After all, he's been our 'Research Cop' for a quarter-century. Surely it's time we had a talk with Bob Johnson.

Twenty-six years ago in August, Robert Merrill Johnson walked onto a sweltering Florida State University campus to become head of a research program barely out of its teens. The head- hunting prize of then-president John Champion, Johnson had left a promising job in Washington with the National Science Foundation to take on what Champion called "the FSU challenge."

Five presidents and umpteen reorganizations later, Johnson is still at it. The challenge has changed over the years, mainly because the largely pastoral campus Johnson saw in 1968 is long gone. Fueled by a rapid rise in research funding, Florida State has taken on much of the look and feel of those big-time research institutions it has long aspired to be.

In his capacity as research chief and, until 1986, dean of the university's graduate studies program, Johnson has been front- row, center, for every step FSU has taken up the academic ladder for a quarter century. Today he stands as the only figure who from the bird's-eye perspective of central administration has witnessed what even FSU's most ardent critics concede is remarkable progress.

For such naysayers, certain realities are hard to dismiss: in 1969, FSU spent $13.7 million on research and by the end of FY '95, that figure is expected to reach $94 million, nearly a 600 percent jump. Space for research and academics has doubled in the period, and now approaches a million square feet. Graduate programs have grown by 40 percent, while the number of doctorate degrees offered rose from 49 to 65. Graduate enrollment has thus soared, jumping from around 3,680 in '69 to better than 5,500 for fall semester 1994.

So for Johnson, it's been a long career of steadily rising numbers, about the only thing that matters in the beastly competitive world of campus-based research. The faculty gets the credit, he says: "Without them, all the good administration in the world wouldn't have meant a damn thing."

But in looking back on his time in Tallahassee, Johnson allows that his hand has indeed helped shape the pace and direction of research growth, as well as the mechanics of how it's managed.

Few who know FSU would argue the claim. Since 1970, when he succeeded in getting the university's research accounting operations switched from the campus controller's office to his own, Johnson has been the unquestioned author and shaper of FSU research administration policy. Taking over an office that he says was "a shambles" in 1968, Johnson transformed the unit into what he calls a "one-stop shop" for faculty interested in pursuing research funding. Based on similar set-ups he'd seen around the country as head of a science development team at the NSF, the system was intended to maximize efficiency, cut waste and bring accounting procedures in line with national standards. For the most part, the administration liked Johnson's idea.

For the most part, the faculty hated it. To this day, Johnson bears the stigma of being the "research cop" who makes campus P.I.s (principal investigators) toe the line. No matter their credentials, all faculty are obliged to walk a well-defined, regulatory gauntlet laid down by federal and state mandates, and Johnson's 50-member Office of Research at Innovation Park is where the line begins.

But some of Johnson's biggest battles through the years have been over the issue of indirect costs overhead monies legitimately applied to outside grants that support research. As head of research administration, Johnson enforces the collection of overhead, which until Florida's Sponsored Research Act of 1964 went directly into the state's coffers. Since 1989, the state has allowed universities to keep 95 percent, a sum intended to be used to further the cause of research and creative activity. Johnson's office is responsible for managing these funds, through the advice of the Council for Research and Creativity, an all-faculty body Johnson organized in the early 1970s. Each year Johnson redistributes a portion (about 40 percent) of overhead monies to the various departments and uses the remainder as matching funds for faculty research proposals, to help run his office and for "emergencies." (In 1983, then- president Bernie Sliger borrowed $1.8 million from the fund to neutralize a much-publicized deficit crisis.)

If The Chronicle of Higher Education can be believed, the issue of managing overhead funds is among the stickiest universities are obliged to face on a perennial basis. Lack of controls can, and has, led to major embarrassment for some schools. Stanford University, for example, is still feeling the effects of a 1990 full- scale federal probe of its overhead spending policies that revealed serious problems, including overcharging, frivolous expenditures and lax accounting. Uproar over the investigation led to the resignation of the university's president the following year. Johnson says this incident is mute testimony in support of the stringent policies he's put in place at Florida State.

Some of his heartiest critics of the past have swung toward agreement. "I've come to realize that Johnson does all the things a good research administrator is supposed to do," says one veteran researcher-turned-administrator who admits to a "major attitudinal shift" regarding FSU's research chief over the years. "He's taken us from not even being on the map to a Research I university, and he's kept us out of trouble with the feds and the state the whole way. The man knows his stuff."

There may be one observation about Johnson that gets a universal nod around campus. "Bob's a survivor," says one department head. "You'd be hard pressed to find anyone in American academe who's been at that level as long as he has. That's no mean trick."

