The vulnerable American University

The Great American University, Jonathan R. Cole, 2009

This important work is a plea for the preservation of the unique American Research Universities that are currently the best in the world but that are unstable and vulnerable institutions. Cole, a lifelong Columbia University product, is uniquely qualified for this work because of his specialized training in the sociology of science and his career which culminated as provost (in charge of curriculum) at Columbia. He begins with a brief history of the American University, starting with the first, Harvard, and including a small number of private colleges, two of which, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Virginia were founded by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson respectively. He focuses on the period from 1870 to 1930. During the Civil War, the prescient Abraham Lincoln oversaw the creation of the land grant colleges where Federal land was made available to the states to establishes new colleges, and the establishment of the Federally funded agricultural extension services whereby advanced agricultural research and technical assistance to farmers could be conducted at the newly established land grant institutions. These acts led to the dramatic increase in the number of institutions of higher learning throughout the United States. An unanticipated result was the key role these new public “agricultural” colleges were to play in the increasingly urban and industrialized country that grew rapidly after the civil war. Cole also notes the critical influence of the “Robber Baron” class of monopolists whose extreme wealth led to several individuals endowing entire colleges (Stanford, Carnegie, Rockefeller) and establishing large foundations and grant organizations funding college research. But the rise in power of the monopolists also led to a backlash in the form of the Teddy Roosevelt led progressive movement which aimed to reign in the power and corruption of these wealthy monopolists. The impact on the colleges was a revolution in governance as a new level of professionalism, professional journals, and peer review came to replace the college presidents and board of governors or trustees as the focus of power and decision making in the schools.

vannever bush Vannever Bush

By 1930, the American universities were in the ascendancy but not yet recognized as the best in the world. Then came the great depression and the inauguration of two leaders in January 1933, FDR in the US and Hitler in Germany. By October 1933, Hitler had fired all Jewish public servants including University professors and started the greatest brain drain in educational and scientific research history. Some non Jews such as the theologian Paul Tillich, who openly opposed the Nazi regime were also fired and many other non Jews left German universities of their own accord. The exodus was not limited to Germany and many Austrian, Hungarian (Leo Szilard), and even Scandinavian (Danish Niels Bohr) professors who went on to make key contributions to the Manhattan project. By the end of WWII half of all German theoretical physicists had migrated to the US. The German Universities fell in stature from the best in the world in 1930 to mediocre and to this day have not recovered their former eminence. It is this sudden precipitate and seemingly permanent fall from dominance that leads Cole to fear for the fragility of the American research university system. By the end of WWII the American research university with its rich infusion of foreign talent was poised to become the best in the world. Enter Vannevar Bush, a key administrator for the Manhattan project and science visionary with the ear of FDR who wrote a treatise “Science-The Endless Frontier” outlining his vision of a unified federal grant agency with huge funds to support scientific research at American universities. The actual implementation was not a single agency (with Bush as its head as he envisioned) but a number of separate agencies, the NSF for general science, the NIH for biological and medical research, the DOD and its unique ARPA agency that supported social and scientific research without immediate military application and others. This set of agencies led to the huge infusion of grants and research monies that allowed the American Research Universities to enter their golden age of worldwide dominance and leadership in research.

clark kerr Clark Kerr

What was this uniquely American research university like? Clark Kerr, the man most responsible for the development of the national trend setting University of California system wrote in 1963 about the uniquely American universities:

A university anywhere can aim no higher than to be as British as possible for the sake of the undergraduates, as German as possible for the sake of the graduates and the research personnel, as American as possible for the sake of the public at large — and as confused as possible for the sake of the preservation of the whole uneasy balance.

