's closest advisers, believes that if anyone can do it, Jackson can. She was "chosen for her academic credentials, her management experience at NRC, and her background in industry," Good says. For Jackson, "failure is not an option," Good adds.

Jackson is known for her sharp intellect and inquisitiveness, her decisiveness, her hard work and high energy, and her dedication and determination. Those who know her say she is assertive without being adversarial--although she can be abrasive.

As interim provost, Daves worked closely with Jackson until his retirement this summer. He says they had plenty of disagreements, but "we fundamentally liked and respected each other and worked well together." Yet he admits that "on an hour-to-hour, day-to-day basis, she is not an easy lady to work with, but the integrity and basic humanity are there."

Some people think Jackson has an imperial and controlling manner. Her predilection for the spotlight and recognition is evidenced by press releases and a Web page that tout her 12 honorary degrees and announce her appointments to various board directorships. A cartoon published in the school newspaper negatively depicts how she is being perceived by the very group she hopes to inspire.

Whatever her personal drawbacks--and they will be forgiven if she delivers the goods--Jackson came to Rensselaer with a vision, and she's on her way to translating her vision into reality in her usual methodical fashion. First, she made some strategic appointments. She quickly brought in a new provost and a new dean of engineering. She also created and filled a new position--vice president for research--the first time this research institution has ever had a single individual coordinating its research activities. But she has yet to appoint a dean of science.

The new executive position serves as a focal point for defining the research mission and provides the scaffolding for an expanded research portfolio. With the university's plunge into interdisciplinary domains, large-scale research proposals involving multiple investigators and many disciplines will become the norm. "My office was created to help coordinate the process" of increasing funding for research, says the vice president for research, Arthur C. Sanderson.

A longtime faculty member, Sanderson returned from leave at NSF to take the vice president position. He has the contacts in Washington, D.C., to help the institute garner support for research proposals that faculty will be submitting in the future. "Rensselaer has hired 30 new faculty across all schools this year, and we will continue to hire and replace faculty from across all schools," Sanderson insists. Rensselaer has five schools, including the School of Science.

Jackson, with the aid of faculty and the Washington Advisory Group of Washington, D.C., set up internal and external panels to assess Rensselaer's current strengths and weaknesses and to determine where Rensselaer should be heading in the future. The Washington Advisory Group--composed of senior scientific luminaries who now consult for universities--also helped Jackson draft an early version of the Rensselaer Plan, the first comprehensive strategic plan for Rensselaer in 25 years. Faculty, students, and staff then had the opportunity to comment on the plan, and its final version was approved by the board of trustees in May.

"What I learned from my experience at NRC," Jackson explains, "was how to articulate a vision, plan and organize the activities of an organization around that vision, do strategic planning, and bring in the various constituencies in the plan, but nonetheless set a clear direction for that organization. And that is what I have done at Rensselaer, I believe, with the Rensselaer Plan."

Rensselaer Plan

The plan, according to Jackson, energizes Rensselaer's strength and serves as a catalyst for future change. It calls for Rensselaer to maintain and enhance its reputation for being an innovator in undergraduate education--especially its interactive learning method that stresses theory and hands-on laboratory experience--and for beefing up graduate education and entrepreneurship. But, Jackson says, "Rensselaer is a research university, and my intent is to strengthen it further."

Jackson's working motto appears to be pedagogy and research--shift the balance a bit toward research, but enhance both. Research is the means to the end, which is the global prominence and leadership role she seeks for the university.

Peterson [Photo by Thomas Griffen]

The plan not only sets the agenda and guidelines for reaching milestones, it also serves as a budgeting document--a means of setting priorities and allocating resources. Its underlying assumptions are that the research portfolio has to be increased and the quality of research improved for Rensselaer to have the impact its seeks.

But the plan recognizes that Rensselaer is a small school with a modest endowment and limited resources. It clearly states that the university will have to husband its efforts carefully by building on core research areas offering the best opportunity for future growth and impact. The plan identifies microelectronics, advanced materials and nanotechnology, and modeling and simulation of complex systems as Rensselaer's foundation for future expansion. These areas are interdisciplinary, capturing and utilizing the strengths of all five schools.

