By Jo McCulty From left, Professor Andrew Gould, graduate student Dale Fields and research scientist Smita Mathur converse over coffee.

Astronomy gathering encourages research, student growth

Want to meet the most dynamic astronomer at the University? The sage adviser who guides faculty research and inspires students to a healthy level of intellectual anarchy? The one who, more than anything, loves to stir up a good academic debate?

Stop by that department's conference room at 10:30 a.m. on any given day, and you will.

M. Coffee has done all of these things, and even co-authored a research paper in the prestigious Astrophysical Journal Letters. M. Coffee isn't a single person, but simply the astronomy "Morning Coffee" -- a daily half-hour meeting of faculty, staff and students in the Department of Astronomy.

The coffee gathering started seven years ago and quickly took on a life of its own, said Pat Osmer, professor and chair of the department.

In this accelerated age of electronic media, Osmer and his colleagues have found that the best way to keep pace with research is to put their computer e-mail aside once a day for an old-fashioned face-to-face coffee klatch.

Over the course of the meeting, busy people come and go. Many have time only to catch one or two points in the ongoing conversation, offer a single comment, and leave. They discuss everything from the largest galactic clusters to the tiniest specks of interstellar dust. Black holes, quasars -- you name it, they talk about it.

They comment on their own journal articles, and others from around the world that have been posted on the Web's "e-print arXiv" (http://arxiv.org). This electronic archive of physics, astronomy and computer science research is maintained at Cornell University.

New articles appear on the archive overnight. Associate Professor David Weinberg and Professor Andrew Gould share the task of assembling a few key abstracts into an informal agenda for the next day's meeting.

Throughout the meeting, the faculty critique each other's research, and students interrupt these exchanges with impunity. In the end, everyone walks away with a better understanding of the discipline, and a finely honed ability to describe and defend their ideas.

"It's a free-form gathering," Osmer said. "If it were more organized, it wouldn't be as effective."

Though most benefits of the morning coffee are intangible, a few concrete examples exist. NASA recently accepted a project proposal from research scientist Smita Mathur, whose innovative methods for studying quasars grew out of morning coffee discussions.

And the paper "M. Coffee" published in Astrophysical Journal Letters was actually written by associate professors Darren DePoy and Marc Pinsonneault, who say the coffee group made the article possible.

The paper challenged a hypothesis that was new to astronomy in 2001 -- namely, that stars with planets often contain heavy chemical elements like iron because metallic asteroids have fallen into them over time. DePoy and Pinsonneault were able to develop calculations that suggested no asteroids were necessary; metal-rich stars form that way in the first place.

"The support and encouragement of the group was particularly important to us, because aspects of planet formation were somewhat outside our expertise," DePoy said. "In general, it was the coffee attendees' enthusiasm for discussing the topic that convinced us that the paper was worth writing."

"Without the coffee discussion we might not have been motivated to look at this issue," Pinsonneault agreed.

Though other Ohio State astronomers may have mentioned coffee discussions in the "acknowledgments" section of their research papers, Osmer said that DePoy and Pinsonneault were the first to name the meeting itself as a fully-fledged co-author.

"We try to maintain a sense of whimsy in our group," Osmer said, smiling.

He proudly related the comments of John Bahcall, astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., who came to Ohio State last year to receive an honorary doctorate. As he looked around a morning coffee, Bahcall was particularly pleased to see students seated prominently at the main conference table and actively participating in the discussion, while professors were scattered about the periphery of the room.

In departments that prize hierarchy, distance from the conference table is a direct indication of one's lot in life. Lesser personnel on the academic food chain generally occupy chairs against the wall.

Osmer feels his department's more democratic approach makes graduate students better prepared for life in academia. "They're immediately thrown into the thick of things with everybody else," he said, "so they can develop the skills they will need to interact with other astronomers once they leave here. That's why we truly believe we have one of the best graduate programs in the world."

The department has Weinberg to thank for starting the morning coffee tradition. He came to Ohio State after getting his doctorate at Princeton University -- where the custom was afternoon tea Ñ and doing postdoctoral work at Cambridge University, where the Institute of Astronomy had its own morning coffee.

Hoping to reproduce the success of these other meetings at Ohio State, Weinberg brought a coffee maker to the conference room and announced that he'd brew a pot every morning at 10:30. He didn't expect much of a response, at first.

"It's actually quite a lot to ask of people, that they spend 30 minutes a day on something other than their work. I was amazed at how quickly it caught on," he said. "Now the discussion is considerably more lively and wide-ranging than I have seen anywhere else."

Make no mistake -- the discussion is scientifically rigorous, and the debates sometimes grow quite heated, extending well past 11 a.m.

But wherever such academicians gather, discussion can't help but sway to other topics, including media coverage of astronomy. Articles in the New York Times science section have come up on occasion. And recently, Gould leapt to the chalkboard to explain bankrupt power broker Enron's moneymaking scheme. The company predicted its profits with simple graphical calculus, charting the expected price of electricity over time, he explained.

