John Freemuth: Problem-solving takes a backseat to fundraising | Reader's Opinion | Idaho Statesman
By now everyone is aware of the ridiculous comments made by the president of Ohio State University, disparaging what he termed “Little Sisters of the Poor” universities that did not deserve to play in the most important college bowl games.
Readers may also be interested in knowing that there is a university research version of the Bowl Championship Series called the Association of American Universities (Ohio State is in it), which has been criticized for attempting to monopolize federal research dollars, once again at the expense of smaller universities. This monopolization, ironically, provides more justification for earmarks in smaller states; they level a biased playing field somewhat.
But the more important story here is money; raising money has become the No. 1 priority of American higher education. As former congressman and current National Endowment for the Humanities chairman Jim Leach notes: “I was told today, a university president was saying more students were lost at his university due to debt than bad grades. And that is one of the real challenges of our time: How we can afford a good university and public education at the post-secondary level?”
The simplistic answer is by making a commitment to our universities. But we are in the throes of doing the opposite because of the money issue. In my e-mail signature line I refer to myself as a professor at Boise “State” University, because our funding from the state of Idaho is at 20 percent and declining. Public funding for other universities can be even lower.
Where do we find the additional funding? What we do right now is chase huge research grants, like every other university, including those further up the pecking order. Those grants fall primarily in the area of what some call Big Science and Big Engineering.
As someone who works in the interface of science and public policy I have benefitted from some of this funding, and I know many researchers at Boise State who are doing interesting and important work. But this funding chase can come with a cost. Teaching gets de-emphasized, as do programs and departments where funding streams are tiny. Undergraduates don’t matter as much anymore; graduate students that can help work on the research grants do matter. Some of this is not new, particularly at institutions more advanced in research than Boise State, but we are starting to see it, too.
But what else suffers is the role of the university and its faculty in helping society deal with public problems, i.e., being a public university. By “helping deal” I mean as part of a conversation, facilitating and helping produce information that might be useful in collective problem-solving, not in narrow “expert-led” preaching to those without appropriate credentials.
As a small example, a few years ago I team-taught a course with Keith Allred, who was our Frank Church professor that year. Our topic was collaboration and public lands. We had our students interview a number of individuals about possible options on the seemingly irresolvable roadless issue in Idaho. We were able to generate some interesting alternatives (such as a backcountry recreation area) that we sent forward to key decision-makers and their staff that helped people understand how rethinking an issue might move discussions forward.
Activities like these are not often in a big funding stream today. A university playing this role might help society think through problems — and might help create more public support for the university, as society sees it perform this role well — but I’m dubious. There’s not much money in it.
John Freemuth is senior fellow at the Andrus Center for Public Policy, and a professor of political science and public policy at Boise State University.
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