The Waterfall, which bridges Galleries B and C, is part of the Mood River exhibit.   Courtesy of the Wexner Center

Mood River Makes Waves

Current Wexner Exhibit flows through four galleries

The first clue that something perhaps a little more unusual than usual is going on inside the Wexner Center for the Arts is posted on the scaffolding a few feet away from the main entrance.

A small white sign politely addresses "Skateboarders!" and informs them that they can skate in the Wexner for free, but if they skate outside the center, they could lose their boards.

Welcome to Mood River, an eclectic exhibit filling all four of the Wexner Center's galleries through May 26. Inside, visitors are invited to examine an assortment of objects and items, ranging from toothbrushes to chairs to athletic shoes, arranged and displayed in ways that cry out for the attention they don't receive when functioning in our normal lives.

And if a visitor just happens to be into skateboarding, he or she is welcome to bring along a board, sign a release waiver, and try out a skateboard bowl that has been constructed inside Gallery D.

As the title indicates, Mood River is a river of sorts, the galleries drifting through the Bliss of Gallery A, on up to Ecstasy in Gallery B, picking up speed with The Waterfall, which bridges Galleries B and C, swirling through Trauma in Gallery C, and culminating in Rage in Gallery D.

On a recent weekday morning, the river was being traversed by several classes of school children, a tour group of senior citizens, a handful of students and several helpful docents.

The journey begins peacefully in Gallery A, where soothing music hums quietly in the background, and many of the pieces on display softly glow and twinkle, lit from within. Suspended from the ceiling are radiant white lamps by Hopf and Wortmann -- pillow, flower and teardrop shaped. Elsewhere in the gallery, shelving units display objects such as wire mesh baskets, silver bowls and lightbulbs that look not quite, but almost, like ordinary household items.

"This is the calm part of the room," a teacher informs her young charges, as she steers them past a glowing blue couch-like sculpture in four sections, named "Thermo-Cline" by designer Servo. The children's chatter bounces through the gallery.

Several other pieces in the gallery resemble furniture, including a grouping of three items labeled "Felt Stool No. 7" by Moorhead & Moorhead and "Chair #1" by Ansel Thompson, which inhabits a far corner of the gallery. "Chair #1" is shaped like a flexible triangle, tinted a sea-foam green and twinkling like a city's night skyline as delicate strips of lights embedded inside blink on and off.

The long and narrow Gallery B is filled with a school of fish swimming in the air above a coral reef -- that is, pencils, pens, knives, measuring cups, vacuum cleaners and bike helmets suspended from the ceiling with slender black threads progress through the gallery, while clusters of red taillights from numerous models of cars, positioned on slender stems rising up from the floor, anchor the space beneath.

The density of the objects, many of which are brightly-tinted in fluorescent colors, creates a shimmering effect that is amplified by lighting that creates shadows of the objects on the floor and ceiling. Follow the current to the far end of the gallery, and a waterfall awaits.

The tour of senior citizens passes back through, "oohing" one last time at the configuration of chairs that starts (or ends, depending on your perspective) with white molded chairs on the floor, and climbs upward in topsy-turvy fashion with pink, orange, yellow and green-hued chairs suspended from the ceiling, and cascades over and above a white wall separating this gallery from the next.

The waterfall finishes (or really, begins) in Gallery C, with a red chaise lounge, "Pororoca" by Edra Spa, among other bright chairs, landing on or near solid ground again. Nearby, a dress in pink tulle and a coffee table skirt made out of wood by designer Hussein Chalayan hold court, while an Apple iMac computer displays a video showing a fashion model stepping into the skirt.

Gallery C is home to the river's whales, big items moving through the Trauma mood. Work on display includes E.V. Day's "Bombshell," a fractured dress suspended from the ceiling reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe's dress in "The Seven Year Itch," and a model of a Lockheed F-117A Stealth Fighter whose sleek design inspired much of the other work on display.

The sounds of skateboards echoing through the gallery (a dull roaring, followed by the occasional thud) pulls a visitor onward, toward the final gallery, where Simparch's birch wood skate bowl "floats" on metal supports.

Just prior to entering Gallery D, across from a wall of shoes for "Design Afoot: Athletic Shoes 1995-2000," a video screen offers two views of the inside of the skateboard bowl, where two young male skaters are taking turns skimming through the depths of the bowl. A few steps to the right, and they are visible in person inside Gallery D, viewed from below as they stand on the bowl's edge between turns.

The room pulses with the sound of rock music, and two giant whirlpools of athletic equipment seem to dance their way upward from the floor to the ceiling. The one swirls portions of bikes up into full-size bikes and on up into windsails soaring near the ceiling, and the other is a twisting surge of skateboards blending up into snowboards and, near the very top, kayaks.

An art student enters quietly, and sits down on the floor, bracing his back against the wall. He balances a sketchpad on his knees, and resumes work on a drawing of the skateboard basin. He lightly brushes his pencil across the surface of the page as the skaters above slam and slide their way across the surface of the bowl.

