ksand@mapper.UUCP (Kent Sandvik) (12/15/87)
Tom Osborn writes an interesting article on the impact of University level education on the computing industry's needs, including saying that he feels that "the industry should take much more financial responsibility for education (especially in Australia) and with even less control over the decision making and planning." Now there is a company in Australia that together with the Australian Goverment is going to build a information centre based on future networking and 4:GLs. This company is UNISYS and the joint venture will be called ACUS (Australian Centre for Unisys Software). They will employ 250 software developers, and also ave a graduate employment program, as well as they build a Pacific/Asia training centre and are starting to collaborate with Australian Third Party Software Houses. I mean that at least that big ugly company tries to keep and spread Computer Oriented Education - and have some financial responsibility for education (even if the Goverment puts in some funds...). And even better - I start working there next January - jiippee, away from this freezing water in Sweden. I think ACUS will suit me fine, because I vote yes for free information and responsibility for spreading knowledge. Reg, Kent Sandvik
kurt@tc.fluke.com (Kurt Guntheroth) (12/16/87)
Every time I hear this I freak out. <Tom Osborn> "The industry should take much more financial responsibility for [university-level] education and with even less control over the decision making and planning." I agree that Industry must become financially involved in university level education if they want the kind of workers capable of making critical advances in technology. What makes me crazy is the notion that they should not have any control over the education. OK, I know about acedemic freedom. If you are a Professor of English or History, or some subject susceptable to political contraversy, you need your sponsers to keep hands off. But what about technical subjects like computer science? Industry has neither the desire nor the abiity to suppress laws of nature. If a manufacturer had a monopoly on technology, then improvements in the technology would still be desirable to them. If companies competed, than research suppressed at one university would be carried out at another. Thus acedemicians have no justification in cries for so-called acedemic freedome in technical areas. If my company endows a university with a million dollars, why shouldn't they get to direct, at least in a general sense, the form of research done with that money. Apparently this is poison to a great many acedemicians, but on what grounds? It is groundless to claim that only professors know best what avenues of research will be fruitful, or that only undirected, basic research leads to knowledge. Companies endowing universities don't want them to do narrowly targeted research. Universities are too leaky to make them safe places to carry out product engineering. Companies only want to encourage research that is in areas which may be especially beneficial to their industry. Why is this idea dangerous? Is it only dangerous to professors, who have traded big salaries for a totally unstructured environment? Is it just that they are used to being very big fish in a pond full of easily pushed-around undergrads, and suddenly somebody comes by who might potentially be able to tell them what to do? Is there indeed something about PhD's at a university which makes them more insightful or imaginative than PhD's in Industry? I throw down the gauntlet. I'd like to see somebody professorial pick it up and tell me WHY. Why should industry give more money and resign all control? Kurt Guntheroth [My opinions are my own. They are less polite than the opinions of my employer, John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., which contributes to university education without expecting or getting measureable return from it.]
haas@CS.UTAH.EDU (Walt Haas) (12/18/87)
Kurt Guntheroth writes, in part; > If a manufacturer had a monopoly on technology, then improvements in the > technology would still be desirable to them. No it wouldn't. The thing that is desireable to a manufacturer is to control the marketplace so it can be milked for maximum profit. About 15 years ago I was a systems programmer at a certain ivy league computer center. We wanted to install better technology there. However the better technology was provided, not by our mainframe vendor, but by a third party. The salesman for the mainframe vendor went as high as a vice president of the university with stories that I was sabatoging the computer center with this choice of better technology. Fortunately this guy was ignored by the university administration, the third party hardware was installed, and I was fully vindicated. Lesson: some vendors find it more profitable to market crap aggressively than to provide a better product. They will stab competent professionals in the back, lie, and cheat to do this. > If companies competed, than research suppressed at one university would be > carried out at another. Only if you can guarantee that: 1. competition is indeed free. See above. 