These core areas also have the virtue of being able to thrust the university into IT and biotech. These two domains, many believe, will drive global economic growth and shape future societies. Although she concedes that "Rensselaer has not necessarily been known in those arenas," Jackson insists the institute has strengths it can build on.

But, again, being small, Rensselaer can never hope to dominate these domains. The best it can do--and, Jackson maintains, it intends to do--is identify and dominate niches within those two arenas. Rensselaer can succeed "by capturing synergies between [existing] strengths while identifying exploitable, very selective focal areas in biotechnology and IT," Jackson says.

Of the two new thrusts, biotechnology is more problematic for Rensselaer, which isn't strong in the biological sciences and doesn't have an affiliation with a major medical center. Biology "is not one of our strengths, and it seems to me you should have some basis on which to build," says one source who asks not to be identified.

Jackson insists that, with the right focus, Rensselaer can be a player in biotech. It will mean "looking for those problems, those areas and niches" that can play off Rensselaer's strengths in bioengineering and in computation, she explains.

"It's important to get across the fact that Rensselaer is an excellent institution," Jackson says. "It has a number of well-known programs; for example, in polymer science, materials, computation, nanotechnology, and environmental science and engineering," she adds. "I'm not talking about creating from scratch.

"The real difference is one of emphasis: giving a focus to leverage greater strength to create greater progress for the university," she continues. "That will require energy and an infusion of new resources. I think we can do it. The specifics will come out with the more detailed performance-planning process."

Biotech and IT "are important arenas to be in--whether we have been in them or not, and to whatever degree we have been in them or not--and we are saying we are going to do that," Jackson insists. Very softly and very slowly she says, "These are going to be two new university thrusts. We are going to give some major attention to IT and biotechnology." Such a university-wide focus will "be the mechanism for building up Rensselaer's research enterprise," she contends. "We will leverage the strengths we already have."

Jackson adds, "We will identify other research opportunities not in biotechnology and IT." She emphasizes that there will be a "full research portfolio," but many faculty are not yet convinced and are concerned that areas of research outside the two main thrusts will, in some fashion, be neglected.

Geiger says, "I, too, would be concerned if I were on the faculty." He explains: "The way I read the plan is that it is an underresourced institution, so it's difficult to make substantial new investments in faculty without cutting back in other areas. The plan calls for restructuring, and restructuring usually means cutting back."

Provost Peterson counters, "This is not the Rensselaer Institute of Biotechnology & Information Technology. We will remain Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, underscore poly. The fact that we have identified biotech and IT as strategic focal areas does not mean that we are going to stop doing everything else and focus exclusively on these two areas."

"The real change" that the plan posits "is a fundamental emphasis on a fully fleshed-out technological research university," Jackson says. And she maintains that a fully realized technological university can support a spectrum of research. But she also cautions, "It is not going to be a Christmas tree," where everything gets equal emphasis, equal support. "That's a strategy for failure," she says.

Glicksman says he's "comfortable with the new focus," even though he doesn't believe he'll have much impact on it and vice versa. "To be a faculty member in a university where research and scholarship are given a lot of currency is a good feeling," he says.

To achieve the fully realized research university envisioned by Jackson, the plan calls for annual research spending to leapfrog from $40 million to $100 million over the next five years. Naming a vice president for research is a deliberate and necessary step to ensure increased funding. Another step is instilling in faculty the expectation that research is part of the overall portfolio, and that more attention will be paid to research in performance and tenure evaluations.

According to some sources, most of Rensselaer's current research funding comes from industry, mainly via support for the university's many research centers. State and federal funding will now have to be tapped to greater depth to meet the five-year goal of more than doubling research funding. Daves says he is not aware of any discussion about Rensselaer going after legislative earmarks--funds designated for specific groups in federal spending bills--for its IT and biotech thrusts. But, he notes, the university has been the recipient of "a fair number of earmarks in water legislation for its environmental water science projects."

