there have been frictions, but i cannot see it as a dramatic gap between what the turks want in the region and what we want. there is an interesting evolution where turkey was feeling more confident about its ability to be a kind of problem region. i think syria has been of a bigot, a sobering reality check for the turks -- has been a big, sobering reality check for the turks. i do not see a huge gap because they are now home to -- they would like to see a more activist eu policy to relieve the burden on themselves. i do not think we have any huge differences over the long term outcomes in syria. >> yes.

the gentlemen. -- gentleman. >> i have some questions about iran and nuclear policy. in the last press conference by president obama -- a something in this press conference which i thought was different from the past. all along in recent months he has been talking about a nuclear bomb or nuclear weapon, specifically mentioning that a something iran cannot get. in a press conference, he went beyond that and said nuclear capability. i wonder if this is the same position, or is this something new, changing course?

the second thing is -- for the entire panel, ellen laipson, too. the red lines, basically encouraged by the israelis, those have been gone for some time. now there is something emerging, and that is the year 2013. i see that as a new version of the deadline. would you say significantly year everything should be settled with iran or we go to the next option? what you think of the casual use of the year as a deadline? ok, thank you. >> i think all of these different shades of gray from total denuclearization to

starting iran only at the markhor they would be a fully -- only at the marker where they would be hopefully nuclear- capable country he is confusing. we are all tempted to over- interpret. we started in the iranian process saying to literally stop any nuclear capabilities. that is no longer what we are talking about. that is no longer achievable as a longshot. i think the goal inside the administration, what is the true red line before the united states as opposed to israel or neighbors of iran? i think it is possible that we could accept something that the iranians would say we have

already picked the japan option. we want to demonstrate we have the technical capabilities, but without the possibility of deploying full weapons systems and we would give assurance to the international community. whether the president used slightly more casual language than he intended that day, i do not know. as for timons, remember -- -- time lines, remember, there are a range of tools being used to interrupt, if you will come in iran -- if you will, to iran as fast track to nuclear capability. its sounds implausible, but we really do not know. the deadline keeps shifting, literally keeps shifting,

because the iranians are suffering setbacks within their own time line and that is not always apparent to us. i am not saying it has to be done by a particular year or not. there will always be an external variables that slightly change the dynamics of this. >> ellen, can i add on that? i think the reason 2013, early 2014 is the focus is they look at the trend of the iranian nuclear program and what people assume our u.s. deadlines -- not deadlines. from the u.s. perspective, and it differs from israel's, the u.s. says it cannot accept a situation where iran is capable of crossing the nuclear threshold either secretly or in

some way where the u.s. would not be able to react or in a fortified compound. the assumption of some people is that that will happen within the next 12 to 18 months. maybe because of mishaps or deliberately because they do not want to come within that threshold, that will not happen within the next year and a half. if you do not reach an agreement between now and summer, i think it will become more and more difficult to say there is a process, even if iran is not approaching the threshold. and that is where the pressure will build, both from within the u.s. and israel, for the u.s. to do something. i would not say the president has mismanaged this.

to some degree, he has. this is a national security issue. the u.s. has put containment off the table. one can argue whether that was a good strategic choice. it is very much on the back burner. >> um -- >> my name is stephen. in terms of the risk of asking anyone to put yourselves in the minds of iran for a leadership, to me, the basic strategy is if they intended to go nuclear regardless and pretend otherwise

regardless of the consequences or because this is an elegant bargaining chip, what would they be prepared to market the nuclear program for? >> it depends, i suspect, on your assessment. if it were up to khamenei, iran would have been a nuclear power by now. it is the state driven by a profound sense of insecurity on one hand and a profound sense of entitlement on the other. states like that -- north korea, pakistan, india, i guess the argument could be made to a certain degree, israel. they are driven to an extent -- certainly by profound insecurity and the notion, which is

elevated to a level of one of the 10 commandments in this time, that the way to really get iran is getting rid of -- and it also generates paradoxical implications that the more threatened -- if assad's fall and sense of encirclement and the besieged quality of ron's neighborhood -- simple -- you ron's neighborhood, a simple man that i am, is going to accelerate program,clear weapons and not make them more reasonable. this is a conclusion that is impossible to attack or unwind, and yet it is obviously critical to the discussion of what to do. >> i think the dilemma to the outside world is do we have the talent, the skill to persuade

iranian leaders that the acquisition of nuclear materials is secure? there are those who would make the argument that aaron is making. if you look at world experience in the 20th century, having nuclear weapons is a status symbol and literally a deterrent. other countries are less likely to attack you if you cross that threshold. maybe for reasons that will take a long time to understand, the supreme leader has his own audience. they can stop short of what anization. i think this is a position thats people -- i think this is the position that people make fun of. i thought it was interesting he was explaining to the iranian public, making the case against full weaponization.

