XXAXRAKKKKKIKNK IOAN KEIARK Departmsnt of Medical Genetics May 5, 1957 Professor J. A. Jenkins Departgent of Genetics University of Califomia Berkeley 4, California Deer Jim: I gan sse there is 2 lot of collective heud-scratching sbout Esther. I don't believe that 1t matters a great deal whether her salary appears on the budget from regular University funds or from outeids, or an I mis- taken. That is, would one tyne of appodatuent carry any privéleges, res— poanidilities o: sansa of tanure Laddag in the other? If not, then I would leave the arranganents at this leval to the convenience of ths University. Tha iepartasntal arrangements are, 1 gathor, stiit under discussion. With- wut xncwing why 'Sciid and Piant Nutrition’ is better now thas 'Agricultural Bloshamistry' it 1s nard to give a considered opinion. it is, however, 4 good desl harder to see how Ssthery’s line of work would o8 juatifievle under a title of Soils and Plant Mutrition. All of this leade me again to ask whether the chances for your first sug- gestion, of a straightforward ‘variance! from the Presideat's office to allow tether's employment in the jepartment of Genetics, have been properly exhausted, or usrely deflected to see whether there were other acually congenial solu- tions. id the President say “no"’ It is vecoming fairly clear that the other possibilities aii have an slement of ambiguity. a would be quite content if Tecomendations for eslary, stc. were processed by the Chairman of Genetics; if it would facilitate that, then pernaps tne budgeting on University funds would be the better. If this approach is qiite blocked (and I can't tell from your letters whether it is or not) then we will nave to resume diacussion of the current ones. If another department mst be brought in, Bacteriology (depending on Seymour's future plans) or Virus Research would seem the most rational; if it must be in the College of Agriculture, | would have thougiit the faculty in Agr. Biochemistry would have the best understanding of her work. It is hard for m to believe that the inter-departmental arrangement could reamin indefinitely a pure formality, without that understanding. But I suppose if she actually had a title "Research Associate jor whatever} in Genetics administered in the Department of ....) it would go, if it had to. I would actually prefer that Esther's remuneration ts set according to local standards. She has been working at fulltime research since her Ph.D. degree in 1950; you can extract the titles of her papers (marked ©ML) from the joint list you already have. Her work on the genetics of lysogenicity annual / (Paper 33) has had a decisive impactaon the phage world, and the lambda sys- tem is now one of the most widely stédied in that field. She also had a pri- mary part in the wokk represented by papers #30, 54 and 58, and was an - pensable collaborator, to say the least, on the others of joint authorship. She has also had much to do with the tooling-up for many other studies where she does not appear as an author. Her salary for 1956-57 has been $5000, for a calendar year (i.e. 11 m. + 1 mc. gacation) appointmnt. We have an informal understanding that she will be advanced in three or four/staps to a plateau of about $6500, with further adjust- mente on an inflationary basis. This is probably well below the California standards for comparable experience and performance, but this is not a subject that either of us feel should be left to our own judgement, if it can be helped. Are you just back to old stationery, or are you a ‘division’ again? Allen G. Marr from the Davis-Bact. department was visiting yesterday, and mentioned a promotional campaign to get a position in microbial genetics budgeted for that campus, if not in Genetics then in Bacterlology. Have you heard about that yet? Yours sincerely, Hoshua Lederberg