The Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program, the program responsible for forming interdisciplinary clusters at NC State, is accepting proposals for a second round of clusters, which could result in the formation of four to six additional clusters and addition of approximately 15 to 20 new faculty members. 

The Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program (CFEP) was founded in 2011 to challenge complex societal problems by hiring groups of interdisciplinary researchers to address them in a new way. More than 70 proposals were submitted, and in 2012, 17 interdisciplinary groups of faculty, or clusters, were selected and allowed to hire new members to their research team, according to the program’s website. 

In his fall address, Woodson announced that, based on the success of the first round of cluster hires, the CFEP would be accepting a second round of proposals. Each cluster will submit a final proposal with recommendations for hiring three to four faculty members, at any rank, who the cluster thinks will be effective at advancing the national prominence of the research group. The CFEP second round deadline for submitting a proposal is Friday.

The first round of cluster hires began in February 2012 with the goal of hiring 42 new faculty members with interdisciplinary talents. So far, 35 positions have been filled. 

Laura Severin, special assistant to the provost, said it takes about 100 new faculty members to create the kind of institutional changes that the CFEP hopes to achieve, a number based on data from other universities. Currently, the university does not have the faculty it needs to sustain those goals

“The provost is always evaluating what the departments need based on changing enrollment across the institution, so there is always a view to looking at where new students are coming in and where faculty need to go,” Severin said. 

Jonathan Horowitz, the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research Development and a member of the cluster proposal selection committee, said the clusters are judged on their ability to interact with interdisciplinary topics and produce results individually. 

“What makes this hiring process so special is that it’s interdisciplinary, it breaks down any existing barriers between departments and colleges and we believe it’s going to catalyze a new era of interdisciplinary research at the university,” Horowitz said. 

Although clusters have the potential to tackle challenging societal and institutional problems, the introduction of clusters has challenged the way hiring faculty has traditionally been accomplished at a university. Colleges must adjust hiring practices, departmental autonomy, and tenure to meet the needs of a newly integrated system. 

Horowitz, who has been a witness to the cluster hiring process since its beginning at NC State, described the first round of hires as “uneven,” with some positions being filled right away while others are still unfilled.   

“In the traditional process, you are usually hiring someone who is doing something that is very relevant to a particular department,” Horowitz said. “In this new process we are looking for people whose research interests span multiple departments, even multiple colleges.”

Severin said that though existing faculty are excited to have new research partners to work with, there have been some difficulties in communication. 

“[Interdisciplinary faculty] don’t spend their entire time in their department because they’re working with honors across the university, so the faculty in the department don’t necessarily see what that interdisciplinary faculty member is doing the way that they could if the faculty member were in the department,” Severin said. 

Among the first successful hires is Alyson Wilson, the associate professor in the department of statistics since fall 2013. She was hired as a member of the data-driven science cluster. Wilson works at the intersection of computer science, mathematics and statistics and has developed a course called Introduction to Data Science.

Wilson does not have a traditional academic background and was working on science policy in Washington, D.C. when she was hired. 

“I don’t know that I was brought in to specifically do something but it has worked out that I have become the principal investigator for the lab for analytic sciences,” Wilson said. “I think I was simply brought in as a faculty member with a history of interdisciplinary work that would help build additional collaborations at NC State.” 

When she was a candidate, Wilson was interviewed by the data-driven science cluster to make sure that her interests were consistent with the interdisciplinary goals of the cluster. She was then interviewed by the department of statistics in order to confirm that she could be an effective member of the department. 

Wilson described the way in which a cluster is formed. 

“A group of faculty on campus will get together and write a proposal and given the current strength of the university, they make a proposal about a particular interdisciplinary area where, if they made a few strategic hires, they could really push forward what’s happening at the university,” Wilson said. 

Severin said the influx of so many new hires has put a strain on the budget and the amount of work space for many of the new faculty, forcing university architects to get creative. 

“There has to be a balance between interdisciplinary hiring, which does not necessarily address some of the departmental needs, and more traditional forms of hiring,” Severin said.

Wilson was not one of the faculty members who required a lot of accommodation by the university, but said she can see where the problems arise.

“You give me a desk and a computer and I’m good to go,” Wilson said. “I didn’t have that issue, but you can imagine that issue for faculty that come in to work in lab science.”

Clusters chosen out of the second round of proposals will be announced by the end of the spring semester, according to the provost’s website.