Chancellor Wilkening reported that Proposition 203 passed and UCI will be receiving approximately $50 million over the next two years for new construction, seismic retrofitting, and equipment. Projects will include: equipment for the new Social Sciences and Social Ecology buildings, the Humanities/Arts facility and the Humanities Office Building; seismic retrofitting for the Administration Building and Humanities Office Building; new construction of the Environmental Health and Safety Service Building and the UCI Medical Center Academic Laboratory. This is a substantial contribution to our space needs and to building safety.
Our Nobel Laureates were honored in Sacramento by the Assembly Committee on Higher Education on March 18, 1996. Assemblyman Brooks Firestone and Assemblywoman Marilyn Brewer (on behalf of Senator Ross Johnson of Irvine) presented the resolutions for the commendations. Professor Reines was on hand for the ceremony.
In an effort to continue learning from this experience and to promote dialogue on this issue, the College of Medicine held an Ethics Conference in April. It was very successful. Close to 100 attended from all over the country. Comments were unanimously positive about the quality of speakers, who were the most prominent in their fields, including law, genetics, reproductive medicine and the behavioral sciences. We intend to explore any other opportunities to take a leadership role in the national debate about where reproductive medicine is going, and how it may be regulated.
Chancellor Wilkening reported that with regard to the former Center for Reproductive Health, another probable case of an unconsented egg transfer at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center has been discovered. This afternoon, UCI just received a press release from U.S. Attorneys that Dr. Sergio Stone has just been arrested on a ten count indictment and charged with intent to defraud an insurance company.
The Chancellor asked Chair Arnie Binder to join her at the podium to discuss "The Stress Project." The Government-University-Industry-Research Roundtable is sponsoring a project on the major sources of stress in the academic research and education community. Selected universities have been invited to participate in a series of campus-based discussions to identify possible remedies to the problems facing the faculty and administrators. What are the major sources of stress for faculty and administrators in the contemporary university and what can be done to alleviate it? Some stress is internally generated on the campus through the tasks we set ourselves and the way we interact: some is externally generated by our relationship to the outside world--our requests for funding and its reciprocal request for our service. Chancellor Wilkening and Academic Senate Chair Binder have accepted an invitation for UCI to one of the participating universities. MIT, Columbia, Rutgers and Wesleyan University are among the nine participants. Academic Senate Chair Binder will be convening faculty and administrators, separately and jointly, on a specific set of questions. Contact Academic Senate Chair Arnold Binder or Faculty Assistant to the Chancellor Charles Lave to participate in one of the discussion groups.
Some questions that will be considered are: How can the Senate most effectively participate in the budget advisory process? What are possible paths for improving the overall effectiveness of undergraduate education? Should, and how should, graduate education be adapted to the changing pattern of employment opportunities? Should the reward structure change significantly to encourage higher quality undergraduate education? What should the campus do to restore a sense of community? How can the campus provide support: financial and moral, for younger faculty members? How can the issue of shared governance be advanced to the Regents and the Chancellor? Chair Binder welcomes faculty input and individual suggestions.
Academic Senate Distinguished Faculty Awards (l996-97)
The Academic Senate Distinguished Faculty Awards for l996-97 were announced to the Representative Assembly by means of Enclosure 2.
University Contract to Manage the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore Laboratories
Professor Becker, as Chair of the Committee on Research, presented the following overview of the issue. The two laboratories at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos are U. S. Department of Energy laboratories that are responsible for research primarily concerning the development of and maintenance of nuclear weapons and the nuclear weapon stockpile. The University of California has had a management contract since World War II. The current five year contract is due to be renewed next year. In preparation for this, the Academic Council requested that UCORP review the merits of the issue. UCORP had two recommendations for each campus: 1.) the faculty on each campus should tentatively reconsider the issue by means of forums and discussion groups, and 2.) there should be a mail ballot of the faculty on the question of the renewal of the lab contracts with UC. Based on the criteria of appropriateness of public service by the university, UCORP itself concluded that the management role of UC should be drawn to a close at the two labs. Forums have been held at most campuses and UC Santa Barbara has already held a campuswide vote UC Berkeley, Davis, Santa Cruz, and Santa Diego will be doing so shortly. The Irvine Division's Executive Committee endorsed the idea of having a discussion like this. They also endorsed the Committee on Research's position that a mail ballot be undertaken if it could be conducted before the Regents vote on this issue. At the May meeting, the Regents will begin considering their negotiations with the Department of Energy on the renewal of the management of the labs. This process will probably continue for several months.
