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

Tue Apr 2 19:26:22 UTC 2013

Karen,

I'm surprised by your rhetorical question, "The future of science and
economics are tied up with the military?" Hasn't warfare always been the
engine of "progress" and served well "the public good?"  No human endeavor
has been as successful as advancements in surgery to put a mutilated
fighter back together.  Where would U. of I be without huge grants from
merchants of death? We've been collecting the crumbs in the service of
critical thinking.

Niloofar

On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 12:05 AM, Karen Medina <kmedina67 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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-- 
Niloofar
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