0 OPINION Friday, October 1, 1982 The Michigan Daily ate of 'U': G aining profit, losing purpose lish Prof Bert Hornback has often utspoken in his criticism., of the ad- ration's plans for the University's ction. The University, Hornback s, is losing sight of its goals as an tional institution. nback spoke to Daily editor Julie last week about the college's future, bout his fear that profits, not people, w the University's top priority. Hornback: I don't have any objection to a robotics institute, but when that means we'll have to steal money from other units for it, that I'm a little bit more worried about. The Michigan Research Corporation seems not so necessary to a university as, say, an arts school or a natural resources school. Vice President Frye told the LSA faculty last month that he hoped we wouldn't lose track of the really important things-which are the educational institution and our" working together in a community of intellectual life- because we were worried about financial mat- ters. I'm afraid that's just what we're doing. Daily: Do you think in the future it's going to be necessary to trade off the intellectual life in order to turn a profit? Hornback: It may be necessary for the University to learn better how to fund itself, but if we say that anything that makes money is appropriate for us to do-because it enables us to keep the University-well, maybe there comes a time when we say if we don't have money, we have to not do it. Daily: Is the University administration becoming more managerial, more business- minded? Hornback: Within the administration, the language is the language of business. President Shapiro and Vice President Frye are called the Shapiro-Frye management team. The senior administrators are called the managers. That says something about our idea of a university. But what we contribute to society is different from what society expects from a business. That doesn't mean that one is more valuable, they're both necessary; but you don't want the University simply to become another business. Daily: What is the faculty's role in the future? Are they going to help keep the Univer- sity to its goals? Hornback: It has to come from the faculty, but the administration are faculty also. I'd like to -see the Regents take a more active role in the direction of the University. ily: What is the University ignoring these rnback: Frye and Shapiro keep telling us ave to think in terms of the long-range, but most important thing we have to think it is the meaning of the term "university." i't think we have any idea collectively what term means. I suspect that the going iition of a university is anything that es money. e going idea is that we need more money to the faculty and the way we'll get it is to en- age the faculty to become entrepreneurs, iresearch that will result in ideas that can ommercialized. The thinking is that this- cost money at first, but that it will even- .y pay off. The unsaid thing is that this sort search will take us away from the kind of king that makes a university and will take way from spending time teaching. ily: Do you think profitable research is ng? I Daily: How? Can they provide leadership? Hornback: On the one hand, as a faculty member I want to see the faculty govern the University. On the other hand, if I can't per- suade Mr. Shapiro and Mr. Frye that the University is becoming something I don't want, I want to be a citizen instead of a faculty mem- ber and go tell the Regents about it. Daily: The Regents have been coming under a lot/'of criticism for not knowing the im- plications of University investments that sup- port nuclear weapons production and South Africa. If those investments don't line up with your vision of a university, who will you turn to? Hornback: I guess maybe you just have to argue for the things you believe in to everybody. I guess that's what a university should be. Daily: Is that one of the things that most irks you about the priorities of the five-year plan, that the goals are too pragmatic? Hornback: I don't think they're pragmatic at all. The most pragmatic thing around is keeping the University. Daily: Can we afford to keep the old idea of a university? Hornback: If we say we're a university, we assume that the University is all in this together. As soon as you say that, Mr. Frye says you're talking shared poverty. Well, dammit, there's nothing in the University that's starving. We didn't even starve the geography department; we just put a different label on it.-# If we're all in this together as a university, it seems to me, for example, that the athletic department makes a ton of money. We should use that. Frye says we need money to keep the buildings from falling apart. We've been DOily Photo by DOUG McMAHON Hornback: "The most important thing we have to think about is the meaning of the term' 'university' . . . I suspect that the going definition of a university is anything that makes money." deferring refurbishing the buildings. That surely is more important than new tartan turf in the stadium-if we're in this together. Daily: So you think the athletic department shouldn't be splintered off from the Univer- sity? Hornback: One of the arguments is that if you don't let Canham have his empire, all that money to throw-around, then the empire will dwindle and the general fund of the University will have to start putting out money to support the football team. Well, the answer's very sim- ple. If it ever gets to that state and you have to decide whether you want Romance languages or a football team, you make that choice. Daily: Isn't the football team a prime exam- ple of something being valued because it makes money? Hornback: Yes; and although there are all sorts of people at the University who admit they find Canham's business practices disgusting, still "he makes money." It all has to do with what we think is the most important thing at the University. I bet if you asked around in the Fleming Administration Building what we want, the answer's going to* be money. Dialogue is a weekly feature of the Opinion Page. Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Wasserman WE(JECT Iw 'LtxYRS' WAANP Vol. XCIII, No. 20 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent amajority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Vacation fr HOSE presidential news confer- ences just keep getting more and rmore interesting. : Tuesday night, under, the less-than- intense questioning of the Washington press corps, the president again doclared that he had saved the nation's economy from the "brink of disaster," acid that he had finally set the nation on tie road to prosperity. i$ome prosperity. With unem- pl>yment creeping up (there's a very good chance it will be above 10 percent in the figures tobe released next week) atd business expansion nil, applying th e word "prosperity" to the economy seems like a sort of cruel joke. Even sdme of the cheerier economic models sh ow the country at the bottom of the recession, with recovery still some time off. The president points to lower in- terest rates and inflation rates as proof that his economic program is working, but his "proof" is very misleading. Yes, interest rates are declining, but the decline seems .due more to the lethargy in business expansion than to an~y brilliance on the part of the president. As Wall St. economist Henry Kaufmann pointed out, the reason the rajtes are falling and can be expected to continue to fall is that businesses just om reality don't want to borrow money; they don't want to risk expansion during the depths of a recession. Further, the prospects for lower in- terest rates in the long-term is not as good as the president would have his listeners believe. The president's enormous arms buildup is costing an enormous amount of government borrowing, which will serve to keep in- terest rates high for some time to come. The president's statements on in- flation are also deceptive. Inflation is indeed lower, but that decrease is due in part to the president's recession, large harvests, and cost decreases in petroleum which were quite beyond the president's control. Rather than rescuing the nation from the "brink of disaster," the president has brought it closer. He has exacerbated basic economic inequalities in the nation and frustrated what little progress was being made before his election. Instead of moderating his policies to spur recovery, the president persists with his economic program and his vacation from reality. One can only hope that November will help wake him up. FOkA WAE IT UNERINES 1NC..NTIV .. you OWNERs SPLIT VGNUE1 EVENT-y. ISN'T THAT THE C.-- TRA~os O TO SoCaPLISNM (o w T a' _. V1T OLtD-VAONr:P *) ~CATL "N 0 LETTERS TO THE DAILY: Daily guilty of 'childish mud-slinging' ,A { Ily e o r Y t V i<2 To the Daily: ' This letter is in response to the Week in Review segment entitled "Engineering a move" (Daily, Sept. 26). I am an electrical engineer. I 'am not "skinny." I do not have a calculator hanging on my belt or a slide rule in my pocket. I never bump into walls or people due to "my glasses falling off the bridge of my nose." I don't even wear glasses. Am I taking these gross generalizations by the staff of the Daily too seriously? I suspect that it's difficult to know when George Wallace has made a racial slur or is just "joking around" with his black friends. The Daily's past record on engineers - especially when it came to the editorial staff-has been questionable. From reading the Daily one would assume that engineers are spoiled by the University and state, well-paid, war mongers, and, of course, social outcasts (nerds, losers.. . ). Maybe your readers would be interested in a few fun facts about us engineers. " We receive less money per student than any other college at the University. "'We contribute the most to the general fund because of our research, and don't receive much of this money back. * The move out to North Cam- pus has been held up for 20 years now by the state of Michigan because they never gave us the appropriated money. I've read your one-sided ar- ticles and opinions that play on people's emotions, rather than their intellect, long enough. It's time that The Michigan Daily started responsible journalism instead of childish mud-slinging. If somebody has an opinion con- cerning anything, I want to see his or her name underneath and I expect to see the other side as well. -Kevin O'Connor Sept. 28 Letter offensive Another important error... To the Daily: I am deeply distressed by J. Kruse's letter (Daily, Sept. 25) criticing the scholarship fund of him as a teacher and scholar, of his attempts to build com- munity, and his concern for social justice. They are not diminished by the tragedy of his To the Daily: did not say, as your reporter: quoted: "Grammar ands