The CNR survey
Assistant Professor Ignacio H. Chapela
College of Natural Resources
Berkeley


Thank you very much for providing an opportunity to respond to the letter submitted by our Dean, Gordon Rausser. I do so reluctantly since I do not think this edited forum is the best place to address the intricacies of what has evolved into a complex situation concerning the presence of Novartis on campus. I certainly have no interest in stoking a fire that can be damaging to me, my College, or University. Nevertheless, I do have a stake in serving my duty as a faculty representative who had to provide some measure of faculty opinion while chairing the Executive Committee (ExCom) in our College last year.

It is unfortunate that instead of acknowledging the reality of a diversity of opinions in our College on an exceedingly important matter, we should continue to have the media fed with a simplistic view that depicts a minority group of "opponents" to the Novartis deal simply complaining on the basis of some undefined "political agenda." In Dean Rausser's letter, those enemies are identified sequentially as the "biological control faculty," "some students," and "Professor Chapela," and their weapon of choice as a survey. For the record, the survey run by ExCom under my chairmanship was designed on the basis of an initial College-wide consultation implemented by departmental Chairs. The survey was drafted in constant consultation not only with ExCom, but with professional social scientists in the College and the Academic Senate. The design and results of the survey have been praised by the Academic Senate as well as both the chancellor and the provost as an important source of information on College-wide faculty opinion, and continues to be the only document that can claim to be representative of faculty opinion on the Novartis agreement.

Naturally, many different views can be extracted from the textual input section of the survey, and the numerical results can be presented in more or less biased forms. For example (and I address here only one of the several misleading statements of the letter), it can be truthfully said that "60-70 percent of respondents" consider that the Novartis agreement will "...either generate technology, databases, and personnel for their own research program or will not affect them", yet this would mask the reality that fully 44 percent are actually in the category of those who see no value in the alliance for their acquisition of technology or information, the main justification to enter into a negotiation with Novartis as a College in the first place. As to how one could get from five respondents, who consider biotech research as inappropriate, to a major threat to the College as depicted in the second paragraph of Dean Rausser's letter, I am deeply mystified.

However, it is not in the details of a reading of the survey that the crucial point of this matter lies. It is in the unfortunate denial of a complex reality, and in our tardiness in providing a space where a creative, positive discussion could have been promoted. Our College has an unmatched potential capacity to address difficult problems from a multi-disciplinary perspective, and I am sure we could have confronted the challenges of funding, technology acquisition, and innovation in a truly creative manner, had we had the opportunity to do so. The space where many faculty would have expressed their respect and support for a bold departmental venture by our colleagues in the Plant and Microbial Biology Department has also been denied in favor of a polarized picture of faculty positions.

Now the faint signals of faculty views and input provided at great cost by ExCom are also denounced as an incendiary threat to the College. In doing so, the choice is made to forego the illumination of our diverse faculty in one of the great leadership challenges of the coming century, and instead we decide to plod into the biotech age with a narrow, anti-scientific attitude, where debate is carried out through 800-word letters to the editor. ExCom's survey serves as a beacon to mark the point of departure into this venture, but much more needs to be done if we are to maintain our expert faculty at the forefront of our leadership role. Denying its representativeness or the clear messages it conveys is equivalent to choosing not to wear glasses for fear of seeing the potholes on the road. Against this obscurantist attitude I can only invite your readers to see the situation for themselves and say: Let there be light!


Response

Dean Gordon C. Rausser
College of Natural Resources
Berkeley


The principles established by CNR and a number of Plant and Microbial Biology faculty included finding an optimal fit between the research objectives of our faculty and the private research goals and established intellectual captital of our partner, Novartis; maintaining absolute faculty freedom and autonomy; obtaining otherwise cost-prohibitive technological resources for our faculty; and maximizing discretionary resources for our infrastructure and graduate programs.

In a survey designed by opponents of the Novartis alliance, it becomes clear that CNR faculty support these fundamental principles. The wording of the survey does little to disguise its political agenda. Many biological control faculty are fundamentally opposed to biotechnology; some fear the prospect that biotechnology may one day cause environmental harm or displace societal demand for biological control solutions. The bias was so evident that some respondents added the following comments to their numerical responses: "This survey is highly biased"; "This is a poorly designed survey"; "The questionnaire is overly simplistic and has numerous errors and misstatements"; and "The survey is misleading or inaccurate in many regards. So much so, in fact, that it is an embarrassment to the College and the University. The seriousness of the errors makes the survey almost impossible to fill out." And: "The results of this survey will only serve to exacerbate discord among a small core of faculty who are opposed to genetic engineering per se."

To the credit of CNR faculty, common sense has prevailed in the responses. Specifically, there is overwhelming faculty support for using the Novartis Agricultural Discovery Institute (NADI) as a "5-year experiment to evaluate potential for future alliances" (only 19 percent of those responding to the survey register opposition to this feature). In addition, 60 to 70 percent of those expressing an opinion also expect that the agreement will improve or not impact access to other research funding; will improve or be neutral for both graduate and undergraduate education at CNR; will have a positive or no impact on academic freedom at UC; and will either generate technology, databases, and personnel for their own research programs or will not affect them. Even though some students categorically oppose biotechnology research, the faculty overwhelmingly support it (only five in a sample of 81 respondents registered opposition).

Despite supportive responses, the survey has been misconstrued by some as a negative referendum on the NADI alliance. This questionnaire itself is nothing more than a perception survey from which the most cited portions are hypothetical questions that run directly counter to fact. For example, in a letter to the June Cal Monthly, Ignacio Chapela, former chair of the executive committee of CNR, argues that "the institutionalization of a relationship with an exclusive character is opposed by 65 percent of the respondents to our survey." What he doesn't reveal, either to readers of the Monthly or the survey respondents, is that the NADI agreement cannot possibly be characterized as exclusive with either CNR or the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology. Each PMB faculty member had an initial as well as an ongoing choice of whether to participate in the alliance and can freely enter into agreements with other private companies. There is simply no exclusivity.

Professor Chapela also states that "among several provisions of the agreement already signed with Novartis that raise major concern among faculty are the inclusion of company employees in University committees (75 percent find it inappropriate) and their presence on campus as adjunct faculty (61 percent find this inappropriate)." This description and the survey questions themselves misstate the NADI agreement. The agreement does not place any NADI employees on University committees. Indeed, the only committee on which NADI participates is the one established to allocate portions of the research funding it contributes, and which is comprised of three elected faculty members from PMB and two NADI officials. The inclusion of these NADI officials was requested by the participating faculty; it was not a condition imposed (or, for that matter, requested) by NADI.

Yet another hypothetical question regards company scientists being present on the campus as adjunct faculty. This is not, I repeat, not part of the agreement. No special privileges are extended to NADI employees, and a provision in the final document clearly states that (like everyone else) Novartis employees are subject to standard University employment policies. This means that any particular adjunct appointment must satisfy the personnel and employment policies of the Berkeley campus.

Professor Chapela stokes the fire by falsely stating that the agreement "required over 20 faculty members to sign all at once a confidentiality agreement." No faculty member was required to sign a confidentiality agreement, or, for that matter, participate in any fashion in the research alliance; involvement was and is strictly voluntary. In fact, during the first year of the alliance, not one new member of the PMB faculty who volunteered has chosen to sign the confidentiality agreement. Confidentiality agreements are absolutely standard for those who choose to conduct research with private industry but, in this alliance, the participating faculty are free to choose.