Strategic Plan |
 |
Strategic Plan |
|
WETLAND BIOGEOCHEMISTRY INSTITUTE (WBI)
MISSON STATEMENT
The mission of the Wetland Biogeochemistry Institute (WBI) is to conduct basic and applied research emphasizing biogeochemical processes in wetland ecosystems, and provide expertise and leadership in this field. This research is directed towards four broad areas of state, regional, national, and international importance:
VISION STATEMENT
The Institute should continue to be a strong research and graduate student training unit focusing on wetland biogeochemical processes, and should expand its state, national, and international reputation to be the clearly recognized leader in this field.
STRATEGIC GOALS
Goal 1:
To maintain the current 8 academic and research faculty associated with the Institute. This goal has changed since last year when it was to add one additional faculty member. Funding constraints and other factors have precluded WBI attaining this goal. The change is to maintain the present number of teaching and research faculty. One of our faculty who has a join appointment with the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences is leaving LSU during the summer of 2002 and it is our revised goal to replace this faculty member.
Action:The Director of the Institute and the Chair of the Department involved met with the Dean of the School of the Coast and Environment in May of 2002 and initiated a plan for replacing this faculty member. Replacement of this faculty member should and will require a solid case be made that a new faculty member in the institute will be a strong asset to the Institute, the Department, and the School.
Time Frame: The time frame is to start advertising for this position in the fall of 2002 and hopefully fill it for the start of the fall semester, 2003.
Responsible Individuals: The responsible individuals originally are the Director of WBI, the Chair of the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, the WBI and DOCS faculty, and the Dean of the School of the Coast and Environment, and upper University administration.
Constraints: Filling this position will depend on finding an outstanding individual, the availability of funds, and priorities for the units involved.
Measurable Progress: The Institute director and Department chair have meet with the Dean of the School and have initiated steps to fill this position. A strong case must be made for replacing any faculty to a particular vacated position. In developing the justification for this, initial points include: 1) the Institute represents the major chemistry oriented unit in the school, 2) there is strong demand for chemistry oriented courses in the Department, 3) the Department needs one additional chemistry-oriented person qualified to teach a course for which we don’t currently have an available faculty member, 4) someone with strengths in certain subareas of wetland biogeochemistry is in a position to add strength to interdisciplinary research teams to help address some of Louisiana’s coastal wetland loss issues.
_______________
Goal 2:
To upgrade the Institute's facilities in terms of obtaining space in the planned new building. This is a continuing goal from last year.
Action: In 1997, there were no firm plans for WBI to move into the new building, it was going to remain in its present facility. The Director and faculty worked with the Executive Director of CCEER (now Dean, SC&E) and others to change this. Their support is much appreciated. The reasons were that the present building has inadequate hood space, the metal siding is deteriorating, the extensive exposed steel and galvanized frame and ducting and wire ceiling support make it difficult to do good trace metal chemistry work, there is inadequate space for the work being done, students and faculty/staff are currently in 3 different buildings, we’ve been told the basic design of the building does not meet fire codes, and proximity to other SC&E researchers is important. The second phase of the new building construction (completing the interior) lacked sufficient funds to finish part of the third floor that would house WBI. In the fall of 2001, additional funds were made available, and the Institute anticipates moving into the new building in 2003 or 2004.
Time Frame:The bids for completing the third floor are anticipated to go out in July of 2002 and submitted bids will be opened in October. Depending on the accepted low bid, the remaining construction required should begin in the fall of 2002 or 2003.
Responsible Individuals: Help in getting sufficient funds to complete the building and get WBI into the building has come primarily from the state administration, the Dean of the School of the Coast and Environment, and upper University administrators.
Constraints: We do not anticipate major problems at this time.
Measurable Progress: In the last 6 months, funding and plans are such that this goal should be met within 1 to 2 years.
_______________
Goal 3:
To upgrade the Institute's research instrumentation by adding at least one major instrument annually. This is a continuing goal.
Action: By using mostly grant and contract funds, expired fixed price contract funds, and overhead return funds, Institute faculty want to significantly upgrade the Institute's research instrumentation. We have met this goal for the last several years.
Time Frame: For upgrading instrumentation, the time frame is for one major instrument per year.
