FRIDAY, 8 JANUARY 1965
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
~. vv
RESEARCH CENTERS AND INSTITUTES:
ai~~zz~.
N
Their
Work Certainly
Involves
Undergraduate Interests
(Continued from Page 6) ments on General Funds where the
There are great opportunities of, duties performed by the individual
putting a lot of information - I are primarily research. So in this
don't necessarily mean all infor- sense there is substantial support
mation but a lot of information in for research from the state Gen-
particular fields-into computers eral Funds.
so that it can be recovered much Are you as an administrator
more easily. able to keep track of what is
As we look ahead it is quite going on as much as you would
clear that because computers are like or as much as you think
evolving we have got to have a your job requires?
series of solutions. We don't know It is quite impossible for me
what kinds of computers will be to be familiar with all the sub-
around 10 years from now, though ject-matter development on the
we do know what the next gen- campus. To a degree my efforts
eration is going to be. We also must be placed to relieve a
know that our present facilities, squeaking wheel somewhere or
which can't do many of the things other. Maybe it wants some oil,
I have talked about, are going or we need a bigger wheel, or it
to be overloaded with just nor- needs some snow tires instead of
real, anticipated usage within a
year or two. We thus have to
place an order very soon for
something else, and a tough de-
cision at the present time is what
we put on our order blank.
What we look toward, and I
think the committee envisages, is } .
as flexible a next generation com-
puter as we can see at this time.
What this really involves is a
larde central computer with high
capacity and high speed, and then
numerous satellites-consoles and
processing units of different kinds
-scattered around the campus.
The key to all this is that the -
computer be big enough to do ...
more than one thing at a time. .
The computer itself will largely
determine how it responds to its
many inputs.
As far as budget considerations
are concerned it is perfectly clear
that we can't provide these com-
puter facilities at the University THIS ANALOG COMPUTERe
Just by dipping into research con- Laboratories of the Institute of
tracts. This isn't the prime use used to eliminate the need for r
that we expect to make of the systems to mathematical formul
facilities. Because there will be to work with. Computers are p1
heavy involvement in the instruc- role in the University's $42 mi
tional process, I am sure that
sine of the support will have to
come from General Funds, and we ordinary tires or something like
so intend, that. There are often reasons why
What part does the state, for a time I become involved in
through its appropriations, play discussions with one group or an-
In research at the University? other.
Some people have the impres- To a degree I also have a cata-
sion that our research program lytic function here. I view it as an
is entirely a federal-supported important part of my assignment
program. The fact is that most to see that groups and individuals
faculty members receive an ap- that either have common interests
pointment that calls for their to- or interests where there is a com-
tal professional contribution to the munity of relationships of one
University. This contribution in- sort or another, are brought to-
volves teaching, research and gether. I think much of our ad-
many other involvements of one ditional growth will come in the
sort or another-professional so- interdisciplinary areas.
cieties,. advisory services to gov-
ernment agencies and the like. So Exactly where does the Uni-
the research which they carry on versity stand in the amount of
is supported as far as they are research it is doing compared
concerned by the General Funds with other institutions, and is
of the University, and this is the I there any way of possibly eval-
case with the majority of profes- uating how good this research
sots. Therefore, this fraction of is?
the General Funds-a consider- With respect to the amount of
able fraction, I think-does in fact research, I am always a little un-
pay the salaries of professors who easy about measuring research in!
are involved in part in research. dollar volume, but one can make
There are of course direct, full- listings, on that basis. Then we
time research appointments on stand very high. The thing one
General Funds in the museums, has to look at then in relation
the herbarium and the like. There to some of the others that may be
are also assistantships in depart- above us iswhether they are act-
ing as managers of what is essen-
tially a national laboratory. For
example, the University of Chi-
cago operates as manager of the
Argonne Laboratory. Usually, this
just gets added in to the research
volume of the university, but it
is a little bit misleading. The
Argonne budget is $60 million a
year. Our budgeted research last
year was $42 million, but we have
a much larger program, far and
away, than does the University of
Chicago itself. So I say that, de-
pending on how you look at this,
we rank very high.
You asked me whether there was
some evaluation of quality. I'm
sure I can give you an unhesitat-
ing answer to this. We would not
vard and to California-people ment at Willow Run comparable
we might not have lost if we had to the centers that have been
all the money in the world. established outside other uni-
But prestige is an immeasur- versities, such as Argonne, Law-
able thing. We may not be quite rence and Lincoln Labs.
at the top in this area, in popular No, not really, because these
prestige anyway. Nevertheless, in other laboratories are budgeted di-
many fields we have very little rectly by the supporting agen-
difficulty in recruiting-and from cy. The Atomic Energy Commis-j
good institutions. sion budgets the Argonne Labora-
The Senate Advisory Commit- tory fully, and it doesn't do it
tee on University Affairs sub- on any kind of project or pro-
committee on research has rec- posal basis, it dies it on the basis
ommended establishment of an- of a program, whereas Willow Run!
other subcommittee to oversee Laboratories are supported by
somehow the establishment of projects that frequently origin-
centers and institutes at the ate with the government agency.
