The Rostrum By CLIVE C. VERI, Dean of the College of Continuing Education, Northern Illinois University

FORTY YEARS ago Dr. Fermi and his colleagues gave birth to the atom bomb in a top secret laboratory at the University of Chicago, and some would say that event started the high technology revolution. What is the role today of the universities in high tech?

There are several roles universities can play, but first, a definition of high tech is in order. "High tech" refers to the application of science to products that are at the state of the art in terms of their function and design. Examples of industries included under the rubric of high technology are computer manufacturers and all associated electronic/communication industries, biogenetics, pharmaceutical firms, the chemical industry and the aerospace industries.

While the U.S. is a world leader in computers, electronics, telecommunications and other high tech fields, our preeminence as the single high tech leader depends upon continued leadership. That leadership is very much in question. There is a shortage of scientists and engineers in the U.S.; most university engineering schools are already operating at maximum capacity and with outdated laboratories and equipment; faculty salaries are not competitive with those offered by industry, and industry, by drawing off competent faculty, is in effect "eating its seed corn"; finally, high school standards seem to be declining.

What follows is a three-part plan that will begin to put Illinois on a sound high tech training schedule, one that brings industry and education and government together in a teaching enterprise.

1. Things which state universities can do now independently or in conjunction with high tech industries, include:

• Educate current students to become "computer literate."

• Develop cooperative programs with high tech industries where students would work and learn the most up-to-date state of the art while earning credit toward graduation — all under faculty supervision.

• Use the unique talents of those in continuing education within the university to help faculty develop curricula in technical education and engineering education where a significant portion of the students' high tech experience is gained in practice-oriented settings.

• Teach high tech courses in the labs of industry with equipment which is up to date. If necessary, operate twilight campuses from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.

• Rely more heavily on adjunct faculty from high tech industries in the campus classrooms (in effect, sending our "seed corn" back to the plot).

• Cooperate with high tech industries to implement sabbatical leaves for both professors and industry's personnel where each offers the other the best of talents.

• Encourage industrial researchers from high tech industries to serve as co-mentors on graduate student research projects, theses and dissertations.

• Encourage Fermi and Argonne laboratories to make public — through continuing education programs — the results of their basic research findings.

• Reinstate an emphasis on the role of training the teachers who teach adults seeking a high school diploma through community colleges. (In Illinois, 33.1 percent of the adult population does not have a high school diploma, and there's little chance that someone without a diploma will qualify for a high growth, high paying, high tech job.)

• Retrain, through continuing education, low tech engineers into high tech engineers.

2. Things universities can do, but only with the help of Illinois state government, include:

• Offer salaries competitive with those in industry and upgrade lab and research facilities.

• Invest patent royalties in high technology research. (The development of the rat killer, Warfarin, by the University of Wisconsin, brings the university an annual income of $6 million.)

• Foster the development of a "high technology transfer" program where university faculty can provide their technical expertise and access to research libraries as a way of helping industry solve its specific high tech problems.

• Study the declining standards of high schools and perhaps recommend more years of math, science and English plus computer courses as graduation requirements.

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• Expand the research park concept started at the 44-acre site of the old Chicago Medical School and with a new high tech microchip center at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

As it is, both plans seem to be parochial. What we really need is a "research triangle" stretching from the UI at Urbana-Champaign northeast to Chicago and then northwest to the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Both universities are in the top 11 university research and development centers in the U.S., and within this triangle, of course, lies Northern Illinois University at DeKalb.

The state must develop a much better tax incentive plan which will retain and attract high tech industry to this research triangle, and at the same time, the state must assist municipalities in the triangle to sell industrial bonds to attract specific industries to these municipalities.

3. In order for universities to have an impact on high tech development, state universities need the help of the federal government. For example:

• We need a legislator of Justin Morrill's 1862 vision who can lead the development of public law which will do for high tech what the Land Grant Act did for agriculture during the last 120 years. State universities need federal incentive grants if the U.S. is to maintain its high tech position in the world.

• The feds need to "phase up" rather than "phase down" National Science Foundation support for science and engineering since demand for engineers outstrips supply by 2 to 1. (The American Electronics Association has predicted a shortfall of 20,000 electrical engineers and computer science graduates every year between 1981 and 1985. At the same time students are clambering to get into these fields, the association reports a shortage of 2,000 to 2,500 faculty members — a situation made worse by industry luring teachers away from campuses by offering higher salaries.)

• Since the role of state universities in fostering the development of high technology is directly related to the presence of high tech industries in Illinois and their proximity to university campuses, we need a national policy with incentives for both the developing high tech companies and for the existing, rapidly developing high tech companies. It is an interesting paradox that the Chrysler Corporation received $1 billion in public financing while high tech firms have been left to compete for overpriced capital on the open market.

Universities, industry, Illinois state government and the federal government are on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, we need to invest money to maintain the preeminence of the U.S. in the high tech industry. On the other hand, we cannot neglect humankind's low tech needs: People continue to go hungry; not everyone has adequate shelter; not everyone can afford even heat; and all of us must have unpolluted air to breathe and clean water to drink — just to stay alive!

State universities, indeed all universities, have a less than desirable historical record in solving these problems. Perhaps we can be effective in solving high technology problems if we develop the partnerships we desperately need between universities, industries and governments.

Some of my comments have been teased out in part from the book, Global Stakes: The Future of High Technology in America, by James Botkin and others (Ballinger Publishing Company, Cambridge, Mass., 1982), and I encourage others making decisions about universities and high technology to read it for their own interpretations. □

This guest column is based on the paper which Dean Vert presented at the annual meeting of the Illinois Council for Continuing Higher Education at Argonne National Laboratory, December 2, 1982.

July 1983 | Illinois Issues | 39