Interesting. My payroll department has all our employee’s SSNs. So does yours, most likely.

Presenting the request from NSF to a SAM  business POC validates an official requirement for confidential information that—like salary—the POC can access and would otherwise never disclose to anyone, but I need to know it for proposal purposes as the authorized representative of the institution who makes official assurances to Uncle Sam under penalty of perjury all the time, and would never just take the employee’s word for it. Even though my faculty members are somewhat more likely to cheerfully and accurately report the nine digits of their SSN than the six digits of their base salary or two digits of their unfundable Impact score.

The POC, by providing that number to me with no name through a secure channel distinct from the one through which I requested it, has enabled me to relieve the agency’s suspicions, walk out, and let the PI build their dreams.

Of course, I could assure the agency that our PI is clean without all that rigmarole, but who does that? Seriously, who?

xxxxxx@Pomona.edu

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