Johnson says his longevity in the job is due to a combination of things, not the least of which is the ability to take criticism. But he credits his ability to speak the languages of the scientist, the bureaucrat and the businessman with much of his success. In 1954, the Detroit native left a fast-track career as an agent for an industrial chemical company in his home town to return to school (Michigan State University) to get a Ph.D. in physiology. As an assistant professor at Colorado State University, he got his first taste of administration while working on developing a research foundation for the school. He was soon to discover that he liked administering research more than actually doing it. Following his new career aspirations to the NSF, he got a chance to visit "hundreds" of campuses where he picked up ideas on how to run large, multi-faceted research programs. By the time he showed up at Florida State in '68, he was eager to take ch arge of a young research program and put his own stamp on it.

When he ticks off the things he's proudest to have stamped over the years, Johnson mentions first his work as dean of graduate studies. Early on, he led a charge to crank quality controls into FSU's graduate programs (a faculty-run graduate policy council he started still reviews all graduate programs every five years).

The first of a number of cooperative degree programs between FSU and the University of Florida also came at his urging, he says. Foremost among these is the Program in Medical Sciences (PIMS), a program which since its creation in 1971 has produced more than 500 physicians (nearly half of whom are now in primary care) whose medical training began at Florida State.

Johnson also likes how his policies governing the use of overhead funds have helped as he puts it "prime the research pump" around campus. Deans and department heads have used the funds "wisely," he says, in starting new programs, helping weak programs get strong and in polishing old ones.

But his greatest contribution, he believes, may be in how he's used matching money to help broadcast the story of FSU research to a worldwide audience. In 1984, such in-house capital helped leverage a $100 million accord between the federal government, the Florida Legislature and private industry that founded the Supercomputer Computations Research Institute (SCRI), which up to that time was by far the single largest scientific research enterprise to land in Tallahassee.

Johnson, Sliger, Florida's Board of Regents chairman Dr. Charlie Reed and other insiders both in Tallahassee and in Washington all agree that the successful development of SCRI played a major role in FSU's biggest coup of all, the NSF's 1990 decision to put the headquarters of the new National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee.

In 1986, a Johnson initiative spelled relief for scores of campus researchers throughout Florida straining to stay atop a steadily rising tide of federal accounting paperwork. Together with long- time NSF friend Dr. Robert Newton, Johnson succeeded in getting the five major federal agencies to buy off on an experiment aimed at shortcutting the red tape required for P.I.s at all nine state universities and at the (private) University of Miami. Dubbed the Florida Demonstration Project, the proposal eventually proved so successful that it became the basis for a new policy that at least a dozen federal agencies now make available to universities throughout the country. Today, the Federal Demonstration Project is a boon to research on more than 80 participating campuses nationwide. Chiefly for his role in launching the idea, Johnson was lauded in 1989 by the Society of Research Administrators for "distinguished contribution to research administration," the national organization's highest honor.

During Johnson's FSU tenure, space devoted to research has more than doubled. No physical improvement, however, was as urgently needed as the Biomedical Research Facility completed in 1991. A highly critical USDA report on campus lab animal care in 1989 put FSU on notice that all of its life sciences programs were in real danger of being shut down. Johnson responded by generating and pushing through a proposal that built the $5 million facility, a highly coveted research asset that vaults FSU life sciences research into world-class distinction.

Johnson says he's not given over to spending much time reflecting on his accomplishments at Florida State. He merely says he's "quite proud" of what he's done up to now and looks forward to opportunities to do more. On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of this magazine, which he started, Johnson agreed to talk about his time in Tallahassee.

JOHNSON: On the administrative side of things, I couldn't believe my eyes. The staff had no records, they had no idea what they were doing. They were in the neighborhood of being a $12 million program, but they had no fiscal controls, no idea how to manage anything. It was a shambles, pure and simple. By 1971, we had a $5 million federal audit exception against us that's money that couldn't be accounted for. We were faced with the prospect of having to pay the federal government back that amount, which would have devastated us. But by 1973, we got most of that corrected. Instead of $5 million, we wound up owing the federal agencies about $300,000, which we paid back over a three-year period. Since then, we've had good audits, both from Washington and from the state.

RinR: Even so, you've been criticized by faculty over the years who complain that your methods hurt their abilities to do research.

JOHNSON: I'd say that's one of the biggest things I've had to worry about over the years. While most faculty understand the necessity of maintaining control, some faculty have been upset with me because I enforce these policies, saying that this impedes their research. But without institutional control, this university could be severely criticized and possibly lose a lot of money. The simple fact is that when you're dealing with the federal dollar the public purse you are responsible to the public for what happens to it. Criticisms are coming from all over these days on how universities are spending public dollars. More and more regulations are being added every year, both by Congress and the state Legislature. And it's my job to enforce those regulations, whether I agree with them or not. And there are some I don't like, believe me. Over the years, we've worked very hard with the federal government to get rid of onerous rules and regulations, and to a large extent we've been successful. But it seems like every time we get rid of one rule, three or four more new ones get added. It's frustrating. But we have to comply, and there are those who will never understand that.