Mood River is curated by Jeffrey Kipnis, curator of architecture and design, and Annetta Massie, associate curator of exhibitions, both of the Wexner Center. Ohio State faculty, staff and students receive free admission to the galleries. Call 292-3535 or visit www.wexarts.org for more information.

Brave New World

By Kevin Fitzsimons Allison Snow with collaborating researchers from Ohio State, the Mekong Delta Rice Institute in Vietnam and the University of Liverpool.

Grant focuses on long-term effects of genetically modified plants

Some people say that altering the DNA of certain plants leads to bigger, better crops, which in turn can help feed the world's rapidly growing population.

Others warn that scientists simply don't know enough about what effects genetically modified -- or transgenic -- plants can have on the environment, human health or a country's economy.

Allison Snow, a professor of evolution, ecology and organismal biology, will spend the next three years working with researchers from the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, the Mekong Delta Rice Research Institute in Vietnam and the University of Liverpool, England, in hopes of drawing conclusions about the potential risks posed by transgenic plants. The U.S. Agency for International Development awarded Snow and her colleagues $400,000 to study the growth and behavior of genetically modified rice crops in Vietnam.

The truth is, researchers know very little about the problems that may arise from sowing transgenic crops. In past research, Snow found that weeds related to cultivated, genetically modified oilseed rape plants acquired herbicide resistance from the crop plant.

"Any gene put into a crop can eventually cross over to its wild relatives," she said. "We don't know all of the risks, and if the risks should really be a concern."

Transgenic plants are plants that have had genes from another organism inserted in them in order to get a desired trait, such as herbicide or insect resistance. The genes could come from plants, animals, even humans.

"Crops and their wild relatives have been exchanging genes for centuries," Snow said. "But the arrival of transgenic crops in the past 10 years has given scientists new concern. We want to know how easily gene sharing happens, and what the results are."

The purpose of the grant is in part to determine how easily genes flow between rice crops and their wild, weedy relatives. The researchers will evaluate the fitness of the crossbred plants; in other words, they want to know if the crossbreeds are capable of proliferating and competing with the original crop. Snow and her colleagues will also train rice scientists from Vietnam on how to assess the risks associated with growing transgenic crops.

Half of the world's population depends on rice as its staple crop. Of the 25 major rice-producing nations, 17 are in south, southeast or eastern Asia -- countries with some of the highest population growth in the world, Snow said.

"We have to figure out how to increase yields, especially in overpopulated developing countries," she said. But controversy surrounds the production and consumption of genetically modified plants and animals throughout the world.

"The public is very nervous about the power of scientists to put genes from any species into a plant," Snow said. "But these genes are studied in depth. We know a lot about what the gene or genes will do, how the plant's characteristics might change. It's not likely that the addition of genes would change the nutritional composition of the plant."

The question is what happens when a transgenic plant interacts with its environment -- to what degree these new genetic traits are incorporated into other plant species and whether transgenic weeds could become a problem.

New budget process begins July 1

Ohio State is entering a new budget era -- one, in this case, that is not driven by the shortage of General Assembly support or the level of student fee increases, but that has everything to do with how those state subsidies and tuition revenues are distributed at the University to support academic goals.

The budget restructuring process is about to become a reality after almost eight years since the discussion began at the University. Beginning July 1, Ohio State's General Funds budget process will be based primarily on aligning resources and costs as closely as possible with the needs of the Academic Plan.

In fact, the Academic Plan that will drive most resource and cost allocations actually emerged from the same broad discussion that has resulted in the new budget process. As early discussions of possible changes in the budget process took place, it became clear that any budget driven by academic goals required a plan that reflected exactly what those goals would be, said William J. Shkurti, senior vice president for business and finance.

Shkurti, Senior Vice Provost L. Alayne Parson and University Budget Director L. Lee Walker are in the midst of an informational campaign around the University as the fiscal year and budgeting based on historical allocations near an end. A major component of preparation for implementation is extensive training for deans, department chairs, fiscal officers and curricular planning staff, which will continue through September.

Though officials feel comfortable with the amount of preparation Ohio State is putting into implementing budgeting changes -- the first documented description of the new concept dates to October 1994 -- they also acknowledge that change of this magnitude is creating anxiety and will require flexibility during a possibly two-year transition.

"This is still a work in progress," Parson told University Senate during an open forum on budget restructuring on March 14. "It will be a couple of years before we're comfortable with the new budget approach. During this transition, we will listen to people who make recommendations to do things differently and will adapt as needed."

What officials also say, though, is that despite the angst that comes with change, Ohio State is doing the right thing in basing its budget on academic priorities.

The traditional mode of budgeting is based on historical allocations that don't necessarily recognize shifts in enrollment trends or significant departmental strengths. That allocation model also has provided little incentive for units to try to generate revenues or reduce costs, and has not encouraged sufficient accountability, Shkurti said.

Under the new budgeting of General Funds revenues -- about 37 percent of the total University budget, covering instructional, research and service activities and employee compensation -- academic units will be encouraged to take greater responsibility for spending decisions and revenue-generating initiatives.

