The most powerful tool available to an ERC Director is the vital process of faculty recruiting. If we consider that this process starts with the formation of the team that will assemble the initial ERC proposal, and that it includes all subsequent new-faculty and on-campus recruiting, as well as (often) the involvement of faculty from other institutions on a project basis, the Director's role is clearly pivotal in all important aspects of the center's success. All of the "superstars" of the academic world will be on hand to watch the center (and its attractive research budget) develop, along with the workhorses and brilliant but more humble members of the university's departments. The new Director must realize that personal habits are deeply ingrained, in academe as elsewhere, and that the brilliant researcher who tends to be critical and superior in his or her attitude toward colleagues and the Department Chair will probably soon adopt the same attitude toward the center faculty and Director. Effective administration of any research enterprise calls for a careful balance between the prima donnas and the sometimes equally talented workhorses, and the new Director should carefully select those individuals who are committed to working toward the success of the center and not just toward the furtherance of their self-interest.

On the other hand, the Director must hold to his/her vision and keep the objectives of the ERC Program in mind; to do that, s/he must recruit faculty who can build a truly world-class research team. It is not essential that all center faculty also be talented in education and technology transfer, but the Director will encounter endless difficulties if his/her recruits rise to prominence in the center and then use their position to subvert these equally important center activities. Even simply ignoring education and technology transfer is injurious to the center, if many of the faculty are permitted this luxury. Perhaps the most prudent litmus test the Director can apply, throughout the process of recruiting, is to project his/her honest enthusiasm about all of the center's activities and listen very carefully for any signs of arrogance or superiority -- attitudes that do not mesh well with the team culture of an ERC.

2.4.1 Recruiting for the Proposal Team

Our survey and experience have shown that the dedicated band of true believers that surrounds the prospective Director rarely survives intact to form the nucleus of the funded center. This may actually be fortunate, because a varied mix of good minds often helps to form the vision of a really exciting ERC. Such a group may well include people with different perspectives on the needs and best directions in the chosen field. For this reason, the movers and shakers who constitute the university's critical mass in the chosen research area will serve as a good platform on which the prospective Director can begin to focus and define his/her vision of the embryonic ERC.

The eventual interdisciplinary nature of the ERC will be determined largely by the strategic plan and the composition of the organizing group. If the prospective Director proposes to involve departments outside of Engineering in the ERC, s/he will be well-advised to approach Deans and Department Heads for their support before s/he attempts to recruit faculty members and graduate students into an enterprise that their own line administrators have not yet had a chance to buy into. To recruit the latter, without enlisting the support of the former, constitutes a serious threat to the career objectives of talented young people. Perhaps the rule of thumb is to make the strongest possible case, to recruit the best people, and do whatever is necessary to make sure that no damage is done to the career of anyone drawn into the orbit of the center to serve its vision.

2.4.2 Recruiting for the Initial Center Team

The Year 3 deadline looms large over the fledgling ERC. Prima donnas will fall away; real research cooperation cannot be bought; and the Director will need a significant commitment from his/her "recruits to the vision" for the process of delegation (Section 2.3.2) that will project the ERC toward success or failure. At least one, and preferably several, members of the successful organizing group should have a commitment to education or to technology transfer. NSF monitors these activities from Year 1 but, much more importantly, the full vision of the ERC Program cannot be expressed until pivotal ERC faculty embrace these parts of the vision. This is a period in which the Director must shape the initial team and aim it toward success at Year 3, but still keep his/her eye on the long-term vision for the center. This is a time of exciting expansion and the Director should assess which traditional disciplines need to be represented in the center, in order for it to achieve world leadership, and make preliminary moves toward bringing the most effective proponents of those disciplines to the campus.

It is vital to have an established research alliance and a watertight memorandum of understanding (MOU) if the allocation of research activities to affiliate institutions or PIs is to be successful and the activities are to be well-integrated with the center's educational and technology transfer mandates.

During the initial flush of the ERC's success, it is imperative that the new Director leverage the center's newly minted prestige to seed the long-term projects that, in his/her judgment, serve the center's vision. Conventional departments are looking at a minimum of 9-11 years of partial center funding for hot new faculty, and the Director is in a strong position in dealings with the university hierarchy. This is the time to staff the "long lines" of the Director's personal strategy for realizing the center's vision. This is the time to recruit, from outside and from on campus, the people that the Director sees as being necessary for success at the third-year milestone as well as the people that s/he sees as being vital to the long-term vision of the center. At this early stage of the center's development, newcomers will largely be seen as replacements for departing faculty who may not fit ideally within the ERC's vision; and the Director may find that new recruits are readily welcomed into the center.

Different approaches to recruiting are taken, depending on the ERC and its relationships with the departments involved. But some approaches are fairly standard. Usually one of the members of the Directors' executive committee is a member of the search committee in their respective departments. Center members attend the interview seminars, meet with the candidate in one-on-one discussions, and offer comments to the search committee based upon their experiences with the candidate. The decision about areas in which faculty should be hired usually remains with the individual department heads and their faculty. However, it is vital that the Center Director, as well as the participating faculty, be actively involved in the recruitment of faculty. The success of the center critically depends on the quality and interests of the faculty being recruited. Similarly, the Director and center faculty must work closely with the departments involved to ensure that the individuals recruited ultimately add value to both the center and to the department. This can be a major challenge. To make it easier, it is ideal if the center can be proactive in strategic planning with the departments with regard to mutual opportunities and responsibilities. Center administrators should try to meet regularly with Department Chairs in order to keep lines of communication open, and should make known the center's needs for faculty with particular qualifications.