RinR: Much has been made of the abuse of research overhead monies uncovered a few years back at Stanford University. We've never taken a hit like that here. Have we been on top of things or just lucky?

JOHNSON: You don't run a multi-million-dollar research program as clean as this one for as long as we have by being lucky. You do it by playing by the rules. Now there are times when you may have to bend a rule, but if you know what you're doing, you can do that without breaking any. No, we've never seen anything like Stanford and that's because we have policies in place that won't allow that to happen. But I'll grant you the (Stanford) incident and others have helped give indirect costs (overhead) a bad name. We hear accusations all the time that it's not used properly, that it's not needed. But the fact is, indirect costs are true costs of doing research a point I've argued for 25 years. Thanks to the vision of the Florida Legislature back in '64, we've been able to use overhead funds here at Florida State to help stimulate research and creative activity throughout the campus. Of all the overhead monies we receive, close to 40 percent goes back to the deans and department heads in one way or another. They are free to use that money as they see fit to develop their research programs. Also, the money that stays here with the Office of Research helps researchers and scholars two ways: it pays some of the costs of administering various services they want and need, and it provides matching funds as leverage for getting worthwhile programs off the ground.

RinR: The system you've built here, though, appears to be unique to the state university system. Fiscal control of research tends to be in the hands of university controllers' offices, as opposed to a separate office run by a vice president for research.

JOHNSON: That's true. But there are a number of universities around the country that basically do what we do. I think some of those picked up the idea from Florida State. Frankly, I like to think we've got the best system in Florida. A lot of people have wanted to copy what we've instituted. We call it a "one-stop" shop. In other words, a principal investigator can come to this office and get help on finding grant sources, proposal writing and submission, accounting, legal advice, everything. It's all done right here, not in four or five different offices scattered around campus. The structure is very meaningful. For one thing, it puts the academic influence on decision-making where it belongs, on the expenditure of contracts and grants. At any rate, it seems to work pretty well.

RinR: Twenty-five years ago, FSU's entire research effort was a ghost of what it is today. What's made the difference?

JOHNSON: Credit has to go where it's due, and that's the faculty. What's happened over the past 25 years is a result of some very good decisions made in the '50s and '60s by the administration in bringing outstanding people here in the sciences. This established a base of quality upon which we could build. Without that, we wouldn't be where we are today. And of course, success in the sciences has triggered successes in all other areas, a fact not often realized. And the state was very instrumental, too. For example, in 1957 the state underwrote the Tandem (van de Graaff nuclear accelerator) research program in nuclear physics. That was a very wise investment, which has since paid for itself many times over. And since then, the state has remained faithful the Legislature helped us get SCRI off the ground and certainly the Mag Lab, just to name a couple of examples. But primarily, the real key to the success has been the faculty. The P.I.s (principal investigators) on this campus have done a magnificent job. Thanks to those good faculty members who can write proposals that get funded that's been the difference right there. I could not be happier with the progress of our faculty. But we can't afford to become complacent. We need to be doing a lot better than we are, and we're very capable of that. In fact, I think we have the capability of doubling our research funding, and by the year 2000. That's my goal at least.

RinR: How realistic is that, especially with public pressure these days to beef up the quality of teaching, even up to the point of de-emphasizing research?

JOHNSON: I don't think it's unrealistic. It's true that the political climate is changing. But without a goal, you're never going to get anywhere.

RinR: Well, in 1992 the administration announced a goal of joining the top 25 universities in the nation by the turn of the century. More than a few believe that's impossible.

JOHNSON: Impossible, no. Improbable, yes. It will take an incredible amount of money to do that. And I doubt that we can come up with enough money to make a major shift in our rankings. For example, if you have a chemistry department that ranks 25th nationally, and you want to move to 24th or 23th just a notch or two do you realize how many millions of dollars that's going to take? Many millions, believe me. Now if Florida State were to get more entrepreneurish, we could do a whale of a lot better than we are, not only in quantity but in the quality of our research programs. There's no question about that. But it doesn't help us to think in terms of being as well- funded as, say, Johns Hopkins, Michigan or California. These schools have been established far longer than Florida State, and you're just not going to catch them, and there's no reason to try. Look at the top 10 universities in this country we're not going to get there, period. We're foolish if we think we are. But this really doesn't matter. Florida State is a very good university, a well-recognized university that gets its fair share of (public) support. On balance, we can hold our own with any university in Florida or for that matter, in the Southeast. So why worry whether we look like those other schools? Let's worry about what we look like as a quality institution.