The two positions were presented by Professor Karl Hufbauer, Department of History and a member of the Jendreson Committee that had debated this issue seven years ago, on to the proposition of phasing out UC management of the labs and by Professor Steve White, Department of Physics, against that proposition and in favor of renewing the contract to manage the labs. Each had a final opportunity to respond to the other's comments. Professor Becker first introduced the topic.
Hank Becker reported that originally the UC involvement was seen as temporary through the duration of World War II and was initiated because of two UC faculty members, UC Berkeley physicists' Lawrence and Oppenheimer. UC was reluctant but accepted the business management of Los Alamos as a public service. After the war, the university wished to withdraw from the relationship but the newly formed Atomic Energy Commission asked UC to remain. There was some implication that Lawrence's Berkeley Radiation Lab would be unfunded if UC backed out of the management agreement. Later, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory was begun and it also had a focus on nuclear weapons research. As of now, UC is the only university that is connected to a weapons related lab of the Energy Department. Throughout the years, the relationship has evolved, but some essentials remain the same: the University contributes its management and other expertise as a public service to the nation; the labs are owned by the U. S. Government; and the employees are employed by UC. The services are rendered under five year renewable contracts. The labs conduct research and other activities by contract according to the priorities of the Department of Energy. Much of the work, although less than previously, remains focused on nuclear weapons; until recently it was development, and now it is the management of the nuclear stockpile. Much of the work remains classified. The Lawrence Berkeley Lab no longer does any classified work and never did any weapons research and for that reason was not included as part of the UCORP recommendation for termination. It is also funded from a different part of the Energy Department.
In l986, the Jendreson Committee of the UC Academic Senate was established to make a recommendation concerning the renewal of the management of the labs and campus faculties, and every campus voted, roughly 2-1, against the renewal of management of Los Alamos and Livermore Labs. That position was not supported by the systemwide Academic Council and it was reported to the Regents that the faculty had voted 28% for ending the contract, 15% for renewal, and 57% were classified as "other". Although the faculty vote has not prevailed before, it has been seen as influential in improving the current contract, making academic oversight more prominent, and providing for funds for future lab/campus collaborations. The arguments for terminating the relationship frequently include:
1.) There is an inconsistency between the principles of open inquiry and free dissemination of knowledge at the university, and the work of nuclear weapons related research and development, most of which is classified. This shows up in the climate of the labs and with personnel policies.
2.) University management does not work. UCORP's investigation suggests that the labs are basically self-run organizations. The labs do what the Energy Department asks them to do, with the University having little control over the program. This has changed somewhat over the last five years as a result of a committee called the President Council on the Laboratories that now has oversight of the labs. The testimonies seem to be conflicting as to whether the oversight committee actually represents UC faculty in any way.
3.) The issue of harmful environmental impacts and concern for potential environmental disasters that would require heavier involvement of management and faculty has been raised.
4.) National labs have the obligation to treat all universities equally, regardless of who is managing them. Thus, concern over a reduction in lab-campus working relationships due to a termination of the management relationship is unwarranted. In any event, most of the labs' current academic relationships are with non-UC faculty researchers.
5.) Lastly, the financial gain to the University is not large. Out of the two billion dollars that goes to the two laboratories, three million dollars (or 1/10 of 1%) goes to collaborative projects and research programs. Out of the 30 million dollars coming to the University for management, other than the $5 million to run the lab management office in Oakland, nearly all of it goes back to the labs or replaces state funding that would have occurred anyway.
The arguments for renewing the contract include:
1.) This is a critical area of humanity in which the University owes the nation its public commitment. It can perform this service better than private industry or the military, in part, because of its academic climate and university values. The university pushes the labs in the right direction, and is not motivated for short-term profits the way a private corporate management would be.
2.) The arrangement works. There is a high quality of research done at the labs, and it costs the University little in the way of money or administrative time.
