Huge NSF Magnet Grant Will Test FSU's Mettle

Florida State's victory over MIT in gaining a new lab makes it clear that NSF is inclined to reward fresh vision and determination The National Science Foundation wants universities to know that it takes more than technical excellence and a good reputation to win a large grant. What's required are hard work, a long-range vision, a commitment to training the next generation of scientists, and a knack for obtaining outside funding to augment whatever the federal government can provide. What NSF wants, in other words, is someone like solid state physicist Jack E. Crow. On August 17, NSF shook up the world of materials science when it awarded Florida State University a five-year, $60 million grant to build the nation's leading research facility in high magnetic fields, which can be used to investigate the structure of complex biological molecules, as well as to create new materials for use in superconducting magnets with a variety of applications. The lab's new director will be Jack Crow, who came to FSU only last January, after 16 years at Temple University in Philadelphia, and who is seen as having played a pivotal role in the winning effort. In making the award, NSF rejected a bid from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., home of the country's current showcase user facility, the Frances Bitter Magnetic Field Laboratory. In fact, the foundation overrode the recommendations of its site review panel and the advisory committee, whose outside experts backed the MIT proposal. On September 5, MIT asked NSF to review its decision, saying its analysis of the competing proposals was flawed and incomplete. Eight days later, however, NSF reaffirmed its decision in an eight-page letter to MIT president Paul Gray. Jack Crow, his friends agree, is usually brimming with self-confidence. But even Crow had strong doubts about whether his group at Florida State could beat out MIT for an NSF grant to build the country's leading high magnetic field laboratory. "I don't know if we ever talked about the odds," says the 51-year-old physicist. "They weren't zero, but we had no idea how high they might be. I didn't come here [from Temple University] because I thought we'd get the lab, and I would have been happy even if we hadn't won it. The idea was to prove that we could push MIT to the point where NSF was faced with a tough decision. And we did that." He did more than that, of course. And one of the reasons for his success, he believes, was the relatively short time between the announcement of the solicitation in December and the May 1 deadline for proposals. That five-month limit, he feels, discouraged those groups who were unwilling or unable to devote all their energies to writing a proposal. And it played to his strengths as a workaholic and a low-key but effective administrator. "There were many times when we sat up until 2 A.M. working on parts of the proposal," he recalls. "It took a lot of energy and endurance. It was also a tremendous example of parallel processing; we gave people sections of the proposal, and then we merged them at the end." The campaign for the high magnetic field lab also demonstrated his political savvy. He scoffs at complaints from colleagues that their state legislators would never have given them the kind of money that Florida authorized--$58 million over five years. "Did they spend a week shaking hands with lawmakers and explaining the project to them? It's not easy, but it's something that you just have to do," he says. His skill in working with people, in fact, may be his greatest attribute. Crow believes that one of the new lab's greatest strengths will be its collaboration with scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, who lead the world in brief pulsed high magnetic fields, and those in Europe, which boasts of world-class facilities in France and the Netherlands. Crow says that he's perfectly willing to share his knowledge and his facility with them, and he dismisses critics who argue that tapping into talent here will prevent Florida State from becoming the world leader in the field. "The size of the lab and the facilities themselves aren't what make you world-class," he says emphatically. "At the Indianapolis 500, there are probably 20 guys who have the same chassis and engine. It's what they do with the car that makes the difference. And it'll be the quality of the scientists whom we attract that will make us world-class, not a record magnet strength." --J.M. NSF officials admit their decision is a gamble, one in which they are walking away from an existing world-class but aging facility in the hope of creating an even better one by the end of the decade. "Sure it's a risk," says David Sanchez, NSF associate director for mathematics and the physical sciences. "But it isn't a big one. If I would have thought so, I probably wouldn't have recommended [FSU]." In the meantime, the award sends a message to universities around the country: Don't take anything for granted. "There is an entrenched science establishment that dominates research funding in this country," says Charles Hosler, vice president for research at Pennsylvania State University and a member of the National Science Board, the presidentially appointed advisory group that ratified the recommendation from NSF director Erich Bloch and his staff. "But sometimes these institutions become complacent. They don't mind the store, they don't hire new faculty or rejuvenate aging facilities. And they avoid any bold, new ideas, sticking to what's worked in the past." Such an attitude, notes Hosler, opens the door to those universities that aspire to greatness. "I think there's a mood on the board," says Hosler, "that if someone's willing to offer a fresh start in a new facility, and put up lots of money, then we're more than willing to give them a chance." Fellow board member and aeronautics engineer Daniel Drucker agrees. "It is a radical departure for us, there's no doubt of that," says Drucker, who didn't participate in the closed-door vote because his school, the University of Florida, was part of the FSU proposal. "But besides scientific merit, what we're looking for, I think, is evidence of enthusiasm and a commitment to work hard to achieve whatever is being proposed." That description fits the 51-year-old Crow to a tee. "The man is like a wall socket," says George Myer, a geologist at Temple University who has worked closely with Crow on analyzing the structure of high-temperature superconducting materials. "As soon as you're plugged into him, you get energized. But you have to be careful. If you're not moving fast enough, he'll go right past you." Adds chemist Robert Salomon, who succeeded Crow as director of the university's Ben Franklin Superconductivity Center, "He's like a man possessed. And he sucks you into whatever he's doing. He's a first-rate experimentalist. And he's also a real workaholic." Similar enthusiasm was expressed by each of a dozen scientists asked to assess Crow's skills. Without exception, his colleagues in physics and related disciplines give him high marks. "He's straightforward, honest, easy to deal with, and a good scientist. What more could you want?" says Doug Finnemore, a physicist at Iowa State