The Michigan Daily- Friday, September 7, 1984-- Page 13
Controversy builds over
proposed software center
By PETE WILLIAMS
To many in Ann Arbor, the Software
Engineering Institute could be the most
exciting thing to happen to the city in
years. University administrators, city
officials, and private businessmen are
falling over one another to get the com-
puter center to locate in the Ann Arbor
area. But it seems that for all the
positive reaction here to SEI, there is as
much strong opposition.
SEI IS A proposed computer research
center funded by the Department of
Defense. The defense department con-
ceived the center as the place to
renovate the computer programming
industry. The researchers at SEI will
also work on the development of a new
universal higher-order computer
language. The institute .is expected to
have a $33 million budget and employ
250 technicians and scientists by its fif-
th year of operation. With those goals,
SEI has the potential to make the area
where it locates the leader in software
technology.
Ann Arbor and the University are
competing against Carnegie-Mellon in
Pittsburgh, UCLA, and others for the in-
stitute. If Ann Arbor wins, it "will have
attracted some of the best software and
engineering minds in the country and
located them in one place," said
Michigan High Technology Task Force
Director Bill Lukens. "Give these
people five or 10 years and Ann Arbor
will be the software capital of the
nation."
Gov. William Milliken designed the
task force Lukens heads to bring such
projects as SEI to the state. When
Milliken left office, the task force
became a non-profit organization
dependent upon the generosity of
Michigan corporations.
Lukens said the Ann Arbor-based
task force soon would be devoting a
considerable amount of time to luring
SEI to the city.
LUKENS ALSO said the institute
would have a tremendous impact on the
amount of money the state receives
from the federal government - an
amount many consider far too small.
"It will be a major contracting center
which will give Michigan firms greater
accessibility to federal money." That
accessibility likely would include
millions of dollars not going directly to
SEI.
The University also is fighting hard to
get SEI, With fellow Big Ten Conferen-
ce schools Ohio State University, Pur-
due University, and the University of
Illinois, it has formed a consortium
designed to recruit the institute to Ann
Arbor. College of Engineering Dean
James Duderstadt said he would relish
the idea of having SEI near campus.
"Certainly a major fundamental
research laboratory, which that will be
in software engineering, will have an
important impact on us because it will
establish Ann Arbor as a center of ex-
cellence," Duderstadt said. "It will at-
tract a lot of very, very high quality
scientists and engineers and will allow
us to attract some high-level people."
DUDERSTADT said the proposed
center plans to carry out "fundamental
and unclassified research," as opposed
to applied weapons research. He said it
is an appropriate project for the
University to be involved in.
Yet there are those who are not con-
vinced .SEI should be located here.
Among them is the Progressive Stud-
ent Network. PSN, an activist anti-
military group on campus, argues that
both SEI and its research are inap-
propriate for the University com-
munity.
Lee Winkleman, who is leading
PSN's opposition to the institute, said
the center should not be considered a
healthy addition to the community. He
also argues that SEI does not offer such
great economic potential. "There is a
real trend to try and link the solution to
economic problems to military
development," he said. "It is insane to
think that in order to help ourselves
economically we have to lead toward
the destruction of the world."
WINKELMAN said PSN's efforts to-
dissuade the recruitment of SEI will in-
clude investigating the exact nature of
its proposed research and educating the
community of the institute's evils. It
also is organizing with anti-military
groups at Ohio State, Purdue, and
Illinois to form what he calls the "con-
sortium against the consortium," ad-
ding strength to the opposition efforts.
PSN isn't alone in its fight. The
Michigan Alliance for Disarmament
also opposes SEI. MAD spokesman
Justin Schwartz said the group is not
opposed to all high technology
development, only to that which is fun-
ded specifically by the Department of
Defense. "Dependence on military
development is very unsound
economically as for what it can do for
our community," Schwartz said. "I am
opposed to wasting, our technical
resources on finding clever ways to kill
people."
He said that if what the country needs
is automation of the computer industry
with civilian application, it should hire
civilian agencies to do so. "Why should
we have to work through the defense
department? Schwartz asked.
BUT PSN'S and MAD's efforts may
not have an impact on the eventual
decision, according to Lukens. "One of
the things the defense department
requires for SEI is a close affiliation
with a university," he said. "They
probably understood what they would
encounter when they made that
decision."
Ann Arbor Mayor Louis Belcher also
questioned the chances of anti-military
groups preventing the Pentagon from
choosing the city. "With a protesting
group you have to watch and make sure
that you don't get the wrong idea that
they support the majority of the people
that live in Ann Arbor, because that is
not the case," Belcher said.
