Page. Six.
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Thursday, September 9, 1971
Page Six THE MICHIGAN DAILY Thursday, September 9, 1971
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'"OG E30tG 00<=.()Onfo l t>GO YnE)G:!
AT THE LECTERN:
Viewing the life of
the faculty member
'U' research: Eyes of the army
(Continued from Page 4)
should be to serve students -
and this is best done through
teaching.
But faculty members point
out that in addition to the per-
sonal question of tenure, it is
necessary for them to do a
large amount of research just to
keep up with their field, parti-
cularly if they are in the ex-
perimental sciences.
Due to their extreme inter-
est in maintaining the academic
quality of the University's edu-
cation, most faculty members
tend to be wary of change and
advocate adherence to tradition-
al methods of education.
The classroom is the faculty
member's sanctuary.Since the
University maintains no writ-
ten policy on what a professor
is empowered to do in the class-
room, the assumption seems to
be that the teacher has an im-
plicit idea of what his task is,
and will structure his class to
best suit his student's educa-
tional needs.
Still, the faculty is by no
means in agreement over what
that structure should be.
Some faculty members ad-
vocate many restrictions on stu-
dents - such as mandatory at-
tendance, assigned seats, strict
deadlines for late papers and
regularly scheduled quizzes.
They believe that by doing
so, they are providing students
with the necessary impetus to
insure completion of the course
material, and hopefully benefit
their education.
There are other instructors,
however, who believe that t h e
more restrictions placed on stu-
dents, the greater their hostility
will 'be toward the c o u r s e
material and the less their mo-
tivation will be toward learn-
ing. These teachers tend to give
students as much freedom as
possible without the above
structuring.
The faculty member's tradi-
tional conception of himself as
a "font of knowledge f r o m
which the student drinks," is
being replaced in many cases
with the role of teacher as fa-
cilitator and advisor, a kind of
mediator who is available when
problems arise.
Most faculty members are
hesitant to give students a voice
in matters of curriculum, ten-
ure, and University governance,
because they believe students
are inexperienced in such mat-
ters, as well as being transient.
Nevertheless, with the mark-
ed increase in student input
over the past few years, facul-
ty members are finding them-
selves with less of a strong-
hold over matters, concerning
students and themselves, than
they have been accustomed to
in the past.
They still make up the most
powerful body by far on mat-
ters of an academic nature, and
their opinions are sought after
and respected.
But faculty members find
themselves in the same boat
with students as both groups
come up against the monolith
university.
Along with students, they
constantly clamor for more
voice in general University de-
cision making. And, in addition,
both groups find themselves ad-
versely affected by the Univ-
ersity's financial predicament-
students watch tuition and
dorm rates skyrocket while fa-
culty members wish their sal-
aries would follow suit.
By DAVE CHUDWIN
Managing Editor
"DOD must support first-class university research or risk com-
.promising our national security . . ." says a spokesman from the
Department of Defense.
And for a quarter of a century, the Defense Department has
turned to the vast resources of this University for the development
of modern military technology-much of which is now: being put to
use by U.S. forces in Indochina.
It is this complex research program, costing the DOD several
million dollars each year, whose fate awaits the resolution of the
dispute over on-campus classified and military research. (See story
on Page 1).
Centered in the University's Willow Run Laboratories and
Cooley Electronics and Radiation Laboratories, the research pro-
gram has played a key role in the development of the "electronic
battlefield"-a set of complex battle devices now being tested by
American forces in Indochina for use in. future conflicts.
In aiding the development of the electronic battlefield, research
in these laboratories has spawned new military devices that detect
enemy troops, lead soldiers and aircraft to hostile troops and pro-
tect friendly forces from counterattack.
University researchers received about $10.4 million from the
Pentagon last year, about half of which was for classified projects.
Current activity here in the military research field includes:
-The measurement of heat, radar, sound and vibration char-
acteristics of military targets such as rockets and tanks. These
measurements are used by electronic sensors to aid in identifying
targets for attack;
-The development of advanced radars to take surveillance
photographs and to track moving objects such as vehicles and
troops from the air;
-The testing of acoustic and seismic devices which provide
means of following the sounds and vibrations of troop movements;
-The refinement of military communications devices and an-
tennae; and ,
-The investigation of advanced countermeasures techniques
which allow offensive aircraft to carry out bombings without fear
of counterattack and which protect military vehicles on the ground
from attack.
One of the chief University contributions to military technology
has been in the area of infrared remote sensing, a technique for
measuring the heat of different objects.
Since objects are at different temperatures, they can be iden-
tified by the characteristic amount of heat they emit and their
shape. For example, a human being is much warmer than sur-
rounding jungle and would easily be visible in an infrared photo-
graph of the scene.
Infrared sensors are now used on many U.S. aircraft in South-
east Asia, including the B-57 bomber, RF-4C Phantom jet, EA-6B
Intruder and Cobra helicopter gunship.
Willow Run has also developed a synthetic aperture radar that
is capable of taking detailed photograph-like radar images 24-hours
a day in all weather.