University. What would be the The armed forces must have
functions of such a group? available all the latest potential
As I understand that recom- in our science, and Willow Run
mendation, it would not be any Labs is one of the places where
kind of standing committee but certain phases of science and tech-
rather an ad hoc group for each nology are present and cen be
particular proposal. I think that brought to bear on these ques-
what the group could do would tions.
be essentially to validate the plan- Willow Run is not really quite
ning that had gone on before its like the defense contractors,
being convened. either. These will, generally speak-
The subcommittee would ensure ing, take anything, then endeavor
a second look-that somebody had to pick up skills as they are need-
:tc~hr h nC thatniinn
not very happy about this, and
when they come here we gener-
ally don't encourage them.
Centers and institutes always
seem to be created to fulfill a
research function. How are they
related to undergraduates, or
how might they be?
I don't always think it is quite
true to say that centers and in- school involves computer training
stitutes always have an exclusive- quite early, in the sophomore year
ly research function. The Cen-+I believe, and includes at least
ter for Research on Learning and two computer courses, plus a num-
Teaching is concerned, probably ber of courses involving computer
primarily, with what goes on at usage.
computer program and the rest
of the time be spent with cours-
es that were interesting and
really did something?
I'm sure that this is the wave
of the future, but we're just not
there yet. In engineering educa-
tion this has gone a lot further.
The program in the engineering
the undergraduate levels.
.nBut they are doing research
on this.
They were created to do re-
search, but what they are doing
certainly involves the interests of
undergraduates and often in-
volves undergraduates themselves,
since they must get their data
from somewhere. Some of the oth-
er centers, on speech or human
adjustment for example, are also
involved with undergraduates,
In a University as diverse as
this not everything can be relat-
able to the undergraduate pro-
gram. It is an essential and im-
portant part, but everything else
doesn't have to be regarded as
subservient to it.
Introductory freshman cours-
es-and quite a few others -
often seem to be torn between
teaching facts and "ideas," and
end up teaching neither one.
Couldn't all the facts that are
supposed to be learned be put
into two weeks work with a
educational in that the individ-
uals concerned are participating in
the search. The importance of this
business that we call research
really is to make available new
information and to train people
who are capable of interweaving
existing information and new in-,
formation and setting it to work
in solving man's problems.
I don't really think we should
try to put this against the con-
text of the state particularly. Uni-
versities have no geographic
bounds. They happen to be fi-
nanced on a geographic basis
sometimes, but the people they
educate and the information they
generate doesn't stay within state
boundaries.
However, our Congress has never
been willing to consider a nation-
al education policy; education tra-
ditionally has been a locally-bas-
ed responsibility. Perhaps the days
when this was appropriate are
past. Perhaps we will move more
to a broader base in education;
apparently one is forming rather
steadily in this country.
I think this will broaden into
other fields. Maybe increasing en-
rollment pressures will advance
this more rapidly than we think.
Why is research important
at a state university?
In a university we're concerned
primarily with two things: in-
struction which is based on the
explanation and acquisition of un-
derstanding of our present knowl-
edge, and research, which simply
adds new knowledge to the pre-
vious store. The process of ac-
quiring new knowledge is itself
-University News Service
equipment at the Willow Run
Science and Technology can be
educing certain types of dynamic
as that a digital computer needs
laying an increasingly important
llion research effort.
be observing the growth year by
year that we have had here if we
were not doing a quality job.
Sometimes, looking through
textbooks in the bookstores, one
gets the subjective impression
that they are always written by
someone from Harvard, Yale
California or Princeton, rarely
by someone from the Univer-
sity.
I don't think this is really so.
There are certainly some widely
adopted texts written by members
of the University faculty. Of
course we have gone through
some lean years here in the last
decade as far as the state Gen-
eral Funds are concerned, and this
has resulted in loss of some peo-
ple to other institutions - to Har-
LAu~,1ucnea an ases, L1Tn ati iin on
the subject had been sounded, that
it appeared to be an educational-
ly desirable development. I would
not view it as an obstacle. I just
question whether as an adminis-
trative device it wouldn't be a bit
late to reconsider the questions
that such an ad hoc group might
want to raise. If the administra-
tor has done his Job well this
process willnhave been accom-
plished by the time someone comes
to SACUA and says "please set up
an ad hoc subcommittee to re-{
view this."
Do you expect that centers
and institutes are going to con-
tinue to proliferate at the pres-
ent rate?
That phraseology suggests some-
thing rather rapid. I don't think
the generation rate is all that rap-
id, but I do expect that there will
be other proposals for the crea-
tion of centers and institutes in
the years ahead, because I doI
see that we are more and more
m o v i n g into interdisciplinary
areas.
The old departmental and dis-
ciplinary lines were fine for the
professional development of the
subject matter of a field, but hu-
man endeavor isn't nicely pack-
aged in the way we arrange de-
partments. Bringing together peo-
ple with diverse skills, training
and interests to tackle particular-
ly problems relating to man seems
to me an inevitable and desirable
development, and one in which
this university has exhibited lead-
ership.
Is the_ laboratory establish-
ed. Frankly, I'm amazed at the
way some contracts are let. Bro-
churemanship is prevalent among
such industries whose livelihood
depends primarily on defense con-
tracts. They promise all sorts of
things they are not always in a
position to deliver, expecting to
be able to find the skill, some-
times through subcontracting. Oc-
casionally they turn to universi-
ties and persuade one to accept
one of these subcontracts. We're
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