Ensuring Our Return on Investment
Posted on May 5, 2002The taxpayers of North Carolina have no better investment than our alma mater. Generations of North Carolina legislators have reflected their understanding of the important contributions our University makes to all North Carolinians with generous state appropriations. Such support is vital and signals an appreciation for the enlightened self-interest that is reflected by such continuing support.
However, there are indications that some legislators wish to withdraw some of this important support because of North Carolina’s current budget crisis. To do so would be akin to spending one’s seed corn and would not just hurt our campus but also would be harmful to all North Carolinians.
I am referring to strong hints that some legislators again will seek to tap our $75 million in facilities and administrative costs (also known as “overhead receipts”) to address a growing state revenue deficit. It is important that Carolina alumni help legislators understand that these funds represent the hard, effective work of our distinguished faculty. These funds are reinvested into our mounting research initiatives that last year attracted more than $439 million, or one-third of the University’s budget. Were the General Assembly to take some or all of these funds, they very well could drive away some of our most productive faculty. These are the very faculty who compete with peers across the country for the research grants that trigger overhead receipts. (This year, Carolina moved to 12th in NIH funding, up from 15th in 1998.) Were these faculty to leave, they would take their research funding with them. Such departures would not only deprive our students of some of our most talented teachers, their leaving also could discourage other faculty from coming to UNC.
Over many years, University administrators, trustees, alumni leaders and legislators worked hard to convince the General Assembly that all of these funds should remain on the campus that generates them in order that they could be reinvested. For many years, the state and the UNC System General Administration took 35 percent of these funds. This amount was reduced over several years until, starting in 1998, all of these funds remained on our campus. Not surprisingly, in each year since 1998 our faculty have set records in the amount of research funding they have brought to Chapel Hill. Today our campus attracts more than 57 percent of the research funding that comes to the 16-campus UNC System.
It is important to understand how these funds are used. On average at anyone time at Carolina, 846 employees are paid at least in part from the $17.5 million in Facilities and Administrative funds devoted to salaries campuswide, and these employees live in 47 North Carolina counties.
Besides supporting employees who are vital to our programs in research and education, these funds also are used to help support a number of public-service projects, including the Breast Cancer Screening Program, the Center for Sustainable Enterprise, the AIDS Clinical Trials Network, the Oral Conditions and Pregnancy project, and the Oral Health Works in the Community project.
These funds also are helping Carolina leverage other funding to build facilities vital to our research and teaching enterprise, such as the Bioinformatics Building ($2 million from state funds and $27 million from F&A funds); the Medical Biomolecular Research Building ($7 million in state funds and $30 million from F&A funds) ; the School of Public Health addition ($13.3 million from state bonds, $10 million from private fund raising and $15 million from F&A funds).
Last year, our campus disclosed 115 inventions and licensed 56, and inventions helped to launch more than 12 new companies based on UNC technologies. Our research helps improve our health, our environment and our quality of life. Medical advances from Carolina research are yielding new treatments for cancer, heart disease, HIV and other life-threatening diseases.
Twenty percent of UNC undergraduates receive credit hours for conducting research, much of which is supported with overhead receipts. Last year, these funds also provided startup packages for 79 new faculty members. Carolina’s new science complex and a genetic-medicine building will be funded partly from overhead receipts, and the equipment needed to make them functional also will come in part from overhead receipts .We are planning to pay for these facilities based on an average annual increase in these funds of 5 percent.
With the decline of North Carolina’s furniture, textiles and tobacco industries, our state’s economic future rests with the knowledge, information-based, technology and pharmaceutical industries. Our University is, can and should continue to contribute in each of these areas. We can only do so in partnership with the state. Retaining and growing our overhead receipts is vital- not just for our campus but for all North Carolinians. Please help your local legislators understand this.
Yours at Carolina,
Douglas S. Dibbert ’70
