Gov't funds KU research
By MARTHA
MANGELSDORF
Kansan Staff Writer
(This is the last of a three part series on University research.)
At the University of Kansas, some $8 1/2 million in research grants are dispersed across the campus to various interdisciplinary centers of research.
By far the bulk of donations comes from the federal government, primarily the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Public Health Agency.
But, a significant proportion of the research projects at KU are funded by the Department of Defense or a subsidiary branch. A Department of Defense bulletin listing 500 contractors according to the net value of "prime contract awards for development, test and evaluation work," ranked KU as no.261 for fiscal year 1968.
A breakdown of grant sources compiled from the University of Kansas Financial Report for fiscal year 1968 shows nearly $3,832,600 of the $8½ million total funds coming from the Defense Department or the military.
The Atomic Energy Commission has granted about $312,000, $148,620 has come from the U.S. Air Force, $52,150 was donated by the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the U.S. Army financed $35,500 worth of research and the U.S. Navy has channeled in about $27,250.
Complete details on the various research projects
6 KANSAN May 9
1969
financed are unknown, although some statement of hypothesis and results on each project is generally unclassified. Limitations in determining the existence of some defense-funded contracts or partially classified contracts are prevalent.
Most universities, despite no classified policy fronts, will disguise the presence of these contracts on their campuses to avoid unfavorable publicity. Often, too, actual projects are packaged as straight-forward scientific or medical investigations.
W. J. Argersinger Jr., director of research at KU, said in reference to research that black and white rules were impossible where reasonable men guided by the rule of reason worked.
In discussing defense research and the ethics of backing the entrenched military, many professors expressed vehement concerns.
In many cases, the research is described in purely scientific terms that can be deceiving to any but trained specialists in the particular field involved. And the new trend by the Pentagon seems to be to farm out different aspects of a particular defense project to various agencies or campuses as seemingly unrelated tasks.
Within the shades of gray described by Argersinger, professors voiced doubt as to the reasonableness of some of their colleagues.
"What the Defense Department does with our work is their business, we just go ahead and develop more technology," was one repeated opinion.
But an anthropology professor countered this stand saying this was the typical frame of mind of
the atomic scientist 20 years ago.
"This school of thought is dangerous and terribly antiquated," he said. "The Atomic scientists didn't care and didn't know how their highly technical research was being applied, and then too late, they realized they should have cared," he added.
Another KU professor, rationalizing his involvement with defense-supported research, said there were only two alternatives in pursuing applicable defense research: to work outside the military or from the inside.
"You have to look at it this way," he said. "The military-industrial complex is perpetrated by research and advanced technological developments resulting from research and they're going to get this work done whether I choose to do it or not. So it might well be me as someone else."
"Besides," he added, "it is better for a military superior to hear from the objective, unbiased outsider than the internal military and to have the civilian involved in the decision-making process."
But, the anthropology professor, who had been granted money from the defense department, begun work and then quit because of the military controls and dictates, said these idealists were kidding themselves.
"You can do their work, then sit back like a Pontius Pilate and wash your hands of the whole thing, but you can bet the military will be utilizing and applying your results for whatever means they have in mind, regardless of your suggestions.
"Most of the military research has political underlyings and you
can't hope to alter their course."
can't hope to alter their course. Obviously, as the figures indicate, not all research is military or defense oriented. Two facilities at KU which provide a major center for research, military and other, are the Space Research Building and the Center for Research and Engineering Science (CRES). The Space Research Building to the east of main campus is not completed, but the various elements of the space research effort now widely dispersed over the campus, will soon move under one roof.
The proposal submitted to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the Space Research Building stated that the University of Kansas is strongly committed to interdisciplinary space research and thus wishes to continue to strengthen that commitment by bringing together, within a single facility, the various campus programs. Most of the projects are funded by NASA.
The proposed building would adequately house all the elements of the research program and would also cause a productive interaction among them that would tentatively benefit both the University and the national space effort directed by NASA.
The need that exists for the building has resulted from the rapid growth of space research at KU. Since 1961, supported space research at KU has increased to almost 20 times it original—from $50,000 in 1961 to nearly $1 million this year.
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The need and desirability of a Space Research Building was lately due to the massive interdisciplinary effort of the Remote Sensing Laboratory, which is by far the largest program of space research on campus. The investigations of this laboratory have produced design recommendations for spacecraft radars to be used in the Advanced Apollo program for the mapping of planetary environments.
At the present time, NASA is supporting space research and education at KU at an average level of $850,000 a year.
CRES is the research organization of the School of Engineering and Architecture. The center was incorporated to promote scientific and educational development at KU by encouraging and supporting the conduct of basic and applied research.
Consistent with heir mission of developing and disseminating fundamental knowledge, the University and CRES usually, not always, receive the right to publish all worthwhile results.
The valuation of facilities available to CRES researchers throughout the University is estimated at $10 million.
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