have we so taunted the international community that we do more harm to ourselves? is he looking for a way out? is he looking to stop short of full weaponization? would we be able to take that as an acceptable outcome? >> i agree with the assessment. i do not think the iranian leadership has made a determination yet. i do not think there is any indication it has. i can think of three things. north korea, iraq, india. >> we have a question from the overflow room. do syria and iran have a stake in keeping the israeli gaza crisis burning?

yes? [laughter] we respect your economy of language, rob. >> ok. i would like to go back to gaza, too. i have been thinking about the landscape is shifting in the region. and the players we're looking -- they coordinate in a whole new way of kind of policy. i do not want to overplay this. the concept that we can work together to create a new reality. if they have a vested interest, it is in their neighborhood.

i wonder if the outcome is don't be the end of the israeli policy in support of the strangulation of gaza and the sea doesn't break out -- and see gaza break out as the palestinian state? then what does the u.s. do about that since we don't seem to have the capacity to influence the key players on the ground that that is a bad idea? and how to reshape it? >> i think your question is of absolutely right -- is absolutely right. i do not know whether anybody was planning it this way, but i think the trends -- hamas emerging as the central power in the palestinians. that is where things are

happening. in two weeks, president of boss will be at the u.n. -- president abass will be at the u.n. the casualty is the palestinian authority and the president has been marginalized and looks irrelevant to what is happening. in my view, gaza will emerge as the seat -- it will be much freer than egypt. i think that is where things are trending. you could add at some point that the west bank may trend towards jordan. that may be the next step. we may wake. if the administration decides to intervene in a few years, it may be at a time when the entire

dynamic of the conflict has shifted. i suspect the muslim brotherhood in egypt is not interested in a settlement where it would have to make concessions on jerusalem either. the outcome is now that is different from a truce. it would be ironic though, precisely around the time the u.s. finally came on board -- it is not that. is not that at all. the u.s. and all the western partners have come to that conclusion. >> you have been very patient. this will be the last. >> aaron, i am jim smith. i am the u.s. ambassador to

saudi arabia. one of the trends we have seen the last couple of years is because of the ubiquity of information, it is fundamentally changing population's view of what they expect from their governments. it has created opportunities for populist reaction. the governments feel they need to be more responsive and it has changed the contact that has existed for a very, very long time. we have had since 1979 the pteron -- tehran model, and now you have in cairo that has hybrid model. i share your insights in governments and how is -- share

your insights in governments and how that is going to play out? >> i think we have to be aware there is a trend in place here that to me is problematic. and that is between 1970 and now, the trend was toward state stabilization. even though it was a false promise of stability under authoritarian. in lebanon, it has been the other way for some time. in iraq, sure. libya, syria. the question becomes, can you have effective governance without a state? this is a hugely important problem. the kingdom's do not face it yet. or may not. i do not know. egypt, tunisia.

this is one element of effective governance. you need a cohesive, coherent states. marwan? >> i think it was an extremely important question. i think social networks of grown with almost every government in the region. the state provides favors to players, a small or big. it is not a productive form of, you know, production. it is not merit-based. it is loyalty-based on favors. that model can no longer exist.

certainly not in pour monarchies. -- in poor monarchies. it is interesting to see the example we saw in jordan, the government actions -- reactions to subsidies. they raised prices in egypt. why accept this? why did new -- why did you not say anything about the government in egypt and you say it about the government in jordan? in egypt, it is an elected government. in other words, no more. it is not that people do not accept the reality. is the reality. -- it is the reality.