3.) The research collaboration that exists provides many benefits to the UC research programs. There is state-of-the-art equipment at the labs. There are opportunities for graduate students to work on projects and use the equipment at the labs. The lab funding has funded two multi-campus research institutes: The Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics and The Institute of Global Conflict and Cooperation. There are many burgeoning projects in process. Last year the laboratories held a competition for collaborative proposals and received 105 proposals from the campuses.
4.) Cancellation of the management contract would put the Lawrence Berkeley Lab at risk due to the politics of funding.
5.) There are opportunities for the labs to develop non-weapons research and technology using University supervision for its development.
Professor Becker then requested that Professors Hufbauer and White focus on a couple of points and present them in more knowledgeable detail.
Professor Hufbauer, Department of History, presented the argument in favor of the UCORP resolution. He reported that he has been teaching courses on the nuclear age since he came to UC Irvine in l966, and has been an opponent of the nuclear arms race. He was a member of the Jendreson Committee that was formed in l987 to examine this issue. He supports an end to the UC management relationship. He takes this position in full recognition of the facts that the labs are doing less research on new nuclear weapons than ever before. The labs continue to be significant players in many fields of basic research. A tiny but growing fraction of UC faculty and students have conducted research in the labs and a steady stream of UC graduates have found employment at the labs. The funds coming from the labs have provided about 50% of the support for the Institute of Global Conflict and Cooperation and a larger percent of the funding for the Institute on Geophysics and Planetary Physics. UC has made some modest improvements in its oversight of the labs in the last 5 years.
Conceding those points, nonetheless, Professor Hufbauer believes that UC should cease to manage the labs for two main reasons, either of which is sufficient grounds for ending the relationship. UC management began in the heat of World War II and was sustained throughout the Cold War. This relationship is unique within the history of humanity. There is no other nation that has a university playing the kind of role that UC has played in the development of weapons of mass destruction. In this Post-Cold-War era, there is no compelling reason for UC to be closely associated with facilities having the role that they are presently playing, which is among other things, to design new nuclear weapons and maintain the capabilities of the existing stockpile. This association involves us in managing classified research and secure facilities, and it involves us in personnel procedures in accord with such facilities.
Another line of argument, that provides equally good grounds for ending the relationship, is that our involvement detracts from our main mission of research and teaching. If we were to do the kind of responsible management that the Academic Council is now proposing for us to do, this would involve many faculty and UC administrators in the kind of activities that would take away from the university. The administration is not representing us in all the ways that they need to represent us now. If they were to devote the necessary time and attention to these facilities, which between them have a budget of about $2 billion and are each roughly the size of UCLA or UC Berkeley, this is taking on a great deal of work.
A second concern is for the potential for an environmental disaster. We are protected financially from any liability. We regard our a management as a public service, but we don't regard it as a public service that we are willing to assure the quality of our product. There is no way that the federal government can protect our reputation if there is a major mishap at either of the labs. There would be intense scrutiny and the fact that UC wasn't doing much oversight would come out. These grounds are sufficient reason, in a time when there are no compelling reasons to continue to develop new nuclear weapons, for leaving this management role to other people in our society.
Professor Steven White, Department of Physics and Astronomy, presented the argument against the UCORP motion. The text of his position follows:
``I'd like to thank Professor Becker and the Committee on Research for the opportunity to present my perspective on the UC's management of the National Labs.
As I read the reports by the University's committee on Research, which was in favor of severing ties with the labs, and by the President's Council on the National Laboratories, which was in favor of continuing UC's current role, I was struck by what was missing: a discussion of consequences. In my mind, the most important question, which was not directly addressed by either report, (and which was not addressed in the discussion today so far) is this: What will happen if the UC gives up its role in managing the labs?
I think we have a rather good idea of what will happen if the UC continues in its current role: things will likely continue much as they have in the past, and in five more years there will be more committee reports and more debates within bodies such as this. And if the UC gives up its role? This is a much harder question, one which we can only try to answer by giving possible scenarios, rosy and otherwise.
First, however, let me review what I think are some of the important facts and statistics about the Labs and their relationship to the UC. I am going to tell you primarily about Los Alamos, since I think it is the more important Lab, both in terms of the science it does and in terms of this debate.
