imthewalrus,
1. My concerns center around what degrees of freedom President Kaler really does have. Is the Regents of the University of Minnesota the main source of the damage done to this great research / land grant university? Years ago a decision was made by "Friends of the Soviet Union" to decline all Federally funded classified research from the Department of Defense (DoD). Now how dumb was that? This decision pretty much coincided with the last of our Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners. We went from a preeminent research university in the 1950s / 1960s to a lunch pail state university. The DoD / DoE research money which was ours for the taking was simply vectored to other research universities. Note that the University of California at Berkeley, for all of its anti war and liberal thinking, was never stupid enough to decline DoD / DoE classified research money. Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories are cases in point. The UC Berkeley Physics department is preeminent, ours used to be, where are we now?
2. Dr. Kaler at SUNY Stonybrook, with their relationship to Brookhaven National Laboratory, understands the significance of DoD / DoE research funding. Can he get some of this money vectored back to us after it has long since left for the University of Texas (along with our Physics department faculty)? He might get some of it back, but once the barn door was opened, it is tough to reverse history.
3. I believe much if not most of the credit for these stupid "self inflicted wound" decisions lie with the Regents of the University of Minnesota. Unfortunately, stupid decisions by "Friends of the Soviet Union" made 30 and 40 years ago have generated cascading casualties for our great University of Minnesota. Or does the credit lie exclusively with Malcolm Moos and C. Peter McGrath? I don't know, but I think it would make for an interesting Masters thesis or Ph.D. dissertation by some aspiring young historian or political scientist at the University of Minnesota.
4. The University of Minnesota appears to be trying to regain its preeminent research status by wh0ring itself out to the Pharmaceutical Industry. I am not sure I like this approach. It remains to be seen how successful this approach is, and whether a firewall can be established between this research institution and an industry which pays billions of dollars in fines to the Federal Government for various violations connected with improper branding and application of their often improperly tested drugs.
5. It is time the Regents of the University of Minnesota were held accountable for the ship of state University of Minnesota. I hope somebody will research this and expose what has been going on behind their closed doors for the last 4 decades.