If the research portfolio is enlarged and expanded, graduate-degree programs will also have to be expanded. The plan recognizes this and calls for a doubling of the number of doctoral degrees awarded annually over the next eight to 10 years--from 125 to 250.

Constellations

A goodly portion of increased funds for research and money from an enhanced endowment is likely to be channeled into biotech and IT. And the venue for that support is likely to be what the plan calls a constellation.

To draw eminent researchers to the university, and to move Rensselaer forward in a given area of research, the plan calls for the creation of multidisciplinary constellations of faculty "working in carefully selected areas across the spectrum of IT, biotechnology, and their nexus." As Sanderson explains, "opportunities are increasingly at the intersection of these emerging areas."

The constellations will be composed of internationally recognized senior faculty members who likely will hold endowed chairs. These international eminences will be paired with junior faculty members--some drawn from "stars" among the current faculty, some newly hired. The highly renowned researchers "will be the magnets that attract talent," Daves explains.

According to Peterson, faculty members are playing "a key role in determining research areas and how best to utilize the constellations' chairs." But appointments to constellations will be made by Jackson and the board of trustees.

Six constellations are now contemplated, three each in IT and biotech. And they will receive all the research and programmatic resources needed to achieve dominance in their specific niches.

The plan acknowledges that a new physical infrastructure for research will have to be built. A facility for biotechnology and interdisciplinary studies is now being planned, but fund-raising for it is just beginning. Trustee Warren Bruggeman, class of '46, and his wife, Pauline, have donated $1.5 million to launch the fund-raising effort.

R. Bruce Adams, director of media relations, says there is talk about creating a center for nanotechnology, but it is only talk at this point. Not all centers will be bricks-and-mortar, he also points out. Rensselaer is soon to announce a center for bioinformatics, a collaborative effort between the university and the New York Department of Health's Wadsworth Center. Adams says this bioinformatics center without walls is being created specifically to find funding.

One constellation, in bioinformatics, has been created from Rensselaer's strong foundation in applied mathematics and computer science. Bioinformatics links biology to information technology and permits data mining--the analysis of large amounts of data from research projects such as the Human Genome Project.

The constellation is being led by mathematician Michael Zuker, who was an associate professor of biomedical computing at Washington University's School of Medicine, and computer scientist Charles E. Lawrence, who is a research professor of computer science at Rensselaer and chief of the biometrics lab at Wadsworth Center.

Another constellation, in physics, IT, and entrepreneurship, has been created but not yet staffed. Initial funding for this constellation comes from a $5 million donation from Jeffrey L. Kodolsky, class of '70, and his wife, Gail. Adams says this donation "was given in direct response to the president's leadership and the Rensselaer Plan."

Performance plans

Like most strategic plans, the Rensselaer Plan is painted in broad strokes--although it lists more than 140 tasks. Faculty in the various departments and school deans are now developing performance plans to flesh out the objectives and measure the progress of the Rensselaer Plan over the next three years.

These performance plans impose a rigorous, businesslike approach to planning not seen before at Rensselaer to this extent. And it is not being enthusiastically embraced. As a source comments to C&EN, "There is a certain attitude among some people at the school that this, too, shall pass." But that's not likely in the near future.

Once the department chairs and deans are satisfied with their plans, they will send them to Peterson, who will fine-tune them and send them to Jackson. Ultimately, Jackson and her cabinet of vice presidents will make the final decisions on the future course of research at the university--after factoring in other priorities, including those affecting the students' quality of life. The priorities she and her cabinet set will then determine how much funding needs to be obtained and how discretionary, incentive, and new resources are to be allocated.

Each year's progress will be measured against the metrics defined by the departments and schools, and performance plans will be updated. From these revised plans, the administration will be able to set a budget.

To create the performance plans and then set university-wide priorities, Jackson, her cabinet, and the faculty and deans have to consider five questions:

What is the intellectual core in what we do?

Are we in a leadership position?

If not, do we have the underlying strengths so that, with the right focused investment, we can move into a leadership position in a short period of time?