Cole calls the period from 1963-1968 (LBJ) the golden age of the American research university. It was in this golden age that the social sciences received large grants for research and even the arts and humanities found large and sustained support. Vietnam was to put an end this golden age as campus protests and unrest led to the dismissal of at least two University leaders, the president at Columbia was fired for overreacting to student protests, and Clark Kerr at Berkeley, was removed by newly elected governor Ronald Regan for under reacting to protests at Berkeley. Cole asserts the it took two decades for Columbia to recover from this period and incident.

terman Frederick Terman

Cole spends some time looking at Stanford’s meteoric rise to become one of the leading research universities in the nation under Frederick Terman. Two of Terman’s students, Hewitt and Packard, were pioneers in establishing HP in the first industrial park wholly owned by Stanford, creating the legendary Silicon Valley with start ups like Fairchild, Intel, Sun, Apple, Google and hundreds of others. even Boston with Harvard, MIT and six other universities pales in comparison with the impact of Stanford (Berkeley and Cal tech deserve some credit) on the creation of Silicon valley.

Starting in the 1970s research grants moved almost completely away from the humanities and and social sciences and even to some extent away from pure science into computers and technology and most heavily into biological and medical science. Today about half of all Federal support for university research is spent on biomedical research. Until 1980 any patents resulting from Federally funded research belonged to the government. Then the Bayh – Dole act of 1980 assigned these patents to the universities where the research took place. This led to a profound change as the Universities were suddenly pushed into the role of technology licensers with huge potential payoffs. Stanford made $380 million from licensing the Google search patents to Google and similar windfalls have come from licensing drug and medical device patents.
Cole identifies three distinct types of research, pure science such as particle physics and space exploration where immediate application and benefits are unknown. Pure science is curiosity driven and it may be no accident that the world’s largest particle accelerator CERN was built in Europe. The second type of research is in areas that are likely to result in immediate application such as computer and nano-technology as well as solar and wind technologies. These areas of research are increasingly attractive to American universities because they can lead to immediate patents and revenue for the university. The third area is pure research that may lead to applications if breakthroughs are made in the research. This is typical of the biological, genetic, and medical areas where progress is uncertain. Much has been learned about cancer but cures are still rare and disorders like autism, Parkison’s disease, and Alzheimer are still beyond any possible cure. But these area remain hopeful that scientific breakthroughs will occur.

Cole spends the middle section of his book reminding us all of the contributions our Universities have made to improving our lives. This section is a useful reminder of the importance these institutions have had in our lives.

He ends with a history of three threats that severely endangered our universities, the red scares of 1917-1924 and 1949-1954 where faculty members were fired or at least silenced, and the post 9/11 Bush terror scare from 2001-2009, which Cole argues is the most serious of the three in its implications for the survival of the preeminent research University. First, the Patriot Act gives the FBI unprecedented and secret powers to gain access to university records on individual professors and students including library records. Cole argues that this leads to unnecessary self censorship and fear among members of the university community far beyond any actual prosecution. Second, the anthrax scare actually ruined several careers and new catch 22 rules about the handling of pathogens has led to a mass exodus of researchers from the study of infectious diseases. Third, the imposition of arbitrary religious convictions regarding embryonic stem cells has virtually stopped research progress in promising areas which delay had undoubtedly caused unnecessary death and suffering. When Nancy Reagan questions the ban you know something has done badly wrong. Finally the overt and successful censorship of professional journal articles and government research efforts, particularly in regard to global warming and sex education by the Bush administration bodes very ill for the continuing freedom and integrity of the peer reviewed scientific communication system. The Bush administration also attempted to completely suppress publications that they arbitrarily believed would be be useful and exploitable by potential terrorists.

The other big impact of the Bush terror war is on the admission of foreign students and hiring of foreign professors. There has been a huge drop in intellectual capital that cannot be met by American high schools. Increasing percentages of enrollment in the University of California system come from Asia but this rise has leveled under restrictive immigration policies. Even active professors working at American universities have lost their ability to return to their positions at great cost to the research they were conducting.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book deal with trying to preserve a structure that is inherently a meritocracy (elitist), where only a few of the most talented are responsible for most of the gains and breakthroughs of the entire huge system. Cole talks about the internal threat posed by orthodoxy and dogma where a few individuals can gain control of a school of thought and close it to all possible challenges, killing criticism and any possibly of progress. He doesn’t give examples but this reader would offer the Chicago School of Economics where is seems to have happened. Milton Friedman and his associates so dominated discourse with their free market notions that empirical evidence simply was ignored. It was left to other schools to criticize the Chicago school (Stieglitz and Galbraith father and son) but the Chicago School held a stranglehold on government and government institutions like the IMF and World Bank throughout recent history. About the only positive thing about this example is the universe of research institutions is large enough that meaningful critical work can continue in these periods of orthodoxy.
Another risk comes from the increasing need of research universities to compete for the best talent and resources. The public universities like the California system are under enormous pressure as their states cut back on funding. They can only compensate by raising tuition and competing more effectively for research grants or by producing revenue generating licenseable technology. Somehow the states must be convinced to stop short changing their valuable research institutions and decrease this pressure before irreversible damage occurs.