the government just cannot keep on subsidizing. the ability of government to take decisions, if they are not unpopular decisions, if they are not elected -- in my view, that may be one of the positive side effects of the economic crisis in the region. it is forcing governments hopefully to reconsider social contact with their people. it is something, once again, that i mentioned. it succeeded for a short period of time. before other factors kicked in. i am not willing to can see -- to concede the islamic governments have sovereignty in the region. i do not know that. yes, you see that they have

benefited from a closed political system where the only two options were this government or the islamic opposition. they will continue to have that advantage for some time. forces have the opportunity to organize and become a credible force. but that idea has not existed since independence. it is not going to result in a democratic society. but hopefully this will lead to others. >> thank you very much. please join me in thanking our panelists. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> and from this live event, an update on news from the middle east. israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu saying earlier today that israel would be a willing partner in a cease-fire with gaza's ruling militant group hamas. the new york times reporting that senior egyptian officials in cairo say israel and hamas are "very close" to a cease-fire agreement. president obama spoke with egyptian negotiators for a third time today on his way back from his trip. the u.s. is seeking an end to the crisis between israel and

hamas. earlier today in the british house of commons, question time, viewers asked a number of questions about syria. william hague said -- here is what he said. >> what we have needed is a political transition that reflects the will of the assyrian people. -- the syrian people. on november 11, there was a major breakthrough with the establishment of the coalition of opposition forces, which has been welcomed by many syrians. i met with the president and his co-rice president's last friday. they have devoted themselves to widening support among all

sections of syrian society and creating a detailed transition plan for syria. i encouraged him to use the next friends of syria meeting, probably next month in morocco, to lay out the future in detail. in addition, -- in response, they expressed their and notion to build on the agreements and will leave the door open to further opposition agreements. and do not repeat the abuses of the assad regime. they tell me they have the interest in protecting the civilian population against attack. it will be up to syrians to approved a future government. these are encouraging statements

by the coalition. they have much to do to win the full support of the syrian people and coordinate efforts and effectively, but it is strongly in the interest of syria, the wider region, and the night -- the united kingdom that we support them. on the basis of the assurances we have seen, majesty's government has decided to recognize the coalition opposition forces as the sole legitimate representative of the syrian people. as the president of the national coalition said to me on friday, recognition imposes obligations on the opposition. >> william hague from earlier today in the house of commons. 9000 british troops are still in afghanistan. you can see that entire program on our website c-span.org. . we will have a live it hearing

on the future of british defense operations in afghanistan and what the transition will look like for afghans and british troops. you can see that tonight at 9:15 on c-span2. word today that the former u.s. senator of new hampshire has died at the age of 82. he was first elected to the senate in 1981. >> how does one adequately express his feelings about a special friend? when that friend is also a world icon, a national hero of unimaginable proportions, and

the legend whose name will live in history long after all here today have been forgotten. fate looked down kindly on this when she chose kneeled to be the first adventurer from our world -- which he chose neil to be the first adventurer from our world. it could have been another, but it was not. and it was not for a reason. no one -- no one -- but no one could have accepted the responsibility of this remarkable accomplishment with more dignity and more grace than neil armstrong. he embodied all that is good and all that is great about america. >> more from the memorial

service for neil armstrong, thanksgiving day on c-span at 10:00 a.m. eastern. and just before 11:30, of behind the scenes look at at life as a teenager in the white house. or 1:00, haul gain skills and game theories are being used to solve world problems. next, from the new york academy of sciences, a discussion of preventing global pandemic. they talk about the list of viruses and the growth in cities. following their remarks, they took questions from the audience. this is 90 minutes. [applause] >> thank you very much, megan. can you will hear me? ok. thank you for coming out tonight. megan explain something i have

been wondering about, i had been told about the seven deadly sins that i had forgotten and i could not figure out where we got that title. that is what we will be talking about tonight. our panel will be talking about, although it might make sense to reverse that and turn it into the virus's go wrathful. i'm going to introduce you to our panelists and then start with some questions. we will be done by 8:30. megan and i have talked about some questions to put to them. i hope they will put some questions and challenges to one another. i hope maybe they will even disagree and contradict on certain things and talk among them as well as to us.

i would think that the panels are more lively when there is interaction. and then we will last for some questions from you all. and then we will adjourn at 8:30 and have a reception. thank you for being here. first all the way to the right, doctor ian lipkin, an md, a professor of neurology and pathology at columbia. is recognized for the development of molecular methods for microbial surveillance and discovery. he has talked about his profession as a viral discovery. he directs the center for direction immunity, the world health organization, surveillance, and disease. and the northeast about offense center.

