September 8, 1994: Vol26n2: Word on the Street: Recent Comments on Research Universities

[Universities]...[change] as the public's expectations change, as new
students enter, and as knowledge alters and expands... And because of
its increasingly central role in analyzing and fostering change, the
university has a more important role than ever as a recorder,
observer, and critic of society and of its directions.
-former SUNY Chancellor D. Bruce Johnstone
SUNY 2000: A Vision for the New Century (1991)


[Universities] have ballooned into sophisticated megabusiness
machines, staffed by hundreds of thousands of men and women who call
themselves professors and [pay] themselves very well for what they do.
From _Impostors in the Temple_, Martin Anderson (Simon & Schuster,
1992)


[American] higher education [can] continue down the research path to
the detriment of [undergraduates,] who most support the entire system,
or face the reality that the system can no longer afford torelegate
teaching to the status of an unwanted orphan.
From _College Education: Paying More and Getting Less_
Report by the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on
Children, Youth, and Families
Chair: Representative Patricia Schroeder (D.Colorado), 102nd Congress,
September 1992


Although the perception of an academic welfare state [that supports
esoteric research at taxpayers' expense] is unfortunate and
[historically] insensitive, universities now have to make changes in
response to this turn in public thinking.
From _Perception of an Academic Welfare State_, Paul Schimmel, Dept.
of Biology, M.I.T., Protein Science (1993) #2


Only universities that can prove they are grappling with [social and
urban problems], with scholarship and community outreach that get
demonstrable results, will have a credible case for a large share of
taxpayer resources.
From _The Triangle:  A Future in Question_, Neil Peirce and Curtis
Johnson
(The [Raleigh, NC] News & Observer, September 1993)


. . . [T]he message [universities] are being given from the world
outside. . .emphasizes our obligations to care well for our students,
to provide the kind of education that will produce leaders and not
followers, and to be a shelter for new ideas and a force for social
improvement.
"Making Choices in the Research University," Donald Kennedy
Daedalus, Fall 1993


American colleges and research universities are unmatched in their
ability to provide advanced education and to enrich it through
forefront research. . .Our goal is to maintain this excellence and to
encourage the ongoing reexamination of advanced education in our
colleges and universities.
Science in the National Interest
U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the
President, August 1994


By [proposing to cut 1995 DoD university research appropriations in
half], [Representative John P.] Murtha wanted to say, "There's not
enough money in the budget, so I'll hit at a group that will scream
loudly and get the attention of Congress, the Defense Department and
the White House."
a senior Pentagon official
as quoted in Eric Schmitt, House Battle Threatens Big Research
Universities With Loss of Millions," The New York Times (August 17,
1994)


[The proposed House cut] was a shot across the bowI.  Congress has put
us on notice that [DoD research funding] is not something that will
continue in perpetuity unless there is value.
Provost Mark S. Wrightman, M.I.T.
The New York Times, August 17, 1994