2. alternatives are well funded. There is rarely funding from industry for truly basic research, since it takes so long to pay off. > If my company endows a university with a million dollars, why shouldn't they > get to direct, at least in a general sense, the form of research done with > that money. Apparently this is poison to a great many acedemicians, but on > what grounds? Industry exists to make a profit. In order to accomplish this it needs to minimize risks and produce a fairly quick payout. I used to run an industrial "R&D" group. I was not permitted to get involved with any technology that couldn't be converted to practical application quickly. Needless to say we didn't make any major advances while following these rules. > It is groundless to claim that only professors know best what > avenues of research will be fruitful, or that only undirected, basic > research leads to knowledge. I think it's perfectly justified to claim that the existing University environment is better for developing technology that won't show a profit for ten or more years. I'm not responding directly to your statement because it makes a black-and-white statement about a situation with a lot of gray scale in the real world. > Companies endowing universities don't want them to do narrowly targeted > research. Universities are too leaky to make them safe places to carry > out product engineering. What about all those beta test boxes downstairs? What do you call that? What about all the software we port to this or that computer in exchange for a deal on the price? This is certainly not research. > Companies only want to encourage research that is in areas which may be > especially beneficial to their industry. Yes, and the quicker the benefit is produced the better. > Why is this idea dangerous? Because it would: 1. Reduce or eliminate basic research. 2. Give large affluent companies the ability to stop small aggressive companies from getting access to new technology. 3. Increase concentrations of wealth and power in large companies that are risk-averse. > Is it only dangerous to professors, who have traded big salaries for a > totally unstructured environment? Very funny. No, it's dangerous to everybody who benefits from better technology. > Is it just that they are used to being very big fish in a pond full of > easily pushed-around undergrads, and suddenly somebody comes by who might > potentially be able to tell them what to do? Is there indeed something > about PhD's at a university which makes them more insightful or > imaginative than PhD's in Industry? PhD's in industry don't usually run the whole industry. Most large corporations are actually run by businessmen, lawyers and accountants. An example of the result was experienced by a certain state university whose computer center was operating a mainframe built by a company with a factory in that state. The architecture of the system was obsolete and the people at the university wanted to unload it and get something more modern. The officers of this company went to the governor and told him they would close their factory if the university dumped their computer. Pressure was brought to bear... but it wasn't because of the relative merit of the ideas of industrial PhDs versus university PhDs. Another example of this effect was experienced by a friend of mine who was one of the group who developed a new method of isolating clotting factor from human blood. This factor is now used to treat hemophiliacs with good results. At the time there was a commercial method of isolating clotting factor that didn't produce a very good product. One day some representatives of the vendor of that method came around to my friend's lab and started bugging the labniks about what their new method was like and what effect it would have on the marketplace. They didn't go so far as actually sabatoging the research, but it was clear that they weren't in any big hurry to give up their market either. > [My opinions are my own. They are less polite than the opinions of my > employer, John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., which contributes to university > education without expecting or getting measureable return from it.] Hm? Where does John Fluke hire engineers and computer scientists? Where are the basic laws of nature used in John Fluke products first discovered? I would assert that John Fluke gets major returns from investment in universities, like every other high-tech company, but can't show a tight enough feedback loop to please the shareholders. That would be about typical in my experience. Incidentally in case you think I've been picked on and my experiences are not typical, the three stories above involve three different universities and three different companies. Cheers -- Walt Haas
deh0654@sjfc.UUCP (Dennis Hamilton) (12/29/87)
Kurt Guntheroth asks:
> Why should industry give more money and resign all control?
I'm not professionally professorial, but the following events occured here
this past summer.
The Eastman Kodak company has, in the past, provided a heavy endowment to
the University of Rochester (and, for example, the Eastman school of music).
Actually, George Eastman did most of it while still living, but the company
and its minions (and martinets) take the credit.
Eastman Kodak also has a high enrollment in the "Friday Program" MBA
track at the School of Management, and there are many other Kodak students,
adjunct faculty, etc., especially in the busines school.
This last summer, U of R was threatened with withdrawal of Kodak's support
for admitting a Japanese student (and employee of rival Fuji corporation) to
the MBA program. The University caved in and withdrew the previously-granted
admission.
Of course, some commentators suggest that the reason this attracted so much
attention is that the student was admitted at all. Normally, the student
would have been passed over quite silently and no one might have been the
wiser.
In the local furor, most of the letters to the editor were in favor of
bashing the Jap and supporting Rochester's largest employer. The company
spokespeople (and the University's too) have all been ingenuous.
