In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Muriel Strand <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>i would like to bring to the attention of folks interested in the fate of
>american academia a timely article about the growing (and disturbing) influence
>of big business therein. please go to:
>http://www.theatlantic.com/cgi-bin/o/issues/2000/03/press.htm
>to read all about it.
This is a problem, but is far less serious than the present
situation in which most of the research budget of most
academic departments comes from the federal government.
There is nothing to prevent universities from having the
sources of research funding which they had before massive
federal support of research started after WWII, but when
this became available, endowment and other funds were
diverted to non-research purposes, and at that time, the
government was essentially putting more money in than
could be reasonably used. About 1970, the situation
changed, but the damage had already been done. At this
time, is there a major research university which would
not have to come close to closing down its research
activities without government funding?
There was an attempt not long ago to eliminate half the
funding for pure research in favor of technology transfer.
It was only the industrialists' strong lobbying against
this, arguing that they did not need people trained in
transfer, but educated to do original thinking, which
kept it from happening.
Statistical research is suffering from the monopoly in
government funding. There is little money available
for graduate research assistants, except for their
thesis research. Try getting a graduate student for
one month for a faculty research project. It will be
tied up in red tape, and become a $20,000 grant,
instead of less than 10% of that.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
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