University and a member of a 1988 panel that recommended NSF fund such a high magnetic field laboratory. "He's got a big job ahead of him, but all of us in high-temperature superconductivity have our hats off to him." Ironically, Crow never would have been in a position to head up the Florida team if his previous employer had been more amenable to his wishes. Crow joined the physics department at Temple in 1973, and served a stint as chairman of the department before spending two years at NSF as head of its solid state physics program. Upon returning he became director of a state-backed university consortium on superconductivity and head of the university's new Center for Materials Research. But Crow had bigger dreams, and the university wasn't able to make them come true. "Temple was a fool to let him get away," says Salomon. "Jack was trying to expand the physics department, to achieve a critical mass of people and equipment, but the university kept putting him off, saying they couldn't afford it. I don't think he really wanted to leave, but they turned him down flat." Crow admits that it was hard for him to leave Temple and uproot his family, and that he was disappointed when the university "never made a counteroffer." But in the end, he says, the future won out over the present. "The potential to do good physics was a lot higher here than at Temple," he says. "Florida State is an institution on the way up, rather than one on the way down. And that's the kind of place where I want to be." Temple officials point out that their university has limited resources and could not bid on a project the size of the high magnetic field laboratory. But they cite a major new initiative in neurobiology, as well as the Ben Franklin center and other existing programs, as evidence of their continued interest in top-notch science. Clearly, Florida State is the kind of place that NSF wants to support. Although NSF has funded the Bitter Lab since the 1960s, there have been persistent tensions between the lab's role as a national user facility and its value as a research lab for MIT scientists, as well as the feeling on both sides that the other party should be spending more on equipment, facilities, and staff. In 1988 an NSF advisory panel recommended federal support for a major new facility, either at MIT or here. It would contain a hybrid, direct current magnet capable of achieving a field of 45 teslas (the Bitter lab has reached 35 T) and a pulsed field magnet capable of 100 T or higher for brief periods (a team at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which was part of the FSU proposal, has achieved such results), along with state-of-the-art superconducting magnets and magnets for nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) applications. The cost would be $155 million over the first five years and $110 million over the next five years. NSF officials concurred, and last December a solicitation went out that called for expressions of interest by Feb. 1, 1990, and final proposals by May 1. However, the announcement attracted only three submissions, and after a proposal from a group based at New Mexico State University was deemed inadequate, the choice came down to MIT or FSU. The FSU proposal, which consists of a partnership with scientists at the University of Florida and Los Alamos, sought $67 million over five years, including $58 million from the state of Florida. That contribution will provide money to purchase a 300,000-square-foot state office building near campus that was completed last year but never occupied, as well as funds for 24 new faculty, 10 new staff scientists, and 20 visiting scientists from around the world to use the facility for several months at a stretch. This infusion of new talent into the field was a particularly attractive feature of the proposal, say NSF officials, because it represents a commitment to train a new generation of magnet builders and experimentalists and theorists in the field. All this is necessary, of course, because FSU will be starting practically from scratch. The MIT proposal, which called for $81 million over five years, included a $15 million contribution from MIT but nothing from the financially strapped Massachusetts state government. (Last month, in its appeal, MIT presented figures to show that it planned to spend some $37 million on the lab over the next five years, largely to renovate and operate the Bitter Lab.) The proposal contained no gleaming new building to replace what is a cramped and aging structure. And in negotiations with NSF officials to lower the asking price, MIT eliminated any support for new faculty slots. But what MIT could offer was an existing world-class facility, with proven scientific talent and a wealth of experience in running a magnet laboratory. The advisory panel reviewing the proposals decided that "the U.S. would be equally well served by either group." But both that panel and the site visit team concluded that "MIT is favored because of its proven record of excellent performance in science, magnet technology, and access for the user community." For those at NSF making the decision, however, the difference between the two proposals was striking. And the choice was clear. "After nearly 30 years as a university administrator, I can sense the level of dynamism, drive, and energy behind a proposal," says Penn State's Hosler. "It's hard to quantify, but it's an important factor. And it was there in the Florida proposal." MIT officials dispute the implication that they are not four-square behind having a world-class user facility. "We made it very clear to the NSF staff [at a July meeting] that MIT was committed to establishing the best high field laboratory in the world," says David Litster, director of the Bitter Lab. "We were very enthusiastic about the prospect of doing so." Press accounts of the award have emphasized that NSF's decision reflects its desire to create a large laboratory outside the concentration of existing research facilities in the Northeast. But NSF's Sanchez says that the idea of "spreading the wealth" played no role in his thinking. "Geographic location was not an issue," he says. At the same time, he readily agrees that the ability of a state to "buy" a new laboratory is a valid consideration. "If you're a taxpayer and you ask yourself, `What's the best way to use $60 million?' then leveraging [state funds] makes a lot of sense," he says. But even with all that Florida has going for it, NSF is not taking its eventual success for granted. Not only must the state keep its promise--the actual appropriation is only $12.5 million this year-- but Crow and others must hire the necessary faculty and technical experts and make sure that the team designs, develops, and builds the magnets on time and on budget. "In most five-year awards," says Sanchez, "we'd typically look at how they [the recipients] were doing after three years. But this is a new facility, and we plan to visit them every year--with a site visit team of outside experts as well as NSF staff--to make sure that they're doing what they've promised. You can be sure that we're going to hold their feet to the fire."

Huge NSF Magnet Grant Will Test FSU's Mettle

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