The notion of funding targeted research is hard to question (but what about
it being the tobacco industry trying to get some favorable research studies
to cite and some experts that they've bought into their corner -- how do you
feel about that?). The notion of academic content and choice of students,
also a matter of academic freedom, is a real problem. If an employer has
an industrial need, why not arrange to have it carried out at an industrial
location. If, for some reason, it is important for collegiate credit or
recognition to accompany what is in fact training, not education, the problem
is not so easily reducable to an intellectual platitude.
I guess life is just too messy, and human foibles to ever-present, to want
to see the academia-industry connection blured even further than it already is.
[This incident has been reported in the New York Times, and there was a
tremendous amount of local coverage, overall a couple of months, but the
story did *not* originally break locally.]
Dennis E. Hamiltoncik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) (12/29/87)
Kurt Guntheroth asks:
> Why should industry give more money and resign all control?
I believe that many firms realize that, in the long run, it is necessary for
basic research to be done. They also need good applied research. I do not
agree with many (I do not know if they are in the majority) university
faculty who object to professors doing applied, or even applicable, research.
In fact, I would like to strongly encourage industry researchers to teach in
the universities!
However, I do not believe that it is reasonable to expect a good researcher
to perform well if the research is directed, whether by the firm or the
government. That does not mean that some of the time should not be spent
on directed research. Even a fair researcher is likely to find it
necessary for sanity to work on several problems at the same time. (One
time I got the solution to a clearly formulated problem by discussing an
apparently unrelated result on a different problem with some colleagues at
lunch; the "experts" I had discussed the problem with were also familiar
with an intermediate problem which gave the actual solution and did not
recognize it.) Some of the more intelligent corporations realize this, and
act accordingly.
Another reason to encourage people with research ability to work on problems
which are "pure" is that we should recognize the state of our ignorance.
Many outstanding mathematicians, some of them interested in applications
and some not, have stated that certain fields of mathematics would never
have practical applications. How wrong they were! It is frequently _not_
possible to do the necessary basic research when the applied problem
arises. I think that if we imposed a 5% tax on medical treatment, the
proceeds to go to those promising researchers whose ideas are considered
"far out", that the rewards would more than justify the expenditures. One
editorial which appeared in _Science_ many years ago pointed out that if the
government had regulated research in Polio that we could very well have
efficient respirators, but no vaccines.
We must also recognize that basic research is inherently inefficient, and
necessarily so. _Sometimes_ we know how to approach a problem. If one
reads the scientific literature, the impression is often percieved that the
authors went directly from the problem to the experimentation or the
analysis presented. Do not believe it! I am not sure that theoretical
research is even 1% efficient. However, the 1% useful time can not be
separated from the 99% "wasted" time. If we know how to treat a problem,
it is not research but development.
I hope I have answered the author of the previous article, and made the point
that industry should support university research and get involved in the
educational system, but not in such a way as to stifle it. The government
is, possibly inadvertently, already doing a good job of stifling, as
predicted by Szilard before 1950. I hope the industrialists show better
judgment.
