The University is working to fill seven empty labs in the Northwest Corner Building, and some faculty members say a lack of funds is hindering these efforts.
The interdisciplinary science building on Broadway and 120th Street has space for 18 professors but only 11 will make the move when it opens later this month.
Columbia does not have enough money to hire the new faculty that were supposed to fill these empty labs, according to biology professor Ron Prywes, who, until earlier this year, was chair of the Campus Planning and Physical Development Committee.
But according to Executive Vice President for Arts and Sciences Nicholas Dirks, Columbia would not fill the empty spots in the building right away even if it had the necessary funds.
“We wanted to keep some labs open because it’s something you can use as a recruiting device when important ... opportunities arise,” he said.
Prywes though said it’s uncertain how and when the hirings will actually take place, adding that between salary and the cost of setting up the operations of an entire lab, every science hire costs between $1 million and $2 million.
“It wasn’t clear how we were gonna get up to close to 18,” Prywes said.
Two chemistry professors, Luis Campos and Wei Min, were in fact hired earlier this year with the understanding that they would work in the new building, and Dirks said at least three more hires will likely be made sometime this year.
“Sometimes communication may be part of the problem, because people don’t necessarily know all of the things that are happening with respect to the building,” Dirks said. “But there’s a lot happening.”
Biology department chair Stuart Firestein cited the 2008 economic downturn as one of the reasons why hiring for the building has been slow, noting that the crisis hit just when the University would have started to make those hires.
Dirks agreed that the economic crisis played a role, especially because Columbia is trying to use the building to recruit renowned scientists, who often have big price tags.
“We don’t hire people who don’t have other offers,” Dirks said. “That’s the nature of going after the very best scientists.”
Firestein said that finding funds for new faculty is often a complicated process. “There are all these different pots of money around that could be devoted to this or that, or moved here or moved there.”
Physics department chair Bill Zajc agreed that low funding has slowed the hiring process.
“Each faculty hire requires money up front in order to bring them to Columbia,” Zajc said. “If there had been a science initiative that provided funding for it, then one could have contemplated massive hiring into the new building, but that isn’t the way it worked out.”
In the past, Firestein said, the financial logistics have come together when exceptional candidates showed interest in Columbia.
“My experience here … is that if there’s a real opportunity, then the money shows up,” he said.
Executive Vice President for Research David Hirsh added that, from an academic standpoint, waiting to fill these empty spaces is beneficial because it allows the science departments to watch their professors interact with each other before making new hires.
Dirks and Hirsh did not offer a time frame for filling the empty labs, but Prywes said it could take years.
“I see them filling up the space, but I don’t know whether that’ll be in two years or 10 years,” he said.
But Firestein said he is not concerned about how long it will take and is confident that it will eventually be filled.
“It would be great if there was some unlimited pot of money that would allow us to go out and ... hire two dozen more people and outfit all the labs,” he said. “But the reality is that there isn’t.”
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