Joseph Neff, newspaper reporter, raised eyebrows across the state
when he wrote “Tenured professor of chemistry at N.C. State University who has
spent eight years trying to correct the scientific record of former colleagues
Eaton and Feldheim.” Neff skillfully made it clear what happened but missed the all-important background as to why and how such
a thing could happen in such a prestigious university. For me the story is almost
personal; I have spent over fifty years of my life trying to understand, then stop
and finally trying to correct what was happening. In all that time, I have not even
been able to raise one eyebrow. I am grateful for what Neff has been able to do
with just one article. Let me explain.
URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated
To start with, I have a new hero,
who happens to be a professor of chemistry at N.C. State University. His name
is Stefan Franzen, a tenured professor.
Joseph Neff, a veteran investigative reporter working for the News and
Observer, a leading North Carolina News Paper exposed Franzen for what he is; a professor with ideals. In my
mind, what makes him unique among professors is that, according to Neff, he believes
“professors have a duty to train the
next generation of students to become rigorous ethical scientists.” If you
labor under the delusion that all professors at N.C. State have such high teaching
ideals, you are wrong. Unfortunately, you are not alone in your delusion nor is
only our state university that is involved. The truth is that only a minority
of State University professors across the nation are teachers, most are just what
they were hired to be, researchers in pursuit of patentable or money making
ideas, which reflects a marked change in the objective of a university.
This change in university objectives
from “educational need to industrial greed” did not happen overnight. I refer
to it as “industrialization of our
universities”. I resigned from the University of Minnesota in Nov. 1983 and
resigned again from North Carolina State in Nov. 1995 in disgust over the
changes that were taking place in higher education; which I described from a
personal point of view in my book, University
Industrial Complex: Erosion of Undergraduate Education (Amazon.com). I have
repeatedly posted blogs on this web site on this same theme.
Now, I hope Joseph Neff or
someone like him with the power of the press behind him will pursue the topic
and not treat it as an isolated incident where a single brilliant man
discovered and reported an error in research done by his fellow “professors’.
It is a gateway to the fascinating story of the corruption of higher education driven
by industrial greed.
In trying to correct the error,
Franzen started a feud that is unraveling the inner workings of university research
environment. This research error brought tension to the #Research Triangle Park,
a geographic area in #North Carolina devoted to scientific research. Neff referred
to scientific research as the areas “most potent economic engines”. This is accurate
because the result is the directing of huge sums of tax dollars into the area
economy. The error in my mind is that university administrators prostituted
their institution in the quest for research results that will pay handsomely. As
the reporter said in his article:
“The Triangle is
home to growing alliances among businesses, academics and venture capitalists,
one of the reasons President Barack Obama was here last week to announce a
major research initiative at N.C. State. Dozens of research-based companies in
and around Research Triangle Park thirst for the discoveries and will pay
handsomely”
My comment is that the Universities are
not there to make money; they are there to hire professors to teach future
scientists and provide an environment to do that. It is an extremely complex
subject but “patentable research” and “basic research” are two different
things. University professors should be highly paid and should have money—lots
of it—available to do basic research and have their institution provide equipment
that is too expensive for industry to buy such as atomic particle accelerators,
etc. The myth is that professors hired to do research are good teachers—it may
happen but generally, they are not. It is also a myth that good teachers are
good researchers; again it my happen but generally not. University administers
hire researchers from which they can profit just like a for-profit business.
The industrialization of
universities has been codified. For example, the Bayh–Dole Act or Patent and Trademark Law
Amendments Act (Pub. L. 96-
I will make my point
this way; Bruce Eaton, one of the people Franzen accused of publishing false
data is named on at least 70 patents, helped to start two companies, and
consults on product launches. No mention
in his bio of the undergraduate students he was too busy to teach or the graduate
student careers he has ruined
From now on, for
me it is no longer go “Wolf Pack”; it will be go “Stefan Franzen”; go get’em. I wish you all the success in
the world.
I
strongly recommend you read more at: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/
01/18/3539211/ncsu-professor-becomes-convinced.html#storylink=cpy
URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated
I had a professor once teach me that professors profess, they don't teach. The professor stands in front of a rag tag collection of early adults, calling upon a vast depth of knowledge for a given subject, and lecture key subject elements that will later be on a test. If the student learns anything, that is on them. This I learned from a professor, "I profess, I don't teach!".
ReplyDeleteTo stand in front of a group of students and profess or state what he or she believes and leave it to the students to learn what they can misses the point of education. I had a Nobel Prize-winning chemist do that and I dropped his class because all he was doing was reading from his book, which was no more than a long list of enzymes, hundreds of enzymes—he was a high paid rotten teacher. He was too busy pushing back the frontiers of science to teach enzymology. Why do students go to class if the professor has “professed” everything in a book; why pay tuition and not just read a book instead? Students get something from a lecture that they cannot get from reading; it is called “explanation of what they do not understand”. I had a rule; if a student asked a question, it meant to me that 10 students had the same question; therefore, I always tried to answer the question carefully, even if it was trivial. I took it as sign of a poor lecture if a student showed up in my office after class to ask questions. I would answer their question but repeat the question and answer the next lecture. After thirty years of experience and hard work I knew what the question would be and answered them during lecture: very seldom did I have a student show up in my office. By the way, I was a rotten researcher.
Delete