Part of his job is to put willing faculty and administrators in touch with industry. It's kind of like after they meet, fall in love, and want to get married, we perform the ceremony. He admits that all this corporate attention results in more conflicts of interest. It's figuring out how to manage them. A ccording to university policy, faculty members must comply with an 11-page conflict of interest policy each year, submitting any conflicts in writing to their department heads.
Conflicts of interest fall into three categories.
At one end are conflicts that are left up to the individual faculty member to sort out. Higher-level conflicts receive heavy scrutiny. He says the answer to managing such concerns is accomplished by the university conflict of interest policy and by those charged with managing the conflict. Department chairs and deans decide whether any conflicts merit extra attention. If so, the department head offers the conflict up to a university faculty committee.