Herman Rubintaylor@hplabs.HP.COM (Dave Taylor) (01/19/88)
Kurt Guntheroth, a while back, asked an interesting question about the relationship of Universities and Industry when it came to funding projects. Dennis Hamilton and others have continued the discussion with various thoughts on the subject, to which I'd like to add my own. It seems to me that we've assumed a bit of an arbitrary distinction between universities and industry; where almost any level of interaction is questionable. Well, I'd like to propose instead that we consider them both areas in the same `research space'; Universities ===================+ --> Applied Research | + - - - - - - - - - - - - -|- - - - - - - - - - + | | +===========|=======================+ +=================|===========+ | | + - - - - - - -|- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + | / +================= Industry ========+ Areas of Research As we move to the right in this illustration we find more and more applied research, intended to result in products that the company can use to increase their bottom line; to make into products they can introduce to the market. Universities, on the other hand, are more inclined to do `pure' research (an interesting phase, actually; it implies that the research done by industries is somehow impure) which are intended less to become products to sell and more as vehicles for learning about basic, fundamental problems in the specific area of research. There is certainly some overlap as my illustration shows; I can think of many examples of pure research done in industry (for example, the continued research at Bell Labs and NASA) and examples of research which (somewhat ex post facto, I admit) seems to have been intended more as a product than research result (examples that pop up are UCSD Pascal and the University of British Columbia X.400 mail system - now sold by companies created, essentially, to sell the products). With this basic view espoused, let's now go and look at the question Kurt originally asked; "Why should industry give [money to universities] and then resign all control?" It is indeed an interesting question. I believe the answer is that the platform whereby most industry/applied research is done is firmly rooted in the fruit of pure research done five or more years in the past. It's a very symbiotic relationship between industry and univer- sities since neither can exist without the other (Where would the graduates go? Where would they get trained and qualified employees?). Let's leave that thought for a second... Based on my own experience, it seems that a couple of the basic tenets of research are that new and seemingly wild ideas mustn't be summarily discarded and that some reasonable percentage of the research done should ultimately fail. I believe that we're starting to hit on the problem that is typically encountered in industry-funded university research finally; that very few companies in industry are willing to give money to a `failed' project, so they instead impose sufficient constraints upon the project to ensure that it won't fail (but that, of course, it won't succeed either as pure research). In essence, I believe that a lot of industry funding is tied closely to the lack of willingness to `take chances' in research, to risk failure, or indeed to fail. "New Scientist" had a fascinating editorial a few months ago about the aura of failure that springs up about research that doesn't succeed in its goals, and the effect on the research staff. It is sufficiently alarming that the percentage of false results reported in technical and scientific journals has been increasing steadily for the past twenty years. One musn't fail. But for pure research, how can you *not* fail? It's like saying that you'll only bet on the pools if you're guaranteed of winning. And research is, fundamentally, a gamble. The researchers are betting that their theories will turn out to be true... As Universities have become more interested in expensive areas of research (like particle physics, IC wafer fabrication technologies, or parallel computation) they've found that it's very useful to have a big company or two along to help with the neccessary equipment and overhead. But nothing is really free, and they seem to be willing to pay the price of increased industry input in the traditional university role of research (the "ivory tower"). The case cited by Dennis Hamilton, where Eastman Kodak threatened to withdraw funding of a project at the University of Rochester if a request of theirs concerning admissions wasn't resolved as they choose, is an example of the frightening lengths that this can go to. I believe that Kodak should be reprimanded for trying to exert influence through blackmail, and that the board of regents of the University of Rochester should be reprimanded too; if they need to rely on the funding of companies that force them to adopt racist policies, then they're in much deeper than they think. I'd like to see a situation where industries help fund research in universities purely for humanitarian and philanthropic reasons, without any particular desire to influence or control either the research or the policies of the department/university itself. In fact, perhaps it should be legislated that a percentage of all corporate income should be shifted into University accounts earmarked for research purposes. Note that I've not even mentioned the other plague of the current spate of industry participation in university research; company confidential classifications extending to research done at public and private universities. In any case, this is indeed an interesting issue and I look forward to further discussion on it herein. --- Dave Taylor
andy@rocky.stanford.edu (Andy Freeman) (01/20/88)