no shortage of credentials. he took his md at rush medical college and university of washington. residency at ucsf. and then he served in beijing as an intermediary of between the w.h.o. and chinese government during the sars breakout and he code rex efforts in china with the current minister of health 00 co-directs efforts in china. he is a captain in the united states public health service and serves as the deputy director of the influence the division for respiratory diseases. he came up from atlanta. doctor jernigan serves as the

senior public health officer for the influence the division. he responsible for oversight and direction of 300 staff members, policy prepared this, and program support. in addition, he serves as an investigator for influenza research and public health evaluation. we will certainly talk about influenza tonight. maryn mckenna, my colleague as a science writer, she specializes in public health, global health, and food policy. she is a blogger for wired and editor for scientific american and a senior fellow of the shuster institute for journalism. her work has appeared in the guardian, nature, the atlantic, in newsweek, and many other publications. she is the author of "superb

ug," a wonderful book i am reading right now. and he kept peeking back the devil -- and "beating back the devil." she has centered with teams from the disease control to report on malaria, polio, west nile virus, hurricane katrina, the indian ocean tsunami, and the anthrax attack on capitol hill. she is a real party girl. [laughter] maryn has a master's degree from northwestern university. those are our panelists. so, let me start with a historical question, very general. in the late 1960's, we were

hearing that infectious diseases were over. that we have solved that problem. we had all of these wonderful antibiotics and it was thought that was going to be enough, along with other drugs, to some extent, and it was thought by some influential people, who should have known better, that we had closed the book on infectious diseases. that clearly was wrong. why was it wrong? what has changed? what led to that mistaken prediction? >> you are looking at me. first, i think it was not just antibiotics, although that is what we talk about. in the 1960's, there was a notion that science was going to solve everything. we were going to have cars that could fly, for example, which is

something we were waiting for a few months ago. we were not concerned about pollution or running out of energy, democracy was going to be triumphant. everybody was optimistic. i think we have become more realistic. that said, there have been many things that have changed. you look at the some of them, antibiotics have become less effective. during the second world war as penicillin was introduced, it took 30,000 units of penicillin to cure a disease. in fact, people would agree use it. it was so expensive but so powerful. and in that we use millions of units and it does not work at all. now, there had been major changes in the landscape, we have a global world now which is where you can get anything you

want very very rapidly. jfk has 0.1 million international visitors a year. we can reach 72 countries with a nonstop flight. anything over there can be here immediately. we were beginning to see diseases going global. in addition, we have had a lot of deforestation. that results in exposure to animals that we did not have before. there have been many things that have been come before. it is usually referred to in the context of hiv, which is the big pandemic that concerns us all. but obviously there have been many more. as you write about very eloquently in your book, which i recommend. >> thank you. maryn, what about viruses? why did we suddenly start hearing more and more about viruses? certainly not to the exclusion

of bacteria. >> you ask this of a person -- [inaudible] i honestly do not know that i can answer that. i do not think of bacteria as something that has been beaten. actually, i think about what ian was saying, at the moment of confidence when we thought size was going to solve everything in how even the major resistant bacteria had not yet emerged. but i think for why viruses, i am going to have to give the question back. >> back to captain dan. >> they are more likely to

replicate more. it has eight gene segments in it. each of them can host a different protein or function. that virus can actually exchange its genes from one person to another, influence that in a pig is somehow able to get it from a human, there is an endless capability in the replication, when they make copies in themselves. there may be a lot of errors, which may help for evolution. they are able to switch a jeans with each other. you are able to create changes in the virus that can really take off and people. that is where we see pandemic from. you see a lot more of them. you can get viruses infecting people, everywhere. there is a lot more of them. plus, they have a capability to

be able to change themselves. >> i think dan address to the biology portion. when we trained in medicine, probably about the same age, we would make a of, we would say it is by road. that was that the fall. it is not this -- it is viral. it was that by default. now we know much more about it. whereas we could not say very much, we would say it is an affection, and now we can say it is a coronavirus, it is a herpes virus. this has made a huge difference in terms of the public consciousness of viruses that there are definitely differences in the way in which we are exposed to infectious agents.

