a comment by Prof. Yechiam Yemini originally written to the Columbia faculty on the IP distributed n

[David Farber <>]

Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 18:27:18 +0500
From: yy () smarts com (Yechiam Yemini) [ YY is also a Columbia Professor for
those who have the misfortune of NOT knowing him .. djf]
To: farber () central cis upenn edu




Dave,


Below is an improved version of the message that is more suited for
distribution. The analogy of a car driving towards a cliff is an
excellent one. It is not just "maybe if I dont look all will be well"
attitude it is actual defiance of all warning signals that is so amazing.


Tnx YY


*******************************






Folks,


It is all too easy and certainly convenient to dismiss the message of
the senator,  or express concerns about one or another point that she
raises. This message, in contrast, seeks to defend and elaborate the main
message of her speech.


It is best to view the senator's main theme as a friendly advise:
......
> Unless we develop a new strategy
> that fits the realities of the new world order, science and science
> funding run the risk of being left out and left behind.
......
The academic science and technology research community confronts a most
serious challenge:


Why should tax payers invest their money to support our activities?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


No longer can such investment be justified, as it was for the past 40
years since WW-II, by the need to develop ever improved A/H/* bombs or
automated pilot assistants, or battlefield management systems.


Nor can academia use the traditional answer that tax payers should
invest resources to support generation of knowledge for the sake of it.
Surely the Eulers and Haydens among us should be supported merely to
advance human knowledge; just as Euler and Hayden were supported by the
governments of their time. But, the Senator's message is certainly not
challenging this type of funding. Certainly, if this is the answer to her
challenge then you should
draw the conclusions and support reduction of the NSF to the
size of the NEH. For why is it more important to fund work to advance
human scientific understanding  than it is to advance the state of
poetry or painting? So let us simply understand the challenge as
directed to most of us who are neither Euler nor Hayden. What is it
that taxpayers investment in our research should buy?


Perhaps we should see the senator's message as a useful advise to
reconsider our current paradigms and develop new answers to the
question. Instead of dismissing the challenge, it is useful to consider
it seriously. Below I list some of the implications why this may be
useful and important.


1. We owe it morally to ourselves and to our funding sources to justify
the investment.


Academia has been increasingly involved in practices of applying tax
payers money that are often fundamentally wrong. We should be morally
concerned not only with such practices as the use of ICR to fund the
yacht of Stanford's president, or the destruction of the financial
records at Columbia following an ICR audit request. We should be
concerned with the mundane and daily norms. For example, it is a common
practice to take funds from the taxpayers to pay Phd fellowships and
assign Phds to teach courses. Surely having teaching experience is
important. But is this the goal, or is it the reduction of teaching
loads? Could you honestly explain to a congressional committee why
taxpayers should pay to support Phd teaching of their kids who pay some
$25-30k a year to be educated?  Or, could you justify the layers of
unaccountable administrative fats that we have built that consume all
these tuition and ICR dollars, leaving departments with insufficient
budgets that force these practices?  Or, could you suggest that tax
payers continue to invest in our summer salaries, as contrasted with
investment in, say, retraining teachers for urban schools during the
summer?


Establishing strict accountability in using tax payers funds to deliver
on their investment is our moral responsibility.


2. We have championed for years (at least in words) the concept that
academic scientific and teachnology research should be funded because
of its economic significance. Why should we object to deliver
measureable results on this promise?


Again we have a problem of increasing gap between what we promise and
what we practice. For example, how many of you could defend the
enormous investment of tax payers funds in our new engineering
building? The entire reason why NY State invested in the building has
been the promise of economic impact. Our outrageous 70% ICR collected
on federal grants will continue to pay for the building for the next 40
years. Why is it outrageous to expect us to deliver economic impact
returns, as we promised? Is it unreasonable to expect us to develop
concrete measures of our success in delivering? Can we,  in good faith,
point any substantive measures that we pursued to stimulate and
encourage the economic development impact that we promised? Do you feel
this was a good-faith promise? Do you feel that taxpayers are better
off paying for this building, rather than investing in incubation of NY
high tech startups or, in improving the facilities of schools at
Harlem?


Can we afford not to build new paradigms that permit us to make
commitments and deliver on our promises? Can any of us afford the
alterantive of bad faith promises?




3. Perhaps too, the senator's call for arms should be viewed as a
simple reminder to all of us that the success of academic research in
the future will depend primarily on its relevance and value. That we
ought to create new paradigms for this value and relevance the fit the
new world.


We do not need the senator to point out these realities. You may wish
to contrast the evolution and role of scientific research at Columbia
over the past 40 years with Stanford and MIT. Some of our  trustees
have been pointing this for a number of years. Perhaps it is time to
begin to listen.


So developing and articulating a new paradigm for the VALUE of our
research is of the essence. It is really this VALUE which is at stake
and not federal funding. If we can articulate and deliver value the
funding will likely be there to pay for it. If we cannot, can we expect
anyone to seriously consider investment in us?




In the new world of information society, the role of academia in the
advance of knowledge has to be reconsidered. Scientific and technical
innovation and leadership are no longer restricted to academia. In many
technical fields it is increasingly often the case that academia is
lagging industry and the gap is growing.  Nor is it clear that the
traditional means used by academia to generate and disseminate
knowledge can adequately survive the transition to a world of
information super highways. Those of you who subscribe to
technical/scientific bboards over the internet and ftp postscript
documents from repositories, may recognize the emergence of new and
powerful paradigms for "publishing" knowledge and accomplishing
impact.  This open world of generation and dissemination of
scientific/technical knowledge  is no longer restricted to
academicians. Anonymous reviews over 2 years and publications with no
readers are replaced by an involved community which publishes fast,
ignores irrelevancies and reads with great care valuable work which
often accomplishes immediate and significant impact.




Can you ignore these new paradigms of generation, publication and value
of scientific/technical knowledge defined by the Internet and its
successors? Could we present the case to invest tax dollars in our
research of area X, in the year 2000, if we elect not to deliver impact
on the industrial/research community of X, who may use NREN as its main
means of publications?  Can we afford the risk of becoming irrelevant
as the enterprise of scientific and technical knowledge is transformed
to these new paradigms?


In summary, perhaps the senator is not as articulate in the
idiosyncratic details of academic thinking. But she could certainly
help us contemplate the role of the university and of
scientific/technical research in the new world order.




Tnx YY