Dave Taylor said: > I believe that Kodak should be reprimanded for trying to exert influence > through blackmail, and that the board of regents of the University of > Rochester should be reprimanded too; if they need to rely on the funding > of companies that force them to adopt racist policies, then they're in > much deeper than they think. Whatever it was, it wasn't racism. Kodak and the University had a very cosy relationship. Kodak provided a lot of students and gave lots of money and the University skewed their classes to benefit Kodak. Since this skew included proprietary info, Kodak was concerned when an employee of Fuji (or some other Japanese film maker) was admitted. The problem wasn't race, it was disclosure of proprietary info. Kodak's response was to threaten to withdraw their employees (who'd gotten used to treating Rochester as a Kodak training center, so it would be difficult for them to suddenly shut up). The problem is that proprietary info shouldn't have been discussed openly. -andy ps - I also disagree with: > Perhaps it should be legislated that a percentage of all corporate > income should be shifted into University accounts earmarked for > research purposes. The University as basic research center is a cultural phenomena; basic research in Japan is industrial. I see no reason to penalize a company, IBM is the best example, that does its own basic research. Besides, why should Stanford have guaranteed income, but not SRI International? If you want to subsidize education, fine, but don't hide it under research. Andy Freeman
spaf@purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) (01/20/88)
I am coming into this discussion in the middle, so pardon me if I cover something already said. Basically, I see this discussion as over the question as one of how to get University research in cooperation with Industry (both funding and expertise). Well, such a beast (actually, many) exists; I'm part of one. Dave's diagram illustrates our goal nicely: > Universities ===================+ --> Applied Research > | + - - - - - - - - - - - - -|- - - - - - - - - - + > | | +===========|=======================+ > +=================|===========+ | | > + - - - - - - -|- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + | > / +================= Industry ========+ > Areas of Research Here's the story: The NSF has a program to establish cooperative Industry/University research centers in critical technology areas. These centers are funded by industrial partners and research is done (largely) by the university component. The direction of the center and the projects is shared between the industry affiliates and the university coordinator. In the last few years the NSF has established over 30 of these centers in critical technology areas like polymer research, recombinant DNA, materials handling, and so on. All but one or two have been successful, with a few developing patentable discoveries worth millions to those centers and their affiliates. The NSF starts the centers with an initial 5 years of administrative funding and support, and helps develop the structure of each center according to its mission. They also provide administrative expertise and assistance, and help to ensure stability. The Software Engineering Research Center is one such center, founded in late 1986 jointly at Purdue and at the University of Florida, Gainesville. The SERC is charged with research in all aspects of software engineering -- including specification, design aids, metrics, testing technology, maintenance aids, verification techniques, debugging, interfaces, and many other topics. We have about 15 active projects at the moment, with at least that many faculty involved, including such SE luminaries as Sam Conte, Harlan Mills, Rich DeMillo, Stephen Yau, Buster Dunsmore (and myself :-), plus many other faculty and students. The SERC currently has over a dozen industry affiliates and more in the hopper, plus support from some state and federal research organizations. Each affiliate pays a small yearly fee ($30K, less a federal tax *credit* -- less than 1/3 the cost of capitalizing a new researcher), and gains a voting membership on the advisory board. They also get first crack at proprietary rights in our research results, along with the usual kinds of perks like personnel exchanges, short courses, etc. The advisory board meets twice a year and hears research reports and proposals from the university research folks. The IAB (advisory board) decides what to fund, and at what level. They also provide feedback about things they'd like to see included in the research, and about internal projects that may have a tie-in to the research. They also appoint a subcommittee of members to monitor each project. Thus, they get some definite say in the projects done, and they closely observe and guide the research that is done. >From the standpoint of the researchers, we get to research "real-world" problems and place prototypes for evaluation. We get to cooperate with researchers in corporate labs, we get access to coroporate data and experience, and we have access to reasonable funding without the additional hassles involved in going to funding agencies. For the affiliates, they get access to over (currently) $600,000 (annual) of university research by top people in the field, the potential for proprietary commercial use of the research results, and interaction with the university and industry research community for their people That's really a thumbnail sketch of the SERC, and the other NSF centers too. The idea *does* work, and works well, and it doesn't require the companies to put up millions of dollars on research they have little say in. For small investments they get a great deal in return, specifically targeted to be available in a few years' time. It's a *great* partnership. If you'd like more info on the SERC, send me your *US MAIL* address and I'll mail you a packet or indicate someone at your company who already has that information. Our current affiliates are: ATTIS, CSC Corp, DEC, HP, IBM, GTE Harris, Magnavox, ModComp, Racal-Milgo, Arthur Anderson, and US AIRMICS. BNR is about to join. Groups at Kodak, Bellcore, Gould, Sun, Apple, Xerox, Pyramid, TI, Contel, and Covex are all expressing interest, although none have made any commitment to join. Our goal is to limit affiliates to 20 or 25. If you're interested in info on our available technical reports or specific projects, send me e-mail and indicate that...I'll see what I can provide. Gene Spafford