Faculty and students from other academic departments, such as physics, regularly attend the meeting; Osmer stressed that everyone is welcome.

Bring your own mug, and feel free to sit at the big table.

Funding proposal generates talk statewide

Arriving at a Fiscal Year 2003 funding plan for Ohio State -- complete with a two-tiered approach to undergraduate tuition -- has involved a series of conversations between University leaders and state officials to find the most acceptable tuition resolution during a complicated budget era.

Public universities throughout the state, in fact, have been continuing to make the case for improved funding for higher education as they face tough budgeting and tuition decisions about the next fiscal year. And now, Ohio State's student government leaders are encouraging students, faculty and staff to join an intensive effort to generate legislative support for higher education in Ohio.

Ohio State on Feb. 1 unveiled its funding proposal, which, in addition to approximately $36 million in internal reallocations and cuts, called for a 9 percent increase in tuition for continuing undergraduates and an additional $1,200 assessed to new students. Such an increase was proposed to contribute to what University officials have identified as a $73 million need to continue enhancing undergraduate education, begin bringing faculty and staff compensation levels in line with competing institutions, pursue other Academic Plan initiatives and address a $20 million base budget cut from the state (see complete story in the Feb. 7 onCampus). When the proposal was announced, University trustees advised President Brit Kirwan and other Ohio State officials to initiate discussions with the state in search of an agreeable funding plan.

As proposed, the total tuition package, which would be balanced on the expenditures side by proportional adjustments to need-based financial aid for undergraduates, amounted to about $37 million when combining the two-tiered undergraduate tuition with recommended graduate and professional fee increases.

Speaking to the University Senate on Feb. 14, Kirwan predicted that consensus was near on a funding resolution. He said Ohio State, after discussions with state officials concerned about rising tuition costs, was willing to consider a variety of options, including phasing in the $1,200 tuition for new students over two years.

But he said he remained convinced, after careful consideration of the combined declining state support and already substantial internal reductions, that a significant tuition increase is fair and necessary at Ohio State.

"This recommendation will move tuition levels for new or entering students next fall to fourth from the top among Ohio's public universities -- well within the range of tuitions charged at other Ohio universities," Kirwan said. "Relatively low state support in Ohio combined with relatively low undergraduate tuition at Ohio State have created an annual expenditure gap of almost $1,000 in tuition and state support per undergraduate student when comparing Ohio State with average support at our benchmark universities and the Big Ten."

Additionally, Kirwan reiterated that the University owes it to itself and the state of Ohio to do everything possible to build on continuing progress.

"Student quality is up. Retention and graduation rates are up. Research funding is up. And the number of national awards for our faculty is up. But, ironically, just at this moment of these great advances, we have been dealt a serious blow. The state's economy is in decline, resulting in budget cuts on top of already inadequate state funding," he said. "We face a difficult choice. Do we allow the state's inability to invest in higher education at this time to halt our impressive progress, or do we take matters into our own hands, generate the resources necessary and sustain our advance to the top tier of America's teaching and research universities?

"For me, the choice is clear. We must make the difficult decisions to advance this university along its path toward excellence."

Kirwan also said that though the state historically has tended to disregard higher education's importance to Ohio's economic future and funded it accordingly, he is optimistic that, thanks to the continuing pressure applied from institutions and opinion leaders, state government attitudes are changing. Newspaper editorials are urging the Legislature to increase education funding, he said, and legislators are saying to him personally that the state hasn't done enough. In fact, Kirwan took pen to paper and submitted his own op-ed piece to the Columbus Dispatch to state the University's case for the proposed higher tuition. Alumni advocates have been turning up the heat with contacts to state legislators, as well.

"We are in this mode of trying to educate and inform, and there is more receptivity to it than in the past," Kirwan said. "But by no means can we ease the pressure. We need to continue to beat this drum."

Students are ready to assist with the cause.

Eddie Pauline, president of Undergraduate Student Government, outlined to Senate a student-led campaign that is seeking parental and faculty/staff involvement to maintain pressure on the Legislature to improve its funding of higher education.

USG and Kirwan jointly sent a letter to Ohio State students' parents, asking them to contact their state legislators about the funding shortages, and another letter to residence hall advisers and Greek organization leaders is informing students about their options in contacting state officials.

The student governments of all of Ohio's public universities were to begin a postcard campaign on Feb. 18, with hopes to collect thousands of signed postcards demanding better funding and deliver them personally to Gov. Bob Taft on Feb. 27. Pauline encouraged faculty to allow USG members to enter classrooms to distribute postcards and extend the reach of the campaign as far as possible to Ohio State's student population.

Pauline also said USG would welcome faculty participation in personal visits to the Statehouse so legislators "can associate faces with Ohio State." And, recognizing that students as a group have a reputation as nonvoters, USG is spearheading voter registration among the student population.

The educational component will include a town meeting at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 26 in the Ohio Union Main Lounge, during which the effects of state budget cuts will be discussed.