Responsible Individuals: Faculty members are primarily responsible for generating the funds for upgrading and obtaining new instrumentation capabilities.
Constraints: Constraints in upgrading research instrumentation are simply the availability of University funds and self-generated funds by faculty members.
Measurable Progress: In the last two years, (2000 to early 2002) we have significantly added to our research instrumentation, exceeding our goal of adding one major research instrumentation item per year. In the last 2 years we have acquired the following major items from various funding sources: 1) a visible/ultraviolet spectrometer, 2) a used (but 8 years newer than our present model) ICP, a modern emission elemental analyzer, 3) a new total organic carbon/nitrogen analyzer with autosampler (in cooperation with another department), 4) a new gas chromatograph, 5) a fluorometer (fluorescence) analyzer for measuring aromatic petroleum hydrocarbons, 6) a cold vapor atomic absorption analyzer for mercury analysis, and, 7) three new digital, top-loading balances. The total value of these additions is over $80 K, thus we have accomplished this goal.
_______________
Goal 4:
Maintaining and improving Institute visibility and performance (see subgoals below):
Goal 4a:
Maintain and improve Institute visibility-publications (numbers and types). This is a continuing goal.
Action:Previous plans indicate maintaining and improving the publication record of faculty, staff, and students in the Institute was important, but no specific goals or targets were established. A committee has been appointed to consider and recommend specific goals for publications, but is still working on this activity.
Time Frame: The current plan is for the committee to make a recommendation to the faculty during the early fall of 2002.
Responsible Individuals:The Institute Director has appointed a committee consisting of the Director and three faculty members to be responsible for seeing that this action (a recommendation) is accomplished.
Constraints: There should not be any constraints in establishing a committee and developing committee recommendations.
Measurable Progress: The Institute faculty have been reasonably successful in the number of publications and proceedings published. From 2000 through early 2002, Institute personnel have authored or co-authored more than 30 publications in refereed journals plus some chapters and other reports. We anticipate the committee will set good quantitative goals by the fall.
_______________
Goal 4b:
Maintain and improve Institute visibility-The Wetland Biogeochemistry Symposium. This is a continuing goal.
Action: In 1991, the leadership of the Institute developed the Wetland Biogeochemistry Symposium series that has been subsequently held every 1. 5 to 2.0 years. Although initiated by this Institute, in recent years, units in other universities here and abroad are cooperating in sponsoring this successful event. The plan of action will be to maintain a strong leadership role in this symposium series and continue to work to make it successful
Time Frame:This is an ongoing activity that requires a lot of effort about every two years.
Responsible Individuals: Responsible individuals have included in the past and continue to include the WBI Director, the WBI faculty and staff. As this series has developed, key scientists at the University of Florida, Duke University, Ghent University (Belgium), and other institutions have joined the leadership for this activity.
Constraints: The relatively small number of faculty and staff of the Institute made it difficult for the Institute to continue to be the sole sponsor of this event, as was the case in the first few years, but, rotating the location and responsibility for providing facilities and other services for this symposium series has shared the time and other obligations.
Measurable Progress: Supporting and co-sponsoring this symposium series is an ongoing goal and activity. The fact that the Seventh Wetland Biogeochemistry Symposium was held at Duke University in 2001 with more than 130 registered attendees, 82 oral presentations, and 20 poster presentations indicates this continues to be a successful endeavor. The next in this Symposium series is scheduled for 2003 at Ghent University in Belgium.
_______________
Goal 4c:
Maintain and improve Institute visibility-participation in national and international meetings. This is a continuing goal.
Action:This has been set as a general goal in the past and the action required now is to develop a record to document meeting activity and find ways to encourage and support this activity. The same committee mentioned above to develop specific goals for publications has been assigned this responsibility as well.
Time Frame: The time frame would be the same as given in Goal 4a above, except that producing an initial list of meetings attended and presentations made for the last 10 years has been completed from the Institute's biennial reports.
Responsible Individuals: See Goal 4a above.
Constraints: Funds for travel for meetings are a constraint since most must be written into and provided by grant and contract funding.
Measurable Progress: At this time, we have completed a draft list of the number of meetings with papers presented, workshops, and panels attended by faculty and staff. For 2002-2003, we hope to budget some funds for travel to professional meetings from salary savings.