ix665@sdcc6.UCSD.EDU (Sue Raul) (01/23/88)
Some comments to your University/Business relationship article - > It's a very symbiotic relationship between industry and universities > since neither can exist without the other (Where would the graduates > go? Where would they get trained and qualified employees?). While there is a symbiotic relationship between the university and industry *in practice*, the historical philosophies of both are quite different and there hasn't always been this relationship. A long long time ago, businesses got trained and qualified employees from apprenticeships they offered. Universities were there to teach "thinkers," where graduates went to earn their living was not a major concern of teachers. They existed without the other very well. It's only the problems of making a living that tie the two together in a capitalist society. Since we live in a capitalist society, we are so repeatedly shown the patterns of university-graduate-goes-into-business that we take that as a given. It's not a given. Puristically speaking, scientists seek pure knowledge, businesses seek the pure buck. It gradually became common practice for university graduates to find jobs in business since abstract applications for knowledge that could bring in enough income to support one's idealized fantasies of a high enough quality of life were far and few between, and teaching didn't pay. Those who could live on a meager income went into teaching or something else they could manage. Where should graduates today go? That was not the university's concern. In some universities, or parts thereof, it still isn't. I'm faced with this problem personally so I can answer from a perspective you perhaps hadn't thought about. I am, for all practical purposes, studying a 'pure' discipline, not unlike pure science. Knowing this all along I am prepared to have to make a living doing something else besides 'pure research.' One gets what one is prepared for. I am also prepared for the intrinsic rewards of having an education. Roger Revelle talked about this in one of the 'Conversations Around the Pacific Ring' - Art and Society: Who Pays? [a conference sponsored by the UCSD Music Department a few years ago] He (amongst others) pointed out that experimental art and pure scientific research are very similar. Those who would do either cannot make a living at it and have to do other things, usually by teaching. College graduates that don't want to teach can go into 'applied research' in businesses. For some fields there are opportunities like that, for others, such as the arts, there are only a few. Advertising can support a few of the artists who are willing. "Pop" music can support a few willing 'trained' musicians, etc. But back to your 'symbiotic' relationship. "Where would graduates go?" WHO CARES!? Where would businesses get trained people? THAT'S THEIR PROBLEM - They have to pay for it, hire consultants, or have training programs. At least the difference between 'training' and 'education' is more clearly defined. An interesting statement by composer Morton Sobotnick later on: "We are, after all, not artists in order to change society. We're artists because somehow we never grew up." To which Roger Revelle replies: "That's exactly the point, and it's also true of science. The best scientists in the country are like boys and girls under the age of ten." So, symbiotic relationship, maybe, but not necessarily. I think that less is more in this case... Sue Raul
eugene@ames-pioneer.arpa (Eugene Miya N.) (01/23/88)
As to the original question of: "Why should industry give [money to universities] and then resign all control?" Ever hear of charity? Your company doesn't have to, but then you don't have to recruit people from Universities either. Several things strike me: 1) Are David Packard and William Hewlett fools for donating so much of their personal money to a wide variety of charities? (Yes, I think Hewlett must have been a fool, I got a scholarship from him ;-) 1a) Did Bell Labs benefit by giving Sony transistor technology? 2) Can the decline of so called "rust belt" industries be tied to a lack of research? 