[Peace] demonstation for a public university not a corporate military-related cog producer

Tue Apr 2 05:05:40 UTC 2013

Several posters were made this evening. One, for example, says: "Do we love
our military industrial complex more than our critical thinkers?"

Come join the demonstration to protest this speaker, Norman Augustine.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Meet at 3:30pm at the south door to Beckman. The talk begins at 4pm

Turns out he is part of the revolving door between places like
Loockheed-Martin, the Department of the Defense, Homeland Security, and the
Boy Scouts.

Why is the University of Illinois, a research one institution, interested
in what he has to say? The future of science and economics are tied up with
the military?

On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 11:11 PM, Karen Medina <kmedina67 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Former CEO of Lockheed-Martin will tell us how to envision the future of
> universities. (see the description of the event April 2nd)
>
> Want to demonstrate against this? Then meet with a group of people to make
> plans: Monday, April 1, 2013 / 7:30pm / Urbana Free Library basement  in
> the *Satterthwaite conference room*
>
> -----------
>
> UIUC Chancellor's final lecture of the year April 2, 4pm, at Beckman for
> "The Research University in the World of the Future" series will feature
> Norman Augustine, the retired CEO of military weapons maker
> Lockheed-Martin.
>
> He will "discuss the idea that universities have to reconfigure themselves
> to meet the challenges of the 21st century."
>
> Augustine believes "universities have to become more introspective and
> aware that their ultimate mission is to serve the public good." I have a
> feeling many of us have a very different definition ?of "public good" than
> he does.
>
> ----
>
> *Engineer and education advocate Norman Augustine is next in the
> Chancellor’s speaker series, “The **Research University in the World of
> the Future* <http://www.oc.illinois.edu/visioning/series.html>*,” and
> will speak at 4 p.m. April 2 in the Beckman Institute auditorium. A
> reception will follow in the atrium.*
>
> Norman Augustine, an acclaimed engineer and the retired chairman and CEO
> of Lockheed Martin, was just beginning work on his graduate degree at
> Princeton University in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the
> first artificial Earth satellite.
>
> The unexpected launch rattled Americans’ post-war confidence and caused
> concern that the new technology would soon be used by other nations to spy
> on them or initiate attacks from high above Earth’s atmosphere.
>
> [image: Augustine,Norman__a.jpg]<http://news.illinois.edu/ii/13/0321/Augustine,Norman__b.jpg>
>
> Norman Augustine
>
> The corresponding national response heralded a technological research and
> development boom at research universities across the nation – funded by the
> federal government and corporations – that would lead to the moon landing,
> the computer revolution and, eventually, the Internet.
>
> It also confirmed for Augustine, who had been considering a career as a
> forest ranger, his pursuit of a career in the burgeoning field of aerospace
> research.
>
> Fast-forward nearly 60 years and Augustine says the threat of being
> overshadowed by the rest of the world is greater than ever – and if
> something isn’t done quickly, America’s technological pre-eminence will
> become a historical footnote.
>
> “I’ve had not inconsiderable involvement in issues of higher education and
> have become very concerned about America’s competitiveness in the new
> global economy,” he said. “We have to take some dramatic steps because what
> is at stake is nothing less than the American Dream.”
>
> But in contrast to the space-race era, the country’s toolbox for making
> those fixes today is in danger of being severely under-stocked.
>
> “Companies used to support research, but today they are expected to
> produce results next quarter, not next decade,” he said.
>
> Meanwhile, the other traditional research funding partners, federal and
> state governments, have disinvested from secondary and higher education at
> an alarming rate because of the economic downturn, a corresponding drop in
> tax receipts and public debate over the role of government and the benefits
> of education.
>
> “Education investment goes hand in hand with having a strong economy and
> universities are the key to making the nation more competitive,” he said.
> “We have got to enable the development of an educated citizenry.”
>
> Augustine said universities also have to reconfigure themselves to meet
> the challenges of the 21st century. He said universities have to become
> more introspective and aware that their ultimate mission is to serve the
> public good.
>
> “The problem is, universities in this country and elsewhere have changed
> very little in the last 100 years,” he said. “What they teach has changed,
> but it’s still being delivered in basically the same way. We also need to
> decide what it is we want our universities to have as their priorities.”
>
> Change is no longer an option but a requirement, he said, and competition
> is coming from every direction – from the online-course revolution to
> rapidly improving university systems overseas. He said the competition
> stems from students seeking a better education value and from a growing
> list of alternatives to the traditional university.
>
> “Great universities of the past have been generally defined by a superb
> faculty and a fine library,” he said. “Today you can carry the library in
> your back pocket and access faculty from around the world from your home.
> The great universities will survive, but in a different form, and the
> lesser universities may not be recognizable a few years hence. Online
> education isn’t equivalent yet, but it’s becoming more and more equivalent;
> face-to-face teaching and learning have value, but how great is that value?”
>
> He said higher education’s challenge reaches far beyond campus boundaries.
> For example, secondary education needs to focus more on science,
> technology, engineering and math if the country is to remain competitive.
>
> “Part of the cost of higher education is that many high school students
> aren’t prepared when they get to our universities,” he said.
>
> Eight years ago Augustine chaired a commission studying U.S.
> competitiveness that issued a report, “Rising Above the Gathering Storm.”
> It recommended significant improvements in K-12 math and science education,
> more investment in long-term basic research, strategies to attract
> high-tech students and scientists from around the world, and the creation
> of programs to create and sustain incentives for innovation and research
> investment.
>
> In a 2011 article in Forbes magazine, Augustine offered some disturbing
> statistics about the importance America places on academic excellence:
>
>  U.S. consumers spend significantly more on potato chips than the U.S.
> government devotes to energy research and development.
>
>  In 2009, for the first time, more than half of U.S. patents were awarded
> to non-U.S. companies.
>
>  China has replaced the United States as the world’s number one high-tech
> exporter.
>
>  Between 1996 and 1999, 157 new drugs were approved in the U.S. Ten years
> later, despite growing funding, that number had dropped to 74.
>
>  The World Economic Forum ranks the U.S. 48th in quality of math and
> science education.
>
> “Innovation is the key to survival in an increasingly global economy,” he
> concluded in the article. “Today we’re living off the investments we made
> over the past 25 years. We’ve been eating our seed corn. And we’re seeing
> an accelerating erosion of our ability to compete. Charles Darwin is said
> to have observed that it is not the strongest of the species that survives,
> nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change.”
>
>
>
>

-- 
-- karen medina
"The really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." - Mark
Twain
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