Cole is also a strong believer the research university must remain strong in all areas including the social sciences, the arts and humanities. The research university must never divorce its research from its teaching function. The best and most productive members of the faculty in terms of research are usually the best at replicating themselves, training the next generation of researchers. It is also true that most innovation comes from young minds but that the rewards of grant moneys and laboratory facilities goes to older, established individuals. These gifted older individuals must train and offer laboratory opportunities to their students who will generate the next breakthroughs by bringing fresh perspectives to their work and research. The German system (as well as the Russian, Chinese, and Japanese) are authoritarian and hierarchical with absolute respect being owed to the senior professor. Visitors to American universities are always struck that professors and their graduate research assistants are on a first name, very informal basis. It is natural in this setting for the professor to offer gentle guidance based on experience but also to listen to new and even wild ideas from his assistants. This is the way to new discoveries.

Cole also talks a bit about the continuing struggle to broaden admissions to account for gender, racial, and income differences. Some universities like Harvard in the early 20th Century went on a campaign to rid its faculty and student body of Jews but other schools like Columbia and the University of Chicago simultaneously added disproportionate numbers of Jews to their faculties and student bodies. The great diversity of great American universities had no problem absorbing the large influx of Jewish European professor in the Nazi period. Cole finds it ironic the the Israeli lobby today is attacking those same institutions that offered refuge from the Nazis for hiring middle east professors and setting up programs to teach middle east language and culture. This lobby even attacks Jewish professors like Tony Judt for criticizing Israeli actions and policy. Columbia came under enormous pressure from the lobby when Palestinian Edward Said taught at Columbia.

How do you describe the unique American Research University? Here is Cole:

Great universities are designed to be unsettling. They challenge orthodoxies and dogmas as well as social values and public policies. They are the most effective instrument for creating skepticism and discontent with established institutions…Great teachers challenge the biases and presuppositions of their students and colleagues. They present unsettling ideas and dare others to rebut them and to defend their own beliefs in a coherent and principled manner. The American research university pushes and pulls at the walls of orthodoxy and rejects politically correct thinking.

Unsettling by nature, university culture is also highly conservative. It demands evidence before accepting novel challenges to existing theories and methods. The university ought to be viewed in terms of a fundamental interdependence between the liberality of its intellectual life and the conservatism of its methodological demands…We permit almost any idea to be put forward – but only because we demand arguments and evidence to back up the ideas we debate and because we set the bar of proof at such a high level. These two components — tolerance for unsettling ideas and insistence on rigorous skeptics about all ideas — create an essential tension at the the heart of the American research university.

So for all his fears about outside interventions from special interests, government, and industry, Cole ultimately fears most the threats from within the university itself if this unsettling tension is lost.

Finally Cole believes that competition among the leading universities is not only healthy but essential to maintain the absolute highest levels of achievement. This competition involves competing for endowments, grants, faculty, students, and even athletic achievement. He most worries that the wealthiest universities (Harvard dwarfs all other schools with its endowments) will increasingly have a competitive advantage and this will result in greater concentrations of talent and production. Only the Federal and state governments are in a position to redress this imbalance with increased infusions of support spread over the whole range of private and public universities. The new crop of super wealthy Americans like Gates and Buffet could also do a lot to redress the balance and create a more level playing field for the universities but currently Gates and Buffet are looking elsewhere where their money can have a global impact.