This story originally appeared in
the Daily's summer edition.
Daily Photo by DOUG McMAHON
A. Alfred Taubman, a University graduate and benefactor, delivers the commencement address at the medical school's
.dune graduation in Hill Auditorium.
Taubamun tells new dtors to hep'U'
By PETE WILLIAMS
"Make no mistake about it. This
school and the community have sub-
staiftial investments in each one of you.
And now as you graduate I think it only
fitting to consider how each of you will
return that investment," A. Alfred
Taubman told 210 Medical School
graduates at Hill Auditorium.
Taubman, a local businessman and
philanthropist spoke of a "shared
commitment of mutual reinvestment"
tween the University and the com-
unity. He cited financial support for
the University's $285 million Replacem-
ent Hospital Project as "a tangible
commitment by the larger community
to support the continued excellence of
the school."
"BY ITSELF, this building is only a
mesure of quality," he said. "But even
mod iiportantly, this kind of rein-
vesment represents a clear signal to
the entire country that Michigan inten-
Sto-be the best."
Taubman, who was originally op-
posed to the idea of a new hospital for
the Ufniversity, was recruited by for-
mer University President Robben
Fleming in 1977 to serve on the planning
confmittee for the hospital.
'Tligured that if we couldn't convin-
ce him that it was a good project, then
we weren't going to convince anybody
else' Fleming said at the time.
TAUBMAN ALSO spoke of an in-
vestment relationship between the
school and this year's graduates. He
suggested returning the investment the*
school made in its graduates through
individual excellence in the field of
medicine, community leadership, and
financial support.
"There is one very direct way for you
to reinvest in this community and this
school and that is by your contributing
financially to the school in years to
come as an expression of your
dedication," he said. "Very simply, your
involvement with this school should not
end today."
As founder, chairman, and chief
financial officer of the Taubman com-
pany, Taubman has been the developer
of several shopping centers nationwide
including the Briarwood mall in Ann
Arbor. He is the owner and chairman of
the Michigan Panthers football tear in
the United States Football League and
is involved as a booster of several civic
and cultural activities including
Metropolitan Detroit Magazine, The
Detroit Symphony, and the Detroit In-
stitute of Art.
The University's A. Alfred Taubman
Medical Library was named after the
Detroit-born businessman because of
his involvement in the medical
school-both financially and per-
sonally-since 1977. The Ambulatory
Care Facility, a four-story emergency
treatment building which will be con-
nected to the north side of the new
hospital, will be named the Taubman
Health Care Center.
At the ceremony, Taubman spoke
of the quality of education the Univer-
sity Medical School provides. "It is a
tradition of quality-practicing quality
and producing quality," he said.
"Ladies and gentlemen, you are the
cream of the crop."
This story originally appeared in
the Daily 's summer edition.
Women face tough
climb through
engineering ranks
By THOMAS HRACH
Although the job market looks
roniising, a recently released article
ay de bad news for aspiring female
engm.eers.
From the results of a study perfor-
med several years ago, Naomi McAfee,
a design manager with Westinghouse
Electric, concluded that women
engiieers with bachelor's degrees
receive slightly higher starting salaries
than their male counterparts.
YET AFTER three years on the job,
women end up earning less than men in
the same positions. McAfee blames
is on the typical "masculine mystique
ich has developed from the time of
Adam and Eve."
MeAfee is one of many contributors
to Women in Scientific and Engineering
ProfEssions, a book recently published
by the University Press. According to
Carolyn Perrucci, an editor of the book,
the collection of articles attempts to
show "the continuing difficulties
women face in the technical
professions."
An-example is the fact that female
engineers constitute about 4 percent of
all professional women in the country,
yet women hold only one half of one
percent of the engineering
management position.
"IT'S A SIMPLE case of supply
and demand," said McAfee. "about ten
years ago there were more engineering
jobs to fill, but very few women to fill
them."
"Today the current backlash on af-
firmative action programs has brought
us back to the old ways. Now I see
women still lacking in management
positions but losing ground in their star-
ting salaries," said McAfee.
Despite having no recent statistical
evidence, McAfee sees the oppor-
tunities for women engineers on the
decline. Engineering has long been
considered one of the best fields for
women to enter, but McAfee suc-
cessfully points out the blatant
inequalities in the field.
McAfee is critical of engineering
colleges around the country that ac-
tively recruit female students because
she says there are few good oppor-
tunities for women who graduate from
those programs.
"Women should persist in their
education perhaps even to the Ph.D.
level," Perrucci said, advising women
not to jump at the first job offer that
comes along after undergraduate work.
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This story originally appeared in
the Daily's summer edition.
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