The annual budget for Los Alamos is about one billion. Of that, slightly less than half goes towards stewardship of the nation's nuclear stockpile and other defense-related activities. About 200 million goes towards environmental restoration--in other words, hazardous waste cleanup. Roughly 15%--about 150 million--goes towards basic research. The basic research covers a wide variety of fields, including physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, and geophysics. For example, one of the Department of Energy's Human Genome centers is at Los Alamos. The National Institute of Health supports the National Flow Cytometry Resource at Los Alamos, which analyzes individual cells at the remarkable rate of over 5000 per second. A large Advanced Computing Laboratory is also operated at Los Alamos, providing state of the art supercomputing facilities to about 500 researchers, both within Los Alamos and at many universities.
In addition to these large facilities, there are hundreds of individuals doing unclassified, first-rate, basic research in a variety of fields, including my own field, solid state theoretical physics. It is worth noting that in the 1950's, when Fred Reines discovered the neutrino, which led to this year's Nobel prize, Fred was employed at Los Alamos.
Through several programs, over 3 million dollars per year comes from the Labs to support research at the University of California. These funds help foster many collaborations between UC faculty and Los Alamos scientists. For example, in the Department of Physics and Astronomy here at UCI, Professor Gaurang Yodh's group, along with collaborators at UCR, UCSB, and UCSC, are building a new gamma ray telescope, called MILAGRO, in the mountains west of Los Alamos. It is a multi-year project involving only basic research--to search for high energy radiation from energetic astrophysical objects. At UCI, two faculty members, a Research physicist, a technician, and three graduate students are working on this project, which is partially supported by Los Alamos funds. Los Alamos scientists not only collaborate on the project, they help supervise UC graduate students.
There are similar collaborations across the UC, in many different departments. In 1995, 169 papers were published with UC faculty and Los Alamos scientists as coauthors.
Let us now return to the key question: What will happen if UC gives up management of the National Labs? First, I think it is very unlikely that the Labs' role as steward of the nation's nuclear stockpile will change in any major way. It has been the Labs' primary mission and will continue to be its primary mission, no matter what the University of California does. I do think the University has done an outstanding job in managing this activity, if for no other reason than the fact that so few scandals and so few accidents have occurred--yes, there have been a couple, but compare the record here with that of other organizations managing similarly large, controversial operations, such as the big defense contractors or NASA.
What will happen to the other things the Labs do, most especially basic research? This is the issue which particularly concerns me. What will happen will depend crucially on who takes UC's place in managing the labs, which we have no way of predicting. I understand that the University of Texas is very much interested in taking the UC's place, as is the University of New Mexico. Another possibility is that it will be put out for bids, in which case a defense contractor, such as Martin Marietta (which merged in 1995 to form Lockheed-Martin), which runs Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, would likely win.
Let me now paint two scenarios for you. The first is the rosy scenario-- or perhaps I should say, rosier scenario. The University of Texas replaces the University of California. The symbolic hands of the UC are now clean. While not the premier institution that the UC is, the University of Texas has a fine reputation in many areas of science and would presumably work to maintain the quality of basic research being carried out at the Labs. Of course, the many UC-Laboratory collaborations would be disrupted, projects would lose funding coming from the labs, and the access of UC faculty to the excellent facilities at the labs would diminish somewhat. As UC-lab collaborations diminished, new collaborations would arise between University of Texas faculty and the labs.
In the second scenario, we suppose that Martin Marietta becomes manager of the Labs. UC-Lab collaborations are disrupted, projects lose funding, etc., as before. But what happens inside the Labs, to all the people doing basic research? This is an especially important question, because support for basic research in this country has been diminishing in recent years. Most of you are aware, I'm sure, of the dreadfully low acceptance rate of high quality new grant proposals at both the NIH and the NSF. Other agencies, such as the Office of Naval Research, which in the past have diverted a substantial amount of funds away from mission-oriented research to basic research, have retrenched: The old motto was, What is good for the country is good for the navy. The new motto seems to be, What is good for submarines is good for the navy.
