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96 Section III. Implementationtogether existing institutional strengths in a new and distinctive way, or by proposinga creative way to strengthen a critical area that limits Vanderbilt’s ability tomove forward.3. The proposed effort enhances the learning environment and opportunitiesfor undergraduate, professional, and graduate students and recognizes the needto recruit and retain an intellectually, racially, and culturally diverse campuscommunity.4. The proposed effort will require a significant investment in graduate education,and, if successful, will improve the national ranking of one or more graduateprograms.5. The proposed effort involves a broad range of faculty rather than a few individualsand will foster greater collaboration among the schools.6. The proposed effort will strengthen disciplinary integrity and expand the interdisciplinaryrange of departments.7. The faculty leadership is already in place.8. The proposed investment will strengthen the core disciplines.9. The proposed effort is bold, requiring significant intellectual and financial investment,with anticipated gains commensurate with the magnitude of the investment.10. The proposed effort shows clear promise for generating the funding needed tosustain itself after the initial period of AVCF support (of no more than 5 years).In 2002, the first proposal was submitted to the AVCF but did not receive approval.It was an administration-driven effort led by the director of ITS at the time. Then inmid-2003, a second proposal spearheaded by Jason, Paul, and Ron was submitted tothe AVCF and received approximately $8.2 million in funding for the SCC. One importantdistinction to note between the different sources of funding is that federal fundingwould have provided means solely for building the computer. It would not havecovered any other aspects of the SCC. On the other hand, the internal AVCF fundingprovided capital for data storage, data archiving, data visualization, and personnelrelated to outreach and support efforts.Details About the SCCThe approved AVCF proposal explicitly laid out the administrative and organizationalstructure for the SCC. Jason, Paul, and Ron were the principal investigators and makeup the steering committee, while Alan served as project administrator. The steeringcommittee is responsible for all major decisions but will seek input from other committees.There are four other committees:1. The investigators committee consists of all faculty members who are using or willbe using the system. It currently contains approximately fifty investigators from theuniversity. This internal advisory committee is chaired by Walter Chazin, PeterCummings 16 (chemical engineering), Mark Magnuson 17 (molecular physiology andbiophysics, assistant vice chancellor for research), and Nancy Lorenzi 18 (biomedicalinformatics, assistant vice chancellor for health affairs), and it will provide a diversearray of opinions.2. The external advisory committee consists of three or four individuals from outsideVanderbilt in order to provide an objective perspective.3. The technical advisory committee, chaired by Jarrod Smith 19 from the Departmentof Biochemistry, will make hardware and software recommendations.