countervailing forces define the coexisting strengths and weaknesses
of grant peer review as it is practiced in American higher education.
Even if one were able to erase all particularistic considerations from
the evaluation process, there would still be culturally and socially
embedded assessments. The goal of a consistent and unified process
is utopian: perspectives shift and the weight given to each criterion
varies as the characteristics of the group of proposals being consid-
ered prime evaluators to consider different facets of each proposal in
turn. How will these idiosyncrasies of the grant-review process ac-
commodate considerations of interdisciplinarity and diversity?
Recognizing Various Kinds of Excellence / 201