Are there areas that are so vital and so important that we need to develop a presence?

What are we willing to give up to create a platform for change?

When asked about the role she foresees for chemistry in the new initiative, Jackson says, "You are asking me for details, and that is not where we are today. But, obviously to me, you are not going to make any progress in these arenas if you don't have strong chemistry. We feel that we have certain building blocks on which we can build. And I think we have some pretty good strengths in chemical engineering, biochemical engineering, biomedical engineering, and in the chemistry department."

According to Daves, the chemistry department is now in a rebuilding phase after some rough downsizing years in the mid-1990s. He cites biologically related chemistry and polymer chemistry--one of the strongest groups in the country--as two areas undergoing a renaissance.

"The department has made a major investment in some young chemists": Wilfredo (Freddie) Colón, who studies protein folding, and Julie Stenken, an analytical chemist working in biological areas, Daves says. Both have recently received National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Awards.

Daves says a key strength of the chemical engineering department is bioseparation engineering. "Separations involve special matrices that are almost always entirely polymer based, so the polymer chemists and the separations people in chemical engineering have worked together closely over many years," he adds. Another key area, Daves says, is protein engineering, and Dordick, the chairman of the chemical engineering department, is modifying proteins for specialized synthesis.

"Almost certainly, a constellation will be established to take into consideration the nexus of polymer chemistry and separations engineering," Daves says. "Both departments have a superb opportunity for building something very important."

The chairmen agree. Chemistry department Chairman Thomas Apple says his "department is strong though small," especially its polymer and materials research. "Our biochemists and polymer people can contribute to the biotechnology program," he says. Indeed, polymer chemistry underpins both biotechnology and nanotechnology, another future focus for Rensselaer, so "I hope we'll have the resources to help the initiative," he says.

Dordick sees "tremendous opportunities for chemical engineering." In the IT arena, Dordick cites the institute's critical capabilities in microelectronics and his department's expertise in biocatalysis. Combine the two and you get biomicroelectronics--metabolic pathways on a chip--a very specific area of IT. "Biochemical engineering, including bioseparations within chemical engineering, will be a strong part of Rensselaer's biotechnology thrust." Additional department areas of expertise that "will fit neatly into biotechnology and nanotechnology," Dordick says, are polymer reaction engineering and microelectronic processing.

Just as the performance plans will drive the selection of constellations and the next year's budget cycle, the reports from the internal and external advisory panels on biotech and IT mentioned earlier will influence the development of the performance plans.

The internal advisory panels composed of key faculty researchers, including chemists and chemical engineers, active in biotech and IT, and the external panels composed of widely recognized outside experts were charged with reviewing Rensselaer's current strengths and weaknesses and identifying areas of opportunity for growth and development in the two research domains. The panels' draft reports are now on Jackson's desk but have not been made public.

Raising money

With a road map for the future in place and performance plans under development, Jackson is now undertaking serious fund-raising. For all her achievements, some people believe that she is not particularly skilled at this task, although she has been able to bring in some donations--$1 million to $5 million at a clip from alumni--since she became president. She says that in the 1999-2000 academic year, annual donations have reached $43 million for the first time, up 20% over the previous academic year.

But to meet her goals, Jackson will have to bring in donations in the range of $50 million to $100 million, experts in those fields tell C&EN. She is aware of this.

Jackson is now spending a good bit of her time and energy raising the visibility of the institute, which is the purpose of a major advertising campaign in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal featuring four faculty researchers. She is meeting with key alumni, other supporters, and corporations to sell them on her vision. And, with her development team, she is working with trustees to launch a major capital campaign--"the largest capital fund-raising campaign in Rensselaer's history," Daves says. "I'm guessing $400 million to $500 million," he adds. A formal public announcement of the campaign is probably one or two years off, he says.

According to Daves, "About $100 million will be needed to get [biotech and IT] off the ground. I have a feeling we could get a foothold with six constellations and about $50 million. Another $30 million to $40 million will be needed for new research space." Sustaining the enterprise will mean doubling the endowment, which is now about $730 million, Daves says.