In most cases, new faculty have an appointment in their respective departments but are committed to spend a substantial portion of their time (typically half) on center research projects. In some centers the ERC has taken the lead in recruiting a new faculty member, providing half a line while the department provides the other half. This is possible, of course, only if the university has dedicated faculty positions to the ERC.

It should be noted that an ERC generally can hire professionals devoted entirely to the center, including non-faculty research staff, without a direct appointment in an academic department. Such individuals play an essential role in the management and operation of all the ERCs. Although this capability is valuable, it is important to realize that when the strategic plan changes, these individuals may not fit the new plan and must be reassigned or let go.

2.4.3 Recruiting for Years 3-9

This is the stage in the development of each ERC in which the Director must play an essential role in maintaining the center's vitality and renewing its vision. Because it is easier to write an internal justification for a portion of the ERC grant than it is to write a free-standing proposal to a very competitive granting agency, many center PIs will view with suspicion any new recruits who threaten their automatic allocation of "serious" NSF money. The Director must control the funds that support recruiting at this and all stages of the center's development, and s/he must encourage the integration of new recruits through the systematic allocation of funds to these new faculty members, enabling them to hire and support graduate students. Established PIs, many of whom will have received substantial NSF support via the ERC, should now begin to compete for at least part of their support in the "open" grants area, while new recruits should be thoroughly integrated into center research teams with thrust area funding attached.

Decisions that an ERC Director makes during this vital stage in his/her center's development will have a profound effect on success in Year 6 but, again more critically, they will determine what kind of center faces the scale-down of NSF support following Year 9. If the Director passes the Year 6 hurdle through the early recruitment of "heavy hitters" from the pure research community, s/he may eventually find that the center has made very little progress in areas of education and/or technology transfer on which the university may propose to base the center's continuity past Year 11, the final year of NSF support. In that case, the battle lines will be drawn, because the center's established research management structure will have essentially personal goals for the use of NSF funds after Year 6, while the Director will seek to perpetuate the center and his/her vision for it by bringing in new recruits, many of whom will owe their primary loyalty to the Director. If the research management structure places an appropriate value on education and technology transfer, the center may avoid dissension. But if they place too great an emphasis on their own research interests, the Director may be forced to initiate measures between Years 7 and 9 that broaden the research of the center and lead to a shared vision, so that the center is revitalized as it tackles its greatest challenge: continuity for several decades.

In the early part of this stage in the development of an ERC, it is essential that a certain attitude becomes embedded within the center. Conflicts and competitions will be inevitable as long as the center's research establishment sees the NSF grant as a pie from which each party hopes to receive a slice whose size is commensurate with his/her own perception of their talent and potential value to the center. The Director should reinforce the attitude that the center is in fact much more like a bakery in which participants can bake cooperatively a large variety and number of pies and thereby satisfy their research cravings, fostering the growth of the center while serving the center's equal interests in education and technology transfer.

2.4.4 Recruitment for the Center Continuity Team

A mature ERC represents an investment of approximately $20-$30 million in NSF funds that would otherwise probably have been spent to initiate other centers. To be favorably evaluated at the critical sixth-year milestone, a mature ERC will have achieved world leadership in its chosen field of specialization. In most mature ERCs the university, the state, and industry will have invested more than twice the NSF total of funds and all parties will have begun to see concrete accomplishments in education and technology transfer that will justify their enthusiasm and their confidence. It is at this time that the Director's recruitment activities will become both more important and more difficult.

New recruiting may become more difficult because the Director can only offer center support for tenure-track appointments in allied departments, as few academics would accept a faculty appointment exclusive to an ERC at this stage of its funding. When the university and the allied departments have formed a firm resolve to continue support for the center's educational activities, and industry has firmly decided to continue to underwrite both education and technology transfer, very creative recruiting can continue at a brisk pace. Many traditional departments in Engineering and in Science find that their faculty receive more grant support, and their students receive more job offers, if both are smoothly integrated into a mature ERC. The center may not hold together if it has become strictly a web of research alliances, but it certainly will find continuity if its education and technology transfer programs are valuable to a significant number of educational entities within the university and if industry is actively supportive. As the center matures, the Director may choose to recruit a fresh cadre of faculty with specific interests and talents in the area of team-oriented, industrially related, interdisciplinary education; this transition, however, cannot be abrupt but must be implemented in a smooth and steady fashion.

It is clear that the Director of an ERC is the keeper of the center's vision and that recruiting is his/her most effective weapon in the realization of that vision. The Director will make pivotal decisions on center administrative and research management structures, but these structures are only as good as the people that the Director can call on to staff them and make them work. If the vision articulated by the Director of an ERC inspires and sustains interest within the engineering and scientific communities, many of his/her colleagues will be interested in affiliations with the center that may range from simple exploratory visits to total commitment. This interest facilitates recruitment strategies that include the recruitment of established research faculty from the university itself, and the well orchestrated opening and filling of new faculty slots in areas that strengthen both the center and the affiliated departments. The Director may face a challenge from established center members, but the recruitment and integration of new center faculty is the key to the revitalization of the center and to the center's response to new opportunities in the field. Many centers report that an intellectual atherosclerosis results when the strategic direction of an ERC remains unchanged because of the personal research interests of established PIs; recruitment of new participants is the Director's most effective weapon in preventing this natural aging process. As the center matures, cooperative and imaginative recruiting can form the basis of excellent relationships with allied departments because win-win recruiting aligns the Center Director's main weapon with the only real means that Deans and Department Heads have of bringing new life into their faculties or departments. Recruiting must strive for balance, as it does for excitement, and it must also serve the interests of the education and technology transfer programs that assume special importance as the center matures and plans for its continuity.

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