"This is just a budget process. It informs the decisions and is simply a tool," Parson noted. "People make the decisions. We have to continue to rely on our leadership to make decisions in alignment with the mission of the University."

And the University as a whole stands to experience substantial gains once the new budget approach is firmly in place, she added. For one thing, it's hard to argue with a system under which resources are more closely tied to academic goals and dollars more closely follow students, she said. Colleges and departments will enjoy greater flexibility and discretion in their use of resources, and will receive more direct rewards for growth in sponsored research because costs for administering those programs will be returned to the units in which they're initiated. Finally, decisions about budgeting will occur more quickly and be easier to track.

The implementation actually began this fiscal year with the launch of a five-year plan to rebase the 18 degree-granting college budgets, resulting in a redirection of between $9.5 million and $13 million among the colleges. In some cases, funds that colleges received from the University through revenue transfers from other units are being decreased, and in others, the funds colleges contribute to the University for those transfers are also being decreased, meaning they retain more money for themselves. A number of college base budget allocations have remained unchanged. Allocations are based on a number of factors, including the expected role of the college in the advancement of the Academic Plan, its ability to generate revenues, and the cost structure of its academic programs.

Going forward, the allocation of incoming General Funds revenues will reflect the rebasing, and will also be modified based on two-year averages of any shifts that might occur in the number of credit hours taught in each college. A number of other unit costs will factor into General Funds allocations, especially to colleges, including student services, use and maintenance of space, administration of research programs, graduate fee authorizations and support of a central tax. A portion of General Fund revenues also will remain dedicated to support University-wide goals, including support of quality. Numerous documents have been released that detail the specifics of the allocation process (see box, above).

A number of areas already have been identified for particularly close attention as the new budget process goes into effect. They include:

• Impact of enrollment shifts on units.

• Course quality and course offerings. Units will be watched closely for attempts to change or create courses that could drive up enrollments strictly to make more money for the unit. The Council on Academic Affairs, a University Senate committee, has a long history of monitoring such activity for evidence that a turf war might ensue, and requires concurrence of numerous units when a new course is proposed. A new committee will be convened to develop broad guidelines under which new courses should be proposed in this new budget environment.

• Multidisciplinary teaching, research and service. Because this approach is heavily encouraged throughout the University, a number of advocates at the senior level will provide guidance when concerns arise about financial support of these kinds of initiatives. That advocacy will also include strategic investments from centrally held funds.

• College policy toward departmental management of fee authorizations (graduate student tuition waivers provided as part of a graduate student assistantship). Funding for these authorizations will shift from the central administration to each unit that houses graduate student employees. A committee will assess how that shift in funding affects activities in departments and colleges.

• Distribution of indirect cost revenues by the college. The provost and the vice president for research will monitor the distribution of this funding arrangement to ensure that it provides an incentive to generate additional external research support, as intended.

• A more flexible and market-driven compensation policy.

• College consultation with the faculty.

• Rebasing of support unit budgets. Self-studies conducted by these units are under review as they, too, undergo scrutiny and a budget rebasing process that has already begun.

• Delivery of timely and accurate information.

• Training and preparation of college and departmental personnel.

Many across the University will be involved in the monitoring, just as many have been involved in development of the new budget process. A number of Senate committees have participated in discussions and been consulted along the way, and a Budget Advisory Committee established in May 2000 to oversee implementation includes chairs or representatives of five Senate committees, executive deans, students and staff representatives.

It's no secret that some are concerned about the budget system launch itself because it coincides with significant internal reallocations made in response to state budget cuts. Shkurti acknowledged that the combined efforts are creating stress throughout the system, but said that because colleges have been making decisions for quite some time in anticipation of a July 2002 start, trying to delay implementation now would create more problems than the implementation itself will.

That's not to say a surprise or two won't occur, he said. Ohio State has consulted with other institutions that have adopted similar budgeting patterns in an attempt to learn lessons and avoid complications. Other highly regarded public institutions that have made changes that are most like what is proposed for OSU are the universities of Michigan and Illinois. Penn State, Minnesota and Indiana also have adopted changes that include elements or systems similar to what Ohio State has adopted.

In the end, officials note, the academic enterprise of the University will remain front and center, and the purpose of the new budget process is to provide closer alignment of spending and revenue decisions with academic goals.

"Budget restructuring itself will be neither a panacea, nor will it make everything worse," Shkurti said. "What it will do is provide more tools and a better environment in which to make decisions."

Guiding Principles

Officials have reiterated that a number of principles apply to the new budget system. They are:

• The allocation of resources should be mission driven.

• Any budget system depends on the creation and maintenance of a timely and user-friendly information system.

• A significant portion of revenues should be explicitly linked to the generating units, specifically the colleges.

• A portion of all revenues should be dedicated to the support of Universitywide goals, including support of quality.

• Predictability and stability are other important characteristics.

• The governance and administrative structure should provide appropriate oversight and accountability.

• A carefully thought-out transition is essential to the ultimate success of any changes in the budget system.