RinR: You say we could be generating more research dollars. What should we be doing that we aren't doing already?

JOHNSON: Well mainly, I'd say it's changing some peoples' attitudes about research. I think some of the deans and department heads have been entirely too passive (on research) in the past. These administrators need to play a greater role in trying to bring in more research activity and increasing the quality of what they already have. I believe our new president and our interim provost feels the same way. We've simply got to get our key people more involved in research. Maybe one answer is to offer some kind of reward for deans, department heads and faculty who win research grants.

RinR: On quality vs. quantity of programs, what do you have to say on the argument that in these belt-tightening days we ought to get more serious about putting our resources where they would do the most good? Building on our strengths, letting go of weak or marginal programs, as it were? It's an old argument that somehow never gains ground, but never goes away, either.

JOHNSON: Ever since my NSF days, I've favored quality over quantity. I like the idea of developing what we have first, before adding things. I don't believe in being all things to all people, never have. But the political reality in any institution not just academe is that it's always a lot easier to start a program than it is to get rid of one. There are several reports sitting on shelves around this campus recommending that certain programs be reduced or cut out altogether. Nobody has followed through with them. The problem is, of course, that nobody wants to get cut. The administration has to be willing to make the hard decisions.

RinR: But we're hearing that a new era of accountability has arrived. How's that going to affect things?

JOHNSON: Well, the situation is that faculty are being told that they need to be more productive they have to either teach more, do more research, or do both and with less resources. They feel squeezed. But there's no doubt we're in a self- examination period now and that corrections are going to be made. We might as well face up to it: faculty at this university are going to be forced to teach more or to do more research, because the perception is out there that we don't work very hard. I've been fighting this for almost 40 years, but frankly I don't see much change in the public's thinking on the matter. And now we're being told that we're the new "leisure class." That's nonsense. I'd like to see anybody in industry or government post the same hours some of these professors do. Most of our people don't work a 40-hour week. It's more like 60 or 80. Now we know everybody doesn't work like that there've been abuses and it wouldn't be honest to claim otherwise. But that's true in any profession. Most of these people work extremely hard at what they do. But the sad fact is that we've done a very poor job of selling our profession to the public. Since we work on the public purse, we're obliged to answer that perception. We've got to realize that we're no longer isolated from the community. They're paying our salaries, and we've got to be accountable to them. There's nothing wrong with accountability.

RinR: But what about claims that faculty are doing too much research and not enough teaching?

JOHNSON: Again, this whole issue rests on a lack of public understanding about the role research plays in higher education another theme I've preached for decades. We strive for a balance in research and teaching because we are convinced that the two go hand in hand. Every teacher needs to be a scholar, with regular scholarly activity, whether its in the laboratory or the library, whether it's publishing a new scientific theory or publishing a book of poetry. A good professor, regardless of discipline, won't just teach. They can't just teach. They've got to do creative things for their own development. And to say that a university is only a place to teach students is ridiculous. Now some researchers don't want to teach, we recognize that. That's not right, either, and that's one of the things that's going to change. On the whole, I think we've kept a pretty good balance between the two at Florida State. But it could be better.

RinR: Some faculty members feel that they're cut out of the research loop because their particular fields make it hard for them to get outside funding.

JOHNSON: It's true that not every faculty member can get outside support. But that doesn't mean that individual can't do research. Research should never be thought of as being restricted to funded work. Publishing a paper, article or book is research. But some people can get outside research support and either don't know it or just don't try. Frankly, if a professor isn't trying to grow in his or her profession, and be a better teacher by doing creative activity or research, then I don't think we want to keep them.

RinR: What's been the key for Bob Johnson surviving in this job so long?

JOHNSON: For one thing, having a good staff around you. I've been extremely fortunate to have had some good people who've been with me a long time. I'm very grateful to every one of them I owe them a lot, and they know it. Also, I guess my philosophy has had something to do with it, and that, basically, is this: everything's on the table. I tell people: 'Here's the way I think, here's the way I'm going, criticize me if you like, and I'll work with you.' There's never been anything under the table, no hidden agendas. We've had faculty input in just about everything we've ever done. We've laid everything on the table where everybody could see it and discuss it or cuss it if they wanted to. And you have to be able to laugh at yourself, not take yourself too seriously. Apparently it's worked.

RinR: Surely there have been regrets.

JOHNSON: Oh, sure. I've made quite a few mistakes, had lots of failures, but I've learned from them. As far as major failures, I don't know of any that have bothered me. Strangely enough, it's the small disappointments that get to you after awhile.

--FRANK STEPHENSON