Advocate Online

Yes, universities owe it to themselves and to the public trust to collaborate with corporations.
David A. Boyles *

Owing to increasingly shortened transition times between knowledge discovery and its application, the corporate sector is willing to pursue innovation at the boundaries of knowledge. Thus, corporations are increasingly willing to sponsor university research.

If knowledge makes possible the development of the market economy, it is institutional mission that mandates university involvement in the development, integrity, dissemination, articulation, and interpretation of that knowledge as it may affect the public.

Mutually beneficial collaborations have always been an essential part of academic research, and it would be shortsighted not to pursue collaborations with corporate sponsors in which this mandate may find significant expression.

But it is crucial that universities judiciously negotiate all aspects of these collaborations. Brokering alone does not suffice. Together, faculties, administrations, and boards have a responsibility to ensure the integrity of these endeavors, as well as to be able to clearly articulate their relevance in terms of the higher good of academic ideals and university mission to both the public and private sectors.

Increasingly, we hear calls for social commitment and accountability from the public. Corporate collaborations are an opportunity for universities to reassert the life of the mind as vital to the future of the private and public interest. These collaborations afford universities a premier opportunity to operate from their unique position of strength, furthering university ideals within society-at-large, rather than succumbing to market influences and uninformed demand.

* David A. Boyles professor of chemistry at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, is a member of the South Dakota Council of Higher Education-NEA. In addition to teaching and research he pursues interests in Lacanian psychoanalysis.

No, universities should not accept corporate funding unless there are no strings attached.
Norma C. Wilson *

Even the best collaborations, such as that between UCLA Berkeley and Novartis (featured in the June 22 Chronicle of Higher Education), involve restrictions, such as prohibiting researchers from discussing their research with students, reserving the right to review publications or dissertations before they are published, and determining or diverting the direction of research to make the corporation the primary beneficiary.

Dr. Nancy Olivieri of the University of Toronto found out the hard way that Apotex, a Canadian drug company that had funded her research, was more concerned with the bottom line than with her search for truth.

Apotex threatened to sue when Olivieri informed the company of her intention to alert her patients that one of its drugs was causing life-threatening side effects in some patients. After Olivieri published her findings in the New England Journal of Medicine, she was dismissed from her job as director of the hospital's blood disorders clinic. But after strong support from faculty and leading health experts, she was soon reinstated.

Increasingly, faculty researchers are pressured to serve the market instead of their students. To maintain the integrity of our institutions, university presidents must be more than fundraisers. They should encourage us to conduct objective research and publish freely, without the censorship or constraints that may be imposed by corporate funding.

While some universities may need grants from private corporations, we must not allow the tyranny of the bottom line to subvert the direction of our research or the truth of our results.

* Norma C. Wilson is professor of English and American Indian Studies at the University of South Dakota. She is an author and researcher and a member of the Council of Higher Education, NEA's higher ed affiliate in South Dakota.