"It's a daunting task, but Jackson is a bold lady, and my best guess is, yes, she'll do it," Daves says. "She's an amazingly focused, ambitious person, and I have a lot of respect for her abilities."

	Rotating ads in major campaign feature four Renssalaer researchers.

Robert Nerem, director of Georgia Institute of Technology's Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering & Bioscience, knows how intimidating the task is. He helped to launch his Center for Biotechnology, which opened its doors for research in the summer of 1999. Nerem's center is affiliated with Emory University's School of Medicine and has 36 faculty members and more than 175 graduate students and postdocs who are drawn from seven different academic departments. It's the first time, Nerem says, that Georgia Tech has created an institute and constructed a building that "breaks down the barriers between the traditional disciplines of biology, biochemistry, and bioengineering." Space in the building is assigned on the basis of research interest, so every floor is a mixture of these three disciplines.

"What's important for a university charting a course in biotechnology is to create the synergy of a truly interdisciplinary environment," Nerem explains. "It is important not only to have the right people, but to have an environment that facilitates constant interaction among the people."

Jackson knows this. That's why she is spending a lot of her time trying to coax donations from alumni and industry to build a multidisciplinary biotechnology center on the Troy campus.

Despite the qualms of some Rensselaer faculty members, Nerem says he can't imagine an engineering school in the 21st century not having some kind of presence in biotech. "Any university with a strong engineering program today will need to be a player in the application of engineering to problems in biology, the life sciences, and medicine to be a leader in engineering in the 21st century," Nerem contends. In short, he says, "Rensselaer has got to figure out its niche in biotechnology to succeed in engineering in the future."

Not all of biotech will revolve around human medicine, and in fact, other applications are likely to become extremely important in the future. "But even with a focus on humans, a medical-center association may not be absolutely necessary as long as there are collaborations with strong biologists," Nerem says. "I can't see any reason why Rensselaer can't succeed if it is willing to make a commitment and it finds an appropriate niche," he says.

The same holds true for Rensselaer and IT, says Geoffrey C. Fox, a professor of computer sciences at Florida State University, Tallahassee, and a member of Jackson's external advisory panel on IT. While Rensselaer will never be able to cover the full IT field, he says, "it certainly can do an interesting program with an investment it can supply."

Getting to critical mass would require support from the university infrastructure and a certain number of faculty and students specializing in the IT area. "For Rensselaer, five faculty--two senior members and three junior members constituting a constellation--and an infrastructure amount of about $350,000 per year" should do it, he says. By infrastructure, Fox means "appropriate high-speed and latest networking technology, allowing students and faculty doing IT research to communicate, and probably some rewiring." And it would also take, he says, "substantial start-up funds of about a quarter of a million dollars per person."

"Those investments are modest," Fox says. "The key is getting a few key people on board," he adds. With enough resources--money and administrative support--he doesn't see why Rensselaer can't do that. But he cautions, "If it tries to be top tier like MIT, it would fail. But it can be wonderful in some areas."

Jackson's goal

By focusing on selected areas in these two leading-edge disciplines, Jackson hopes to catapult Rensselaer into the top tier. Her goal, she reiterates, is to make Rensselaer "a top-tier, meaning a very nationally ranked, technological research university. Period. And, in moving to reach that goal, we are going to give much more emphasis to research and to strengthening research and graduate education. But we are going to do it in a way where we do not lose our focus on excellence in undergraduate education."

Sanderson envisions that Rensselaer would not only be "widely recognized for its first-quality research. It would also be a highly visible institution whose students are perceived as desirable for their participation in the emerging industries."

Jackson anticipates that it will take five to 10 years to reach her goal, and if she achieves it, she will be considered a genius. If she doesn't, it will be a highly visible failure--one of her few.

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Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute overlooks the Hudson River from its perch atop a hill in Troy, N.Y. Founded by Stephen Van Rensselaer and Amos Eaton in 1824, it is the nation's oldest applied science and technology research university, and it claims to be the first degree-granting technological institution in the English-speaking world.

