MEMORANDUM
To: CNR
Faculty, Students, and Staff
From: Gordon Rausser,
Dean
Date: May 27, 1999
Over the last five years CNR has taken pride in resolving its own internal
differences, while respecting the values, culture, and policies of the Berkeley Campus and
the Office of the President, U.C. Systemwide. This has sometimes been a daunting task,
given the eclectic mix of disciplines that CNR embraces. The vastly different
scientific and sociological orientations of our many faculty and students often make it
difficult to achieve consensus, let alone achieve unanimity. In this setting, we can
only serve the collective interest of the College if we set the stage for clear and
unbiased communication.
The recent petition drive by Students for Responsible Research demonstrates that
communication on the topic of Novartis is still incomplete. That petition and
factually false remarks made at commencement demonstrate that many students still have not
read or understood the workings of the recent NADI agreement. Questions regarding the
Agreement are best addressed within the College. I am sure a number of us will end up
differing on the advisability of public/private alliances, a critical issue of great
concern to many institutions. However, I am also confident that most CNR faculty,
staff and students have the intellectual integrity to reserve judgement until they
understand the facts and empirical evidence.
In order to provide an occasion to explore these issues, I propose we schedule an
initial public forum to discuss whether the NADI agreement is consistent with our
fundamental principles followed by additional meetings, if needed. The principles
that I have articulated in the past for structuring public/private alliances are largely
motivated by economic concepts and if they have not been readily understood, I apologize.
In terms of objectives, the principles are as follows:
Ø Enhance Faculty
Freedom
Ø Seek
Intellectual Capital Complementarities
Ø Establish
Incentive and Cultural Alignment
Ø Structure Checks
and Balances
Ø Open Access,
Transparency, and Oversight
Ø Lower Faculty
Transaction Costs
Ø Understand and
Actively Pursue Strategic Position
Ø Leverage Public
Resources, Not Vice Versa
Ø Maximize
Discretionary Resources for Infrastructure and Graduate Programs
Ø Limit Option
Rights to Well Defined and Time Limited Negotiation Rights
A debate about whether these are the correct objectives may produce some insights:
political grandstanding and tantalizing journalism almost certainly won't. Also, a
discussion about whether the NADI agreement serves to enhance these objectives could be
enlightening.
All students, staff, and faculty who have a real interest in this topic are welcome to
attend the forums to discuss both fundamental principles and the NADI agreement. The
forums will provide an opportunity to explain why the University cannot and should not
accommodate some of the petitions requests. Other requests of the petition have
already been accommodated. Whatever forums we hold will also provide an opportunity to
correct some of the most frequently repeated mischaracterizations of the terms of the NADI
agreement. The Deans Office will wait to hear from the ESPM graduate student
representatives about the appropriate time to hold the initial proposed public forum.
Gordon Rausser
Robert Gordon Sproul Distinguished Professor
Dean, College of Natural Resources
University of California
101 Giannini Hall, MC 3100
Berkeley, CA 94720
Phone: 510-642-7171
Fax: 510-642-4612
http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/