Dancing Dollars Stimulate UNCC
Want to land a quick and easy $900,000 to teach cocaine-fueled monkeys how to boogie down with weird dances that can be featured on YouTube? Ask the federal government for a grant and you’d probably be in luck.
It worked for UNC Charlotte and Wake Forest University, two institutions of higher learning that received hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal stimulus money for grants that critics contend are of questionable worth.
UNCC’s quest to develop a funky interactive dance software, funded by a $762,372 grant, ranked second as the biggest waste of taxpayer dollars out of 100 federal stimulus-funded projects, in a report released this week by Republican Sens. John McCain and Tom Coburn. A $144,541 grant for researchers at Wake Forest to determine how monkeys react under the influence of cocaine, meanwhile, rolled in at No. 28 on the senator’s Top 100 list.
Wake Forest, in fact, managed multiple appearances, including a $294,958 grant to study whether Integral Yoga “can be an effective method to reduce the frequency and/or severity of hot flashes” in menopausal women. A total of 60 post-menopausal women who experience more than seven “hot flashes” a day are being recruited to participate in the research project.
It’s all part of the job creation spurred by the Obama Administration’s $862-billion economic stimulus package, which supporters insist has helped create or save upwards of 3 million jobs and detractors claim has been little but a massive boondoggle that’s left taxpayers on the hook.
“There is no question job creation should be a national priority, but torrential, misdirected government spending is not the way to do it,” McCain and Coburn write in the introduction of their report, officially entitled “Summertime Blues: 100 stimulus projects that give taxpayers the blues.”
UNCC’s project, the senators write, deserved such a high ranking because the project’s administrative expenses are unusually high, rolling in at 44 percent of the total amount to cover “overhead expenses,” while creating less than two actual jobs. UNCC officials, not surprisingly, contend the project has created other ancillary benefits by providing part-time salaries and stipends for professors and dancers.
“The Dance Draw project is developing new technologies to support human creativity and is supporting dancers, choreographers, and artists in a variety of forms,” UNCC Vice Chancellor for Research and Federal Relations Stephen Mosier opined in press release.
“As we hear regularly, a great nation deserves great art,” Mosier said. “UNC Charlotte is proud to be engaged in creative research that supports the arts.”
Yada, yada, yada.
According to the McCain-Coburn report, the UNCC project is using the $762,372 to develop:
a computerized choreography program that its creators believe could lead to a YouTube-like “Dance Tube” online application. The grant says UNC-Charlotte will “define an evolving system that assists in the design and production of interactive dance performances with real-time audience interaction.”
A device is attached to each dancer, which will be recorded on video, and their movements will be logged and analyzed. “This will allow choreographers to explore interactive dance without always having a full cast of dancers present,” the grant states. One day, dance performances may enjoy the popularity of YouTube hits like “double rainbow” or “dramatic-look prairie dog.” States the grant: “The system will be extended into a Web-based ‘Dance Tube’ application that will allow the public to engage in interactive dance choreography.”
Other notable job-generating projects from North Carolina to crack the McCain-Coburn Top 100 include a $253,123 grant to the North Carolina State University Insect Museum, which attracts all of 44 visitors a year. The money will be used to buy new cabinets and drawers to house the museum’s insect collection and start an “Insect of the Week” series on its website. If that isn’t enough, as part of the annual BugFest festival, the museum will use stimulus funds to “design and distribute packs of baseball-style cards featuring North Carolina’s native and fascinating insects.”
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