Research VP plans a return to laboratory

Matt Heistand Arizona Daily Wildcat UA vice president for research Michael Cusanovich has resigned from his administrative post effective Dec. 31.

Cusanovich criticized executive policies while holding a position on the Committee of Eleven, a Faculty Senate-elected advisory committee. In 1986, he had to put his money where his mouth was when he found himself pushed into an 11-year reign as the University of Arizona's vice president for research.

"It's been fun being an administrator," said Cusanovich. "But I've spent 20 percent of my life here as vice president. That's enough."

Cusanovich handed his resignation, effective Dec. 31, to Provost Paul Sypherd March 24, marking his second attempt in two years to get out of the administrative position.

He tried to bow out of his role as the head of research last year, but Sypherd pleaded with him to continue another year because former UA President Manuel Pacheco was also stepping down.

"He came to me last year and said 10 years was enough in that job," Sypherd said. "I asked him to stay one more year for the good of the institution - and he is such an institutional servant that he did it."

With Cusanovich at the helm, UA research projects in 1997 raked in a record $295 million - the largest amount in university history. This year, the National Science Foundation ranked the UA as the nation's 11th-best research institution.

But the research program has had its share of problems this year.

Cusanovich said investigations into a regents professor's alleged research fraud and another incident involving abuse of federal grant money at three border medical clinics this year did not faze him.

"We have done very well despite the blow we've taken," Cusanovich said.

A group of UA professors earlier this month accused microbiology and immunology Professor Marguerite Kay of falsifying and manipulating research data. And in February, The Bureau of Health Professions, an agency of the Health and Human Services Department, accused Dr. Frank Hale, a UA border clinic program director, of using grant money to pay doctors illegal stipends.

"As unfortunate and unpleasant as it is, we don't want to sweep it under the table," Cusanovich said. "It isn't pretty, but it doesn't happen a lot."

The UA's Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure mediates faculty conflicts, including alleged research integrity violations. Cusanovich said of the UA's 25,000 research projects, about two complaints each year reach CAFT.

"It's critical to the integrity of the process," he said. "I mean, these things are always ongoing anyway - one would expect that."

Cusanovich said the research debacles had nothing to do with his decision to resign. He said he would rather teach and do lab work than be an administrator.

Cusanovich, who holds a doctorate in chemistry from the University of California-San Diego, has spent decades researching biochemistry, specializing in biological electron transfer and biotechnology.

As an administrator, he continued his research and secured $3 million in funding for UA projects. Cusanovich is celebrating the publication of his 200th scientific report Friday.

Cusanovich said he misses the intellectual "roaring battlefield" of his lab, where students are constantly challenging research results.

"There are actual uses for the kinds of stuff we do," he said. "The reason the research industry is so exciting at a large university is because it's a bunch of students."

Cusanovich has been dabbling in photoelectronics, trying to find a replacement for silicon-based electronics. He and his team are also searching for a way to improve solar devices.

He said although his home is the classroom, he will not shirk all of his administrative duties. Cusanovich will become the UA's biotechnology director in 1999.