Another type of radar under development is a moving target
indicator radar that pinpoints the position of moving objects such
as tanks and trucks from the air.
"Such detection is particularly useful in observing enemy
troop movements, concentrations and supply lines," according to
John Foster, director of defense research and engineering.
To ban or not to b Agonizing
over classified, military research
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(Continued from Page 1)
partment habitually "overclassifies" - in
other words, puts unnecessary secrecy on
its sponsored projects. This, they say, is no
reason to ban the research.
As far as the military sponsorship of the
research, researchers point out that the
defense department - to a lesser extent
than in the past, but still to a great de-
gree - is "where the money is", supply-
ing research funding which permits ad-
vances in basic and applied fields which
would otherwise not be made.
Discoveries made in this research, re-
searchers note, are put to important civil-
ian uses. To stop contracting with the mili-
tary, they claim, would slow scienti-
fic advances and isolate the University from
developments in many fields.
Many researchers actively defend the idea
of doing specifically military research, say-
ing that while one might disagree with
American policy in a' certain place at a
certain time, the nation needs a military to
defend it, and should be able to count on
the universities, where so many of the best
academic minds are, for aid in this regard.
A final argument is the question of aca-
demic freedom. It is claimed by some re-
,searchers that a general University ban on
classified research would interfere wit h
their right to decide what they wished to
research and thus would be an intrusion
into their traditional prerogatives as inde-
pendent academicians.
Since the Second World War, defense
research had been done at the University,
and had encountered little opposition. But
the volume of the research escalated mark-
edly in the '60s, and this, combined with
opposition to American involvement in Viet-
nam, aroused concern over the propriety of
military research on the campus.
In October 1967, a series of articles in
The Daily attempted to detail the type of
work being done here for the defense de-
partment. The most controversial of the
revelations was that the University was
directly aiding the Thai government in a
$1 million counter-insurgency project to
equip and train Thai officers to use com-
plex remote sensing equipment to d e t e c t
guerillas.
The resulting controversy culminated
in Senate Assembly's acceptance of a re-
era Shops
A 'U' research center
port from its Research Policies Committee,
setting guidelines for future classified pro-
jects. and establishing a committee to re-
view each project to assure conformity with
the guidelines.
The guidelines provided that no contract
be entered into the "specific purpose" of
which was to kill or incapacitate people,
and that no contract be entered into if its
existence, the name of its sponsor, or the
nature, scope and purpose of the research
could not be revealed.
Classified research opponents denounced
the report as doing little, but these critics
had the ground cut from under them when
a Student Government Council (SGC) ref-
erendum in March 1968 calling for an end
to all classified research was soundly re-
jected. The Classified Research Committee
(CRC), went into operation, the Thai con-
tract was not renewed, and the issue died
down.
Then in February of this year, Michael
Knox, one of CRC's graduate student mem-
bers, issued a public letter charging that the
committee was not enforcing the guidelines,
and that University researchers were in-
volved in "perfecting weapons systems . . .
developing devices to help protect bomb-
carrying aircraft . . . locating human tar-
gets for destruction."
The Knox letter pointed up the ambiguity
of the guidelines. The University doesn't
develop guns and napalm which directly
destroy human life. But, critics of the
guidelines argued, University researchers do
develop devices which locate individuals so
that they can subsequently be destroyed,
and they do develop devices which protect
bombers which do destroy.
Knox' letter came almost simultaneously
with the Laos invasion, which triggered a
protest march of some 4,000 people here. A
group of students organized after the march
around military research along with sev-
eral other issues, and held a series of gen-
erally low-keyed demonstrations, marches
and sit-ins over the next month.
Meanwhile, a group of faculty members
began pushing hard for a Senate Assembly
vote asking a ban on classified research. A
week-long fast was organized by a group
of faculty, and was joined in by many
students.
At meetings on the research issue during
March, Assembly voted by narrow margins
not to consider proposals to bar or severely
restrict classified research. Assembly de-
cided instead to ask for a report from CRC
on the effectiveness of its procedures in
enforcing the guidelines, and a report from
its Research Policies Committee evaluating
the guidelines, with a suggestion that they
be altered so that projects with "the clear-
ly forseeable purpose" (rather than "the
specific purpose") of killing or incapaci-
tating people be barred.
Meanwhile, at the end of March, an SGC
referendum indicated that student senti-
ment had changed substantially on the
question. In a near-reversal' of the 1968
vote, students voted 4,461-3,069 in favor
of barring all classified projects from the
from the University, and by an even great-
er margin in favor of refusing all con-
tracts whose "primary" or "initial" use
would be military.
In May, CRC reported to Senate Assembly
that its procedures were "adequate", and
suggested that in the future, the Research
Policies Committee conduct "post-award au-
dits" of classified projects to see if the na-
ture of the work was what CRC had original-
ly understood it to be.
The June faculty meeting was expected
to receive the report of the Research Poli-
cies Committee, and to take some action
concerning both reports.
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