Its alumni have contributed vastly to technologies and products that have affected, if not changed, the world. Civil engineer Washington A. Roebling, class of 1857, designed and built the world's longest suspension bridge--the Brooklyn Bridge. Another civil engineer, George W. G. Ferris, class of 1881, invented the Ferris wheel. Allen B. Du Mont, class of 1924, invented the cathode ray tube and thereby launched the U.S. television industry. George M. Low, class of 1948 and a past president of Rensselaer, directed the National Aeronautics & Space Administration's Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, the Apollo through the first landing on the moon. Other alumni have been instrumental in the development of e-mail--including the use of the @ symbol--the pocket calculator, and the microprocessor.

Rensselaer has 329 full-time tenured faculty, including the president, provost, and some vice presidents, and another 38 full-time nontenured faculty who spend most of their time teaching rather than researching and publishing. Only 3% of the total full-time faculty are black, and only 2% are Hispanic. During the past year, some 30 new junior faculty have been hired.

Among the faculty are a Nobel Laureate, Ivar Giaever, Institute Professor of Science, who was awarded the physics prize in 1973 for his work on low-temperature superconductors, and members of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Science.

During the 1999-2000 academic year, six young faculty members, including two in chemistry, were honored with the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development Award. These grants, ranging from $200,000 to $500,000, were awarded to more than 300 researchers nationwide.

According to the most recent U.S. News & World Report survey, Rensselaer ranks in the top tier of national universities--but just barely: number 49 along with Pepperdine University in California and the University of Texas, Austin. This same survey ranks Rensselaer's undergraduate engineering program 17th nationwide and its graduate engineering program 19th. The survey has been widely criticized, but the rankings are avidly read by alumni, administrators, trustees, and applicants, and schools have been known to alter polices to affect future rankings.

Its illustrious history, U.S. News & World Report rankings, and a nearly fully wired campus as well as a two-year-long ad campaign have attracted nearly 6,700 undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 75 countries to the Troy campus. In addition, Rensselaer has a Hartford, Conn., campus for professionals who are seeking master's degrees in management and engineering.

As of fall 1999, about a quarter of the more than 4,800 undergraduates were women, and nearly a fifth were minorities, mainly Asians. About 8% were black, Hispanic, or Native American. Women made up 28% of the nearly 1,800 graduate students, and minorities, including Asians, were 9% of the total. Only 4% of graduate students were black, Hispanic, or Native American.

At the end of August there were 39 undergraduate chemistry majors, of whom 14, or 36%, were women. Seven, or 18% of the total, were nonresident aliens (those from outside the U.S. who could be any race or ethnicity), minorities, or refused to identify their ethnicity. The corresponding numbers for undergraduate chemical engineers were 146, of whom 53, or 36%, were women. Fifty-six, or 38%, were nonresident aliens, minorities, or refused to list ethnicity. There were 62 graduate students in chemistry, of whom 26, or 42%, were women. Forty-one were listed as nonresident aliens. Graduate students in chemical engineering numbered 74, of whom 19, or 26%, were women. Fifty-two of the total were listed as nonresident aliens.

President Shirley Ann Jackson's push to increase the number of women and minorities is becoming manifest if the numbers for the class of 2004 are any evidence. As of mid-August, this class numbered 1,323 students, of whom 69% are in the top 10% of their high school graduating class. Of this class, 26% are women, but only 11% are minorities--black, Hispanic, or Asian. The entering class scored, on average, 1,281 on the SAT.

This fall's graduate school enrollment, at 469, is up 15% from the fall of 1999, and women and minorities applications have increased by 14% and 28%, respectively.

Rensselaer boasts five schools--architecture, engineering, humanities and social sciences, management and technology, and science--offering more than 100 programs and 700 courses leading to bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degrees.

Since 1998, it has offered a cross-disciplinary B.S. degree in information technology, and just this year it instituted a master's program in this field. A recent $1.6 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute allowed the School of Science to establish a new B.S. program in bioinformatics and molecular biology, one of the first in the nation.