_______________
Goal 4d:
Maintain and improve Institute visibility-establish and maintain an Institute web page. This is a continuing goal.
Action: This was a general goal for the Institute established informally about 3 years ago. The Web Site has been established, but, an effort to frequently update it and to get all faculty to fully cooperate with it needs to be made before this goal can be declared achieved. It should be pointed out that in July of 2000, the WBI web page was selected by “Links Go” for the Key Resource Award in the “Wetlands” category. This organization does not allow organizations to apply to be considered, but bases their recognition on number of visits to the site, downloads, and other criteria and only 50 pages claiming a link to any subject category receive this recognition. For the 2002-2003 academic year, the Institute is considering an attempt to find funds to hire a resource person for a few weeks to further improve the web site and give us an improved format that we could maintain on our own.
Time Frame: The general goal of establishing an Institute web page was set for late 1998. This has been done, but a modification of this goal is to see that information is updated every 6 months.
Responsible Individuals: Responsible individuals for improving and keeping a WBI web site updated belong specifically to the Administrative Assistant and Director with cooperation from all Institute faculty and staff.
Constraints: The constraints are not major, except with all the demands on faculty and staff time, this gets a low priority by some in the Institute. The problem is more with faculty cooperation.
Measurable Progress: A web site for the Institute has been established, but additional work needs to be done.
_______________
Goal 5:
Maintaining and improving research funding levels. This is a continuing goal.
Action: No specific quantitative goal has been established in the past. The Director, in individual discussions with faculty, is developing ideas for approaching this and will meet with the faculty concerning this in the fall of 2002. This represent a goal presented in past plans, and progress has been slower than anticipated, we want to keep working on this.
Time Frame:The Director will call a special meeting of the faculty for the purpose of discussing and hopefully setting reasonable quantitative goals in this area during 2002. After a thorough discussion and exchange of ideas, we may be able to agree on specific goals by the fall of 2002. Since we have a relatively small number of faculty, all should be involved in this activity.
Responsible Individuals: We have eight faculty members and all should be involved in this activity. The Director is talking individually with faculty now and will seek collective faculty input as indicated above.
Constraints: At this point, our action plan is to set goals and there should be no constraints on this activity. Constraints would likely be included with specific goals.
Measurable Progress: Grant and contract funding tends to cycle up and down and it is difficult to set specific annual goals. The Director would like to see the faculty develop aggressive but reasonable quantitative expectations for measuring progress in the future. However, looking at a multiyear set of data, the recent trend has looksed favorable. Institute grant and contract funding in 2000 and 2001 exceeded grant and contract funding amounts in 1997, 1998, and 1999.
_______________
Goal 6:
To set up a set of by-laws for the internal governance of the Institute. This goal is continued from last year.
Action: A draft of by-laws has been prepared and circulated among senior faculty thus far.
Time Frame: Discussion of a set of by-laws has occurred at past faculty meetings. We anticipate the faculty will be ready to vote on a modified version late in the spring of 2002.
Responsible Individuals: Irv Mendelssohn has taken the lead in the preparation of the initial draft, and Robert Gambrell will keep this on the agenda so that progress can be made.
Constraints: Problems in achieving this are not anticipated. Under the new Director who has heard a clear mandate for a more consensus form of governance, the by-laws are viewed as a way of achieving a consensus in the operation of the Institute.
Measurable Progress: A draft set of by-laws has already been prepared.
_______________
Goal 7:
To initiate an annually updated tabulation of performance indicators for the Institute. This tabulation will be included in future years as part of the Institute’s biennial report. This is a new goal.
Action:This is being done to evaluate the performance of the Institute over time and identify strong areas and areas that need improving. A tabulation of some performance indicators on a yearly basis has been initiated within the last year. The list thus far includes for the Institute as a whole: 1) the number of DOCS students supported, 2) number of publications, 3) number of presentations at professional meetings, and 4) grand and contract funding.
Time Frame: The format for tabulating these performance indicators, all of the indicators to be in cluded, and guidelines for inclusion of items within the categories should be in place by December, 2002.
Responsible Individuals: The responsible individuals are the Institute director and the administrative assistant.
Constraints: None
Measurable Progress: About half of the categories we’d like to see tabulated for the purpose of self evaluation have been completed going back to 1990. We are on track for completing this by the end of the year.