The situation is even worse in the private sector. Corporate leaders have learned that even Nobel prize winning basic research is usually irrelevant to the short-term bottom line. And they are right: the benefits to the world of a major discovery in basic science are almost unrelated to the benefits to the company that supported it. Suppose that Sherry Rowland had been working for IBM when he unraveled the secrets of the ozone hole. What would IBM have gotten out of it? Actually, this question is not purely hypothetical--the biggest discovery of the past twenty years in my field, the discovery of high temperature superconductivity, was made by IBM scientists a decade ago. IBM has received no return from this discovery thus far, and probably never will. As corporate leaders have come to understand this unfortunate reality, the result has been the dismantling of the corporate labs. IBM's lab at Yorktown Heights is perhaps half what it was a decade ago. AT&T Bell Labs was the premier institution in solid state physics throughout the 50's and 60's, giving the world, among other things, the transistor. Now it is but a shadow of its former self. It is not even owned by AT&T anymore, rather by Lucent Technologies, whose tacky advertisements you may have seen recently. The big defense contractors were smarter--they never supported basic research, as least not in my memory.
So what would happen if Martin Marietta took over the labs? Certainly the basic corporate mindset would begin to seep into the labs, in which work is almost always proprietary if not classified. Questions would increasingly be asked about the relevance of projects in basic research to the mission of the labs. Researchers who could not show their relevance would face mounting pressure to shift directions. Some would leave, some would retire early, and some would shift. I have no doubt that Fred Reines in the 1950's would have been among those whose work was not considered "relevant". The fraction of the labs' resources spent on basic research would undoubtedly fall. In a decade, basic research might only be one half to one quarter what it is today. As a scientist, I want to do all I can to maintain the quality of science in this country. If we give up management of the National Labs, we may be unintentionally contributing, in a significant way, to the national decline of basic research. The mere presence of the University as manager of the labs, independent of any specific actions, influences the labs to make them more open and more supportive of fundamental science.
In summary, if we give up management of the labs, the University will be hurt by the breakup of collaborations, loss of research support, and the disruption of thesis work supported by Lab funds. More importantly, we put an important national resource for basic science at risk. By continuing in our management role, we help protect the things we value at the labs.
This afternoon I received a preliminary report from the UC Academic Council, recommending that the University require a set of changes to the contract governing the management of the labs, with the intention of fostering increased openness at the labs, increased interactions with the University, and increased faculty input in lab management. I wholeheartedly endorse this recommendation: these changes would be to the advantage of the University, the labs, and to science.
Thank you."
Professor Hufbauer, responded to Professor White's remarks with the following two points: He acknowledged that these scenarios could occur. If the Department of Energy decided to stop funding this level of basic research, UC could do nothing to alter that. UC can argue for basic research funding, but it does not automatically occur. The present Congress would like to reduce the amount of basic research being conducted in this country. There are other possible scenarios. At Oak Ridge, there is a good deal of basic research going on even though it is run by a corporation because the Department of Energy believes this is in the national interest. Also, NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) in Boulder is run by a stand-alone type of corporation.
Professor White responded that NCAR's mission is basic research. He would worry more about Los Alamos, where the mission could be easily identified solely for the stewardship of the nuclear stockpile. Then very substantial basic research could be closed down. This could happen gradually. The university acts as a stimulus to more basic research and more openness.
Professor Hufbauer answered that it would depend on who would take over the management of the labs. If an entity like NCAR took over, then he contended there would not be much change. If a defense contractor took over, change would be more likely. He also argued that if UC management continues, which will probably happen regardless of what we at UCI decide today, the best way to push in this direction of improvement is to vote against continuing the relationship. Voting to sustain the relationship is not an impetus for change.
Discussion included:
Motion: Professor Becker, Chair of the Committee on Research, made the motion that the Representative Assembly endorse the proposition that the University of California will in a timely and orderly manner phase out responsibility for management of Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories. Professor Hufbauer seconded the motion.
The motion did not pass. There were 24 votes in favor, and 25 votes opposed.
Professor Becker presented a second motion
Motion: A mail ballot of the Senate faculty should be held this quarter on the issue of UC management of the laboratories.
Discussion included:
The motion passed with 4 opposed, and 1 abstention
Patricia Hopster
Academic Senate, Irvine Division
Attest: Linda Bauer Vice Chair-Secretary