In addition to the five schools, Rensselaer has some 24 academic and research centers, including its notable Center for Advanced Interconnect Sciences & Technology. CAIST, sponsored by the Semiconductor Research Corp., develops ingenious basic scientific and engineering capabilities that make advances in semiconductors and microelectronics possible. Another center, the New York State Center for Polymer Synthesis, works closely with industry to drive the field of materials synthesis. And the schools of engineering and science have joined forces to set up the Scientific Computation Research Center as a focus for the development of advanced computational methods.

The school's innovations in undergraduate education--an interactive, learning-by-doing approach--have earned it national recognition. In 1995, it received the Theodore M. Hesburgh Award, and a year later, the Pew Charitable Trusts Leadership Award.

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This past year, the National Science Foundation honored 300 young faculty members engaged in research and teaching with its Faculty Early Career Development Award. Six faculty members at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute--including two chemists--received the award.

The chemists, both assistant professors in the chemistry department, are Wilfredo (Freddie) Colón, 34, and Julie Stenken, 32.

Colón received a $400,000 four-year grant to study how proteins fold--and misfold. A portion of his grant will fund research by underrepresented minority undergraduate and high school students.

Stenken was awarded a $300,000 four-year grant to develop minimally invasive in vivo sampling devices to monitor in vivo biochemical reactions in real time. Part of her grant will also fund research by minority undergraduate and high school students.

Colón [Photo by Gary Gold]	Stenken [Photo by Thomas Griffen]

Colón received a Ph.D. in chemistry from Texas A&M. He came to Rensselaer in 1997 after a postdoctoral position as a minority NSF fellow at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.

He is trying to unravel the mechanism by which a protein's amino acid sequence determines its three-dimensional structure--and thereby its function. To monitor the time course of protein folding, he is using rapid mixing techniques with optical--fluorescent and circular dichroism--spectroscopy. Using these biophysical tools to study the folding of different mutants and protein fragments may "allow one to understand the pathway by which a protein reaches its native and functional state from a disordered conformation," Colón says.

If a protein misfolds or aggregates, conformational diseases such as Alzheimer's and mad-cow disease may result. So Colón's research in this area is important, especially because "the number of conformational diseases is growing," he says. Understanding "the mechanism by which proteins fold, misfold, and aggregate" offers opportunities for therapeutic intervention, he explains.

Colón is a member of Rensselaer's bioinformatics constellation--a new organizational structure for the university that is intended to capture the synergies of researchers from several disciplines working together. Being a part of this group provides Colón "the opportunity to interact and establish collaborations with computational scientists with similar research interests," he tells C&EN.

Stenken likes to call herself a bioanalytical chemist. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Akron, Ohio. While studying for her doctorate, she received a one-year J. William Fulbright Fellowship to study at the Swedish Karolinska Institute in the department of clinical pharmacology. She did a postdoc at the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, in the pharmacology department. In 1996, she was offered a position at Rensselaer.

To monitor biochemical reactions in vivo, Stenken uses micrometer-size fibers in a technique called microdialysis sampling. This method has been used to monitor neurochemicals in living brain for about 20 years, but her work is "focused on the fundamental bioanalytical chemistry aspects of this technique," she explains.

Assessing the hazards of different levels of radiation might be possible using microdialysis sampling coupled to electron spin resonance detection. So Stenken, an undergraduate student, and another chemist in her department are working on ways to link the two techniques for monitoring so-called oxidative stress events.

Stenken is also developing cell culture methods that can be coupled to her microdialysis sampling devices to quantify the biochemical response to various biomaterials used to make the sampling devices. She says this work is of interest to biomedical sensor companies attempting to overcome the problem of sensor biocompatibility.

Stenken believes her research "is very much related to Rensselaer's recent thrust in biotechnology," and she hopes to be a member of a constellation yet to be formed. "Even if my research is not directly put under the umbrella of a constellation, my research will still greatly benefit from the influx of resources and new faculty members," she tells C&EN.

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