September 29, 2005
Newsmakers: Of funding and families
A HELPING HAND: An article in the July 22 Chronicle of Higher Education under the headline “Family Science” took up the matter of ways in which institutions can help faculty members whose professional lives are being threatened by life changes and challenges. The article quoted and ran a photograph of Martha M. Bosma, who is a UW assistant professor of biology.
The UW, the article by writer Robin Wilson stated, has given $727,443 in grants to faculty ranging from $5,000 to $38,000. The grants to individuals come from the UW’s Transitional Support Program, which is administered by the ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change and the vice provost’s office.
Bosma appeared in the story because the UW gave her a TSP grant for $20,000, to help her continue her research while caring for a son with substantial medical needs. The money enabled Bosma to change the direction of her research to more closely reflect the needs of her son and others like him.
In a quote that ended the story, Bosma praised the thinking behind such special grants, saying, “I’ve done all this on a slightly different pathway. But if you want to include everybody, that means everybody with family issues. I’m not going to march along the same path as everyone else.”
HELPING OR HURTING? Does marital therapy work? Research reported on in a recent New York Times article indicated that some therapy or “marriage education” helps couples for a short time — a year or so — but that in other cases, it may actually do more harm than good.
“Couples wait an average of six years of being unhappy with their relationship before getting help,” The Times quoted John Gottman, UW emeretis professor of psychology and executive director of the Relationship Research Institute in Seattle. “We help the very distressed couple less than the moderately distressed couple.”
Gottman’s research, the article stated, showed that while even the happiest couples argue occasionally, is the ratio of positive to negative interactions remains at least five to one, the relationship stands a good chance of surviving.
Still, not all marriages can be saved, Gottman says. “Some people are fundamentally mismatched, and they can’t benefit from therapy.” Other couples need more help than therapy or marriage education can provide, such as those with personality disorders or relationships marred by violence or intimidation. “We have nothing to offer them.”
FUNDING CONCERN: In a recent article in The New York Times, several scientists expressed concern and frustration over decreasing levels of federal funding for research. The article stated that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Pentagon, which had long underwritten open-ended computer research, will sharply cut spending at universities to send more money to “more classified work and narrowly defined projects that promise a more immediate payoff.”
Among those registering opposition was Ed Lazowska, UW professor and chair of the Computer Science & Engineering Department. “Virtually every aspect of information technology upon which we rely today bears the stamp of federally sponsored university research,” Lazowska said. “The federal government is walking away from this role, killing the goose that laid the golden egg.”
