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The symposium was billed "The Future of the American Research University," but it also served as a reunion of sorts for James Moeser and mentors from his past.
William C. Richardson, now president and chief executive officer of the Kellogg Foundation, was Moeser's boss at Penn State University when Moeser was there as a dean. Moeser told of the advice Richardson gave him when Moeser received an offer to become the dean of fine arts at the University of Texas.
You could get that job, Moeser remembers Richardson telling him, but it would be a terrible mistake to take it. "You would just be moving sideways when you ought to be thinking about becoming provost."
When Moeser finally did leave Penn State, it was to go to the University of South Carolina -- as provost.
Bryce Jordan, now president emeritus of Penn State University, has a Ph.D. in the history of music and comparative literature from Carolina. He also chaired the Department of Music at the University of Texas at Austin while Moeser was a student there.
"Bryce was proof that a musician could actually succeed in university administration," Moeser said.
And then there was C. Peter Magrath, the president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. Magrath organized the Kellogg Commission on which Moeser served. The commission looked at the future of state and land-grant universities by promoting an agenda of change and renewal.
Getting from here to there
The Oct. 12 symposium, organized as part of University Day festivities, dug deeper into the ground that Moeser had plowed in his speech earlier in the day when he said he wanted to make Carolina the pre-eminent public research institution in the country.
To get from here to there, panelists agreed, will require knowing what the research university of the future might look like and do.
Other panelists were N.C. Sen. Howard N. Lee, a champion of education in the legislature, and Marye Anne Fox, the chancellor of N.C. State University.
UNC President Molly Corbett Broad set the stage and moderated the panel discussion.
"The research university has demonstrated the totally amazing capacity to reform itself and to adapt and to refine to major forces of change over a long period of time," Broad said. "Those of us in this profession have a tendency to look back in history and try to draw an understanding from that history the ideas and the trends and the characteristics that have contributed to this
great strength in American research universities.
"We see that it is one of the few institutions other than churches that has survived for hundreds and hundreds of years," Broad said. "Think about it. There isn't any corporation that is likely to survive as long as the University of North Carolina has survived."
Staying on top of a changing mission is one of the challenges, panelists agreed.
Magrath said the research university will continue to be uniquely positioned to serve society as both the creator and transmitter of knowledge.
Magrath quoted Yogi Berra, who said, "The future isn't what it used to be."
Actually, Magrath said, he was not sure if the quote came from Berra. But that's not the important question. The important question for the American research university, he said, "Is to make the future what it should be."
The money factor
One of the challenges will be money and maintaining the support to get it from both public and private sources.
Richardson, who runs one of the country's major foundations, said this may be the most exciting time in philanthropy in 100 years, and one reason for that is the pot of gold that sits at the end of the Baby Boomer rainbow. Over the next generation or two, the estates left by Baby Boomers will produce a transfer of wealth in this country in the order of $50 billion.
A substantial chunk of that money will go to philanthropy directed at universities.
Ten, 15 years ago, philanthropy was both bureaucratized and reactive and focused primarily on making grants. More and more, philanthropists take a more entrepreneurial, pro-active bent, Richardson said. They not only want to know how their money is being spent, they want to see results that make a lasting difference. And they want to be a part of it.
The University should move from a collection of individuals doing wonderful work to an organization that has within it colleges and schools with a vision of making a big difference not just in their respective disciplines but for the world, Richardson said.
The Cold War dictated a scientific and financial agenda for the American research university to follow. With that challenge 10 years past, the new challenge will be developing both "human capital" and "intellectual property."
A university such as Carolina, already far along as it is in its tradition of student-centered learning and strong research, should have the most ability to do that, Richardson said.
Jordan said a continuing challenge for research universities is to breach the gulf of understanding between them and the public. Instead of touting how good we are, Jordan suggested, we must do a better job of explaining the good we do.
"We don't tell our stories well enough," Jordan said. "I don't think the public yet understands us, what we do and the broad contributions we make."
That message is further undermined by the structure and strictures under which great universities have been built, Jordan said.
Universities were created out of tightly encapsulated disciplines, each of them producing professional journals written by and for practitioners of a particular discipline, Jordan said. The problems in the outside world don't fall into such neat little segments.
Collaboration a key
Lee said he and other legislators are oriented in results. When trying to build support for things such as the $3.1 billion capital bond issue, for instance, it helps to be able to point to the Research Triangle Park and explain that those companies would not be here had Carolina, Duke University and N.C. State not been here to attract them.
The legislature must do its part by granting universities more flexibility than they already have to allow them to react quickly to emerging opportunities.
But University leaders must do their part, too, as both Moeser and Fox have done by visiting communities across the state during the bond drive.
Such visits not only show people how the university system matters to them, but that people of the state matter to the university, Lee said. "We have to make the institutions come alive in the hearts and minds of the public."
Fox emphasized that research universities can and must be the "basis of prosperity of this country."
"Scientists and engineers are entirely intolerant of the status quo, and it is that intolerance that spurs the creation of new technologies."
Carolina has added 18 new faculty positions to join in the genomics initiative.
Broad suggested that collaboration between the three research universities will continue to intensify in the years to come as the pace of research accelerates and the economic stakes associated with research continue to rise.
Technology transfer, genomics and bioinfomatics are areas where the three universities can achieve more together than they can alone, Broad said.
"I don't think you will find another region in the nation, not even the bay area of San Francisco, that would have the amount of intellectual firepower to address these major issues as you would find here."
Both Moeser and Fox agreed.
Fox said she sees the strengths of the three universities as more complementary
than competitive.
Moeser said he sees researchers committed enough to the work to see past university affiliation.
"Our faculty really doesn't care ultimately what shade of blue or red they are wearing when they are working together on a common project," Moeser said. "We have in spite of and maybe because of our close rivalry with both Duke and N.C. State a wonderful research partnership which has contributed enormously to the power of North Carolina as one of the great states."
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