Several college deans, administrators and department heads said they support Syracuse University’s recent decision to make 53 hires in seven domains across its schools and colleges through its Cluster Hires Initiative.

The initiative involves hiring professors in “clusters” that are expected to work on similar themes of research across various fields. Each school and college will share the cost of its cluster hires with the university.

“It will enhance education by hiring scholar educators, align new hires with research and teaching trends of societally relevant areas, and allow us to play to strengths and make our university more competitive, and our graduates more successful,” Zhanjiang “John” Liu, vice president for research, said in an email.

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Liu helped spearhead the Cluster Hires Initiative and said it will break structural barriers and allow for campus-wide collaboration among faculty and graduate students.

“It kind of encourages faculty to think outside the box and think about interdisciplinary programs with faculty from different departments and different colleges to work together,” said Ramesh Raina, chair of SU’s biology department and a member of the Provost Review Committee.

The seven initiatives chosen were aging, behavioral health and neuroscience; artificial intelligence, deep learning, autonomous systems and policy; big data and data analytics; bio-enabled science and technology; energy and environment; innovation and entrepreneurship; and social differences, social justice.

Raina said faculty submitted possible initiatives to deans, then worked across colleges to form a formal proposal, which was then submitted to SU and presented to the committee. Liu said more than 200 faculty members coordinated to submit 19 proposals.

He said there will be more cluster hires and the next round of proposals will begin soon.

David Van Slyke, dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, said he is excited for the change cluster hiring will bring.

“What a wonderful way to bring people from different schools and different disciplines to talk about the types of complex issues facing not only our country, but our world,” he said.

Van Slyke said Maxwell will make three hires, each in a separate cluster. The new Maxwell faculty will research aging, behavioral health and neuroscience; artificial intelligence, deep learning, autonomous systems and policy; and energy and environment.

School of Education Dean Joanna Masingila said the school was involved in the aging, behavioral health and neuroscience cluster. The Cluster Hires Initiative will promote synergy across faculty throughout the university, she said.

The S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications is bringing in one hire. Hub Brown, associate dean for research, creativity, international initiatives and diversity at Newhouse, said even if a hire doesn’t directly affect a specific school, they will bolster research throughout the university so that it remains a leading research institution, which he called “vitally important.”

“You’re bringing in people who already know that there are other people on campus who want to collaborate with them,” Masingila said. “There’s kind of a natural structure that’s put in place with this cluster.”

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Published on December 5, 2018 at 11:54 pm

Contact Catherine: ccleffer@syr.edu | @ccleffert