3) What's the balance in time to do research versus the complete decline of the company for a lack of products? Peter Denning talks about "eating seed corn" - how do these time frames affect hiring new blood? I noticed something deficient in the way NASA hired people versus the way LLNL [Lawrence Livermore National Labs] hired people. Some of this is documented in Star Warriors. The people in NASA (and many other places) tend to say "Get back to me when you get your PhD." This is not how LLNL's physicists hire a talent. They identify bright students as Seniors, invite them for summer positions or nurture and classify their school work early, and groom them for positions at the Lab via the Hertz Foundation among others. GRANTS are another thing. If a company has specific needs, it deserves to call the shots on money for specific problems. Not everyone is interested in project XXX, but with a country as big as ours, there's bound to be someone interested. Have companies really done research in the past? Well yes and no. Some wise companies have endowed chairs and research fellows (sort of like charity again). How much is a Ken Thompson [Unix luminary at AT&T] worth if he does nothing more than develop one program? ;-) Compare that to Edwin Land ["Polaroid Land Cameras"] with over 500 patents (note: neither have a PhD, and Land didn't even graduate Harvard). We have some stunning examples of good research labs: IBM, Bell Labs, NIH [National Institute of Health], the National Labs and Research Centers, Xerox PARC [Palo Alto Research Center], DECWRL/SRC [DEC Western Research Lab], HP Labs, but look at the nature of these labs compared to certain other industries: metalurgy labs, chem labs, small, some private, etc. many centered aound specific expensive resources: computers, telescopes, accelerators, etc. But there's also other "research climate" issues. > "New Scientist" had a fascinating editorial a few months ago ... One of the Nobel Laurates at LBL [Lawrence Berkeley Labs] who worked on the Astroid extinction hypothesis also wrote about the nature of resaearch funding in "Science" several years ago. > As Universities have become more interested in expensive areas of > research (like particle physics... This is the big science problem. Alas what can you do? It's getting more complex. Every few years there's a shake out away from big science, but it does get bigger and more expensive to learn a fraction more than we knew before. I could say more (specific example), but I'll refrain. Eugene Miya
ps%cc8632@rochester.edu (Peggy Sullivan) (01/25/88)
I am working on my MBA at the University of Rochester and it isn't true that the U of R skews their classes to benefit Kodak and therefore, includes proprietary information in the courses. It is true that a large number of the MBA students come from Kodak, but as far as I can tell, the course material is straight-forward business school material. It is definitely NOT true that proprietary information is included in any discussions or assignments for the classes. Most examples are either of imaginary companies or from companies from the professor's past. None of the real world companies mentioned in any of the courses I've taken even had offices in Rochester. That was one of the things that people here, especially the faculty at the U of R, were most amazed about. There really was no cause for concern on Kodak's part. Unless the MBA students from Kodak were stupid enough to VOLUNTEER proprietary information during class or outside of class (something I've never heard in a class or outside), no competing company would get any such information just by attending class. For anyone who was familiar with the curriculum here, it just made Kodak look stupid and pushy. As far as my personal opinion, I don't think Kodak should have requested that the U of R reject the candidate from Fuji and I don't think the U of R should have agreed to it. The U of R did stand to lose a lot of students and tuition if Kodak made good on its threat but most people never believed that Kodak would really ever do it. In any case, the U of R should have had more respect for its own integrity. The U of R did change its mind, but of course, the damage was already done. However, I don't think you'll see this happen again here. Too many people at both Kodak and the U of R were embarrassed that it happened at all. Peggy
vned@engr.uky.edu (D. V. W. James) (01/25/88)
An interesting book that I would like to recommend to everyone is "The Media Lab" by Stuart Brand. It gives a relatively detailed, and certainly interesting, description of the origin, goals and work at this lab at MIT. One of the interesting things about the lab, and the part that makes it appropriate to this discussion, is that over 90% of the labs funds come from various corporations. These include Apple, IBM, NEC, Kodak, a couple of the braodcast networks and movie studios and others. For your donation you get unlimited visiting rights to the Lab, which means that you can see *all* the work going on, not just the stuff you are explicitely interested in. The process seems to work just fine; in essence the companies are all funding a think tank that shares the results. Read the book for a better explanation, but it seems to be a nearly ideal mix of corporate and academic strengths. Vnend
eugene@ames-pioneer.arpa (Eugene N. Miya) (01/29/88)
Sue Raul makes some interesting points about the nature of Universities and Industry. I would also suggest looking at the structure of European (old world) versus American (new world) Universities. Many people (us) grew up with parents who did not go to college. They believed they we would be sent to college to graduate and `instantly' get a job. They did not attend, so they didn't really know or understand. That is where some of this fallacy arises. Many older European universities are set up with single Professor (note cap P) departments with a bunch of Assoc. and Assistants, etc. This would be far from practical in some American schools with numerous full profs. We have taken a more democratic approach. One friend (a new PhD at the time) was really impressed the way he was treated while touring Europe, then he had the big let down coming back to the US. He was `Herr Doktor Professor Kerr' there and just plain Bob here. No, universities were not set up to feed industry in the past, the question is should we change this, and I think the answer is "we already are." P.S. Technology (engineering) is solving the problem, science is undertanding the question. Eugene