there had been something like 70 new infectious agents that i can show that are viral that have come up since then, which we did not have in those days. nepa virus, hantavirus, coronavirus, so forth. which we would not have been exposed to if we did not open forests and come into contact with all these other things. >> he mentioned that before and i want to turn back to that. you mentioned coming into contact with animals, and ecological destruction, we have to introduce another basic element to this. a lot of these things, the majority of them are coming out of animals. it is transmissible to humans. the surveys of diseases i have seen it say 60% of our diseases

are is the one not -- are coming out of animals. i want to say something about the new capacity in tools. but let's talk first about the emergence of these things, where they come from, and why they seem to be emerging more now. somebody want to jump on that? >> from a flute perspective, the avian flu, -- flu perspective, the avian flu, they are circulating in the two reservoir is. also, pigs to some degree as well. the opportunities for those things to come to get there are certainly more now than they ever have been. there are a couple of things, crowding is one thing that allows for there to be more

chances for there to be a person able to get something from an animal. there is a density of population. there are 23 cities with over 10 million inhabitants. it has been increasing demand -- dramatically. we also have danced poultry and pig populations. indeed -- in order to feed these cities that are having increasing appetite for needs, to keep and sustained that population, you have to bring it into the city and the cultural practices, it would want to have live birds for sale. they are easy to move around. you can move them into bird markets.

that can lead to a bird being brought in. we know from the avian flu, a distant farmer, it can be very fatal to poultry. they dump them on these markets. and then they sell them. that kind of the situation is one where it is bringing these passages from very far away. so the crowding is there. the connectivity is there. the travel from the city's one to another. that is the easiest it has ever have been in this convergence of humans, poultry, all of that coming together in these very dance spaces but this in a situation where we were not four years ago. >> what is interesting -- and the underlying economic pressure causing the rising and of the economic scale, it is

being -- the appetite for protein and the rising economy in the developing world. it is causing this western- style industrialized farming to move into the east, which will not be as secure. on the other end of the economic curve, the movement of people into the forested areas as they are developed, looking for bush meat because it is cheap. people who are not benefiting from the rising economies are just as exposed as people who are benefiting from the rising economy as well. >> ian, you mentioned a virus that involves industrial scale

animal husbandry as one of the factors. would you tell us that story? give us an outline of the spill over and spread? >> there is an interesting set way there. talking about bats. one of the world experts on that the viruses, over there -- bat viruses, overthere, charlie, reach your hand. the heat was -- he was engaged in a lot of diagnostics. and he wrote a paper a few years ago that talked about bats and the fact that they are reservoirs' for a large number of pathogens. we have ebola and sars and many

others. >> ian, would you describe what day reservoir host is and brought a role that place -- a reservoir host and what role that plays? >> it is literally serving as a reservoir for the infection of other species. frequently there is an end host a virus does not replicate well. but there is a reservoir that allows infection of humans repeatedly. the example might be the west nile virus. people did that have high levels of the growing in their blood, but birds may do so. a mosquito may move back and forth between birds and in fact another person and so forth. once it moves into a pig, or

directly, with the exception -- it does not do this very well. it can spread from human to human. that is what makes it dangerous. beneath the story was an interesting one from the scientific and political viewpoints. if i screw this up, charlie, correct me. a few years ago in the late diseasethere was a named after the area where it is first described. a horse trainer became infected and he became very ill and died. as a result of the investigation of that outbreak, a number of tools were developed that allowed people to recognize it, which is what happens when there is an infection, an outbreak, people try to develop tools so they can figure out what it is.

i think the one who developed a those tools might have been tom or t -- tom at cdc, i am not sure. a few years later, there was an outbreak. what was. was that it was only -- curious was that it was only involving chinese men. it is a muslim country and chinese men were different from the majority of the men. they were frequently involved with farming takes. because they eat pigs, it is part of their culture. the only ones dying were pig farmers. there was a report suggesting it was japanese. they began vaccinating people for it. it did not stop the outbreak at

all. when it became clear this was not the problem, it was another virus entirely, and that was done by recognizing it was something else, it was a political problem because you had an embarrassment. you had this called it. my understanding is somebody had to say to the malaysian government, you have done a brilliant job of taking care of the outbreak and we are going to help you with the new outbreak. there was not any drug for it. it was a question of taking all of the infected pigs and burying them in covering them with a blind and stamping out the outbreak in that fashion. -- with lime and stamping out the outbreak in that fashion. who has seen the movie contagion? that is not good at all.

the pits were modeled from those pictures we have from those outbreaks in malaysia. i completely lost the thread of what i was supposed to talk about. >> getting around to bats. we will come back to contagion later on. >> the origin of this virus was a bat reservoir that infected the pigs. and somebody had the idea that if you willie want to feed them, you plant mangoes so the food is right there and you can throw it in. unfortunately, at the baths liked to eat -- the bats liked to eat the main those and it would secrete the virus. a few years later in bangladesh,

nobody was eating pigs. but the question came up, how are you going to solve this one? how're they getting infected? from very clever people, john epstein and others, began to look at reservoirs'. bats were flying over these containers that would sit next to the tree that would be sold in the marketplace. they would urinate or spit or whatever it is they do in this asap and then people were getting infected the following day. the solution for that one was to cover these collection vehicles. it was sort of like they were doing the same thing we do to

trees for getting maple syrup. bats contributed to the development of the outbreak as well as in malaysia. the other word directly since -- and just in the pine sap. >> i want to add one thing to that. i do not think he mentioned this aspect, part of that was the fact that the native forests where these bats would have been feeding, have been destroyed. they had been displaced from their native forests and therefore were not only enticed to come to the main the trees and the other trees but they were driven to look for food in

human-occupy habitats. >> you are right. >> maryn, you write about the importance of evolution, of course, in bugs acquiring this capacity to resist antibiotics. it is an important part of it. people tend not to think about dar when and evolution in connection with diseases, evolutionary biology is not much taught in medical schools. it is crucial to understanding how pathogens become human past -- pathogens and more and more severe, the evolutionary perspective. can you say something about

that? >> i got myself in trouble the other day by suggesting that anyone who does not accept the theory of evolution is committing an act of bad faith as they take antibiotics. then i got a lecture about macro evolution and microevolution. i think i turned my twitter off at that point. you are right. i think people do not think about -- they do not think about the evolutionary webb, the consequences of the actions that we take, that the evolution of resistance in this instance, whether it is bacterial or hiv is an example of how we have had to do with the change in that virus.

>> you can watch it happen. each year, we have to make a new vaccine because the virus continues to find the way around what ever has circulated for is in the vaccine itself. the week in sequence of viruses and put them into trees and look at all of the genetic relationships. i do not think we think of it as evolution. >> it is hard for people to understand, people understand they take a vaccine once or two or three times. and then they have some degree of protection. but that they have to take a vaccine every year for the flu, not only is confusing and a policy sense, but i think it be values the vaccine. it does not matter if i skip it this year. it is not important.

it is hard to convince somebody. >> there as a lot of meat in there, which i agreed to, and some i do not. i think the fact we have to take new vaccines every year is a failure on the part of our community. there are portions of the viruses that are conservative. we have not found good ways to use those proteins. but we should and we will and i think we will have an effective, once-in-a-lifetime flexing. we are working for that. -- flu vaccine. we are working for that. the reason we have that -- i am not going to go there. it is too long. let me think white -- explain why evolution should be considered. you should have held your

ground. there are many ways in which evolution takes place. with bacteria, it is through sex, genetic material, and you confers some sort of resistance gene which allows that bacteria to survive. this is the foundation, this principle that was developed by a member of this society. viruses, we like to talk about them of having a huge brigid unitary sequence. but they really do not. it is a big population in your sampling down the middle. within that population, there is -- so with it moves from here to there, and this requires a different series of properties, those genomes that are present in that population will begin to describe the middle. he really need to think about

viruses as a swarm of species. as they reproduce their acid, every time they make 1000 nucleotides, the have one heir and if you multiplied that over minutes and hours there is a lot of opportunity to explore different environments. in addition, flu viruses, as captain dan was saying, have the ability to not only new tape that way, but also they can exchange genome segments -- mutate that way, but they can also exchange genome segments and developed a new landscape. and then take off. >> so we have these viruses that are spilling over from animals into humans. in some cases, they cause no symptoms at all.

in some cases they become harmless passengers. as far as we know, it causes no symptoms in humans, it spills over from a kind of monkey in southeast asia and gibson to people through contact, like that monkey temples where people are feeding. -- gets into people to contact, like monkey temples where people are feeding. it is an indicator to transfer and that could also result in the transfer of a nasty virus. some of them have no clinical effect on humans. some of them cause outbreaks that are gruesome and relatively short, like ebola. it is relatively easy to contain. it kills a lot of people but it does not come out of africa.

>> there have been people who have come back to europe, for example, who have been affected. it can happen. >> one with ebola. >> i am not saying it is common. i am saying it can happen. >> the person who took an airplane with ebola, was on a stretcher been -- being medivaced to switzerland. some spillover and ride airplanes rather well and get to toronto, beijing, singapore and

kill people and then either stop or are controlled. and then some seem to be unstoppable, like the influenzas and the pandemic strain of hiv. what is it in terms of the evolutionary potential of these viruses that most determines which ones are going to be local, terrifying but local, which ones are going to be epidemic, and which ones can potentially become pandemic? >> we talk about animal and human, but there is a role of technology in the spread of these diseases that is probably

as important as human interaction. we saw that with stars in taiwan at the peak of that. -- sars in taiwan at the peak of that. if you can get the infected patient to a place where the technology is such that it can be transmitted, like with west now virus, we had four cases of encephalitis in a hospital. it turned out to be west nile virus. it turned out the person who had been infected but not really shown symptoms was in a car wreck and had died and become an

organ donor. but right before she died, she received almost 30 units of blood. life-saving technology was used. we tested every blood unit. in the last unit she got, we found was not all virus. that was a demonstration that the unit of blood was given to a person, and then the organs became vehicles for carrying west nile virus. you can see where right now we're seeing meningitis because of technology. the bacteria gets to the right place and and technology is there to allow for the disease to spread. that is the thing we want to be most aware of. hospitals in uganda working on

control is going to be the best thing to keep ebola from getting out. >> according to some accounts, perhaps very important in the early spread of hiv was the hypodermic needle. it was being used to inoculate people with various types of medicines, including medicines to deal with malaria. there are not very many needles, so they were being reused. a writer who published a book about the origins of aids bring some new data to the idea the french colonial doctors injecting malaria medicines and medicines to fight against various kinds of venereal diseases reusing needles may

have been an important early factor in multiplying the hiv infection preference. do you find a plausible, a persuasive? >> i find it very plausible, and i would add to that that in many villages there are vitamin b injections without any conscience taken for sterility. the other thing i would add to this is the smallpox vaccine. the introduction of needles in a broadway made it more acceptable to have the -- in a broad way made a more acceptable to have these kinds of interactions. things like how erratic fevers

-- hemorrhagic fevers. >> in high sars outbreak, they had what we called flailed into bashan. -- intubation. things sprayed everywhere. >> there were people we described as super-spreaders, who released large amounts of virus, in feces as well. super spreaders were the

typhoid mary is. >> except typhoid mary was a symptomatic. these people were symptomatic. everybody who came to this quarter was at very high risk for infection. we do see things like that and we do not yet understand enough about certain people having more immunodeficiency, which are more likely to become infected if they are exposed. we do not understand all factors that contribute to whether or not you become a super spreader, whether or not you become infected. now with the genome sequence for humans and other animals, i think we will understand much more about that shortly. >> in sars, there are two great

examples of how much difference technology makes. this is such a non-scientific thing to say, but we have to consider the role that luck and random chance play. one of those people went to hanoi, checked into a hospital and created a fantastic outbreak. and that was one of the better hospitals. one person from a french hospital went to bangkok. he stayed in the hospital to help them deal with their outbreak until he realized he himself was getting sick. he fled to bangkok for treatment, was treated by the cdc doctors there. they knew he was coming.

they adequately contained -- even though it was not by any means the best hospital in bangkok. there was not any secondary transmission from a person in bangkok even though there were 276 transmissions from a single person in hanoi. >> there were two major hospitals in hanoi. one was the french hospital. the other was a public hospital. you have somebody who has an infection deepen their lungs and you give them an aerosol and break up all the secretions, and you disengage and the stuff goes every which way. that is where we have the greatest red. the woman who worked this out, who died about 10 years ago, was there, looked into this in

detail, and sorted out what was going on. >> one of the things i think was very interesting about the starars experience, of all the scary viral diseases, certainly influence and hiv have been enormously consequential and will continue to be, but sars killed about 900 people of the 8000 people that it infected. which are not huge numbers in this area. but colleagues of dan and other experts around the world have told us that of all these, one of the scary as it is --

scariest is sars. that could have been much, much worse. we humans really dodged a bullet with sars. to what extent was it really good, early diagnostic? to what extent was a firm public health measures? and this is the point that i am getting to that i would like you to comment on, to what extent was the luck of where this occurred? it came out of southern china. it got to hong kong, the metropolitan hotel. the super spreaders credit to a lot of people and those people got on their airplanes to go home. one went to toronto. one went to beijing. somebody went to hanoi. somebody went to singapore. in those places, it was

contained. it was stopped. think about those cities, toronto, hong kong, beijing, hanoi, singapore. those are all command-and- control cities with very from governments and -- firm government and fairly to very good health care service. what might have happened if it had emerged in the democratic republic of congo and then come to the airport? might it have been very different? >> in toronto, they actually had two ways. in fact, we had the team that got rid of it in toronto come to taipei and educate us on how

they stopped it. they had a psychiatric hospital and other settings where there was ongoing transmission. they did not continue to detect it and they had a whole second wave. there is a lesson to be learned there that you cannot just assume something is over. you have to keep monitoring it. you can assume is going to be over. -- cannot assume it is going to be over. >> we had a case worker in new york who was singapore chinese. he became ill. he saw a doctor who told him he was good to fly. when he got to frankfurt, he was so sick, he was put into a high

level by a container -- bio- container right there at the airport. they were able to put him in containment. if he had stayed another 14 hours in new york, we would have had a high risk of an outbreak here. but the point you're making earlier i think was a good one. if you have a population that is immunosuppressed and you have a virus that emerges like this one, and it has time to adapt and become more efficient and be transmitted between humans, that would have been an unbelievably devastating problem for the world. we are worried about that and that is why we have the

international health regulations of 2005 that have been adopted by all the member states of the united nations. that says that diagnostic therapeutics have to be universally distributed. in part, that is the right thing to do, but it is also a bit selfish. if we do not stop it there, it is going to come here. that is the other aspect of it. >> the other thing about sars is it declared itself when it could be spread. if somebody got feverish, you could put them in the room or wherever. it would tell us when you needed to do something. flu and other things do not. >> you are talking about people shedding a virus before they get

sick enough to have to go lie down. >> right. if they had a fever, they would go to attend, get a swab for testing in be put into quarantine. that plus the enormous amount of control and health care settings really did have an impact. those viruses that do not declare themselves early in the infectious period, you are going to have a hard time controlling. >> i want to raise two more questions and then ask you -- and then allow you to ask questions. i hope you have them percolating in your mind. it is my job in the job of our colleagues to explain what these guys did. to ordinary readers. to entertain them, but also to educate them.

how do you think we are doing and what are the constraints against doing better? >> that is a really good question. because i think we all have seen for the past -- how long has been since the coming plague and the hot zone were published? 20 years. people love scary disease stories, for reasons that probably go way back in our cultural and evolution. they are the monster under the bed stories. they are the stories we would have told around a campfire. there is a tendency for writers to want to scare people because audiences want that. but as a responsible science writer, i often ask myself to what degree i need to pull back from that to serve the greater

good. this point comes up today in an interesting way -- not today, at our panel, but a couple of hours ago the new england journal of medicine put live on there website -- their website up peer review paper about a virus in the middle east. >> explain what that virus is for people who are not familiar. >> ian is more familiar. >> ian is on black out. >> i have some sort of magnet for the microphone inside my clothing. is this on? i am just going to hold this. so, we all know what sars looks

like. in september, a gentleman of qatari origin who had been visiting saudi arabia became very sick quite quickly with what seemed to be pneumonia. his family was well off and paid for him to be medevaced to london. while he was in london, the international mailing list pro med which is run out of harvard -- and if you do not subscribe, you should. it is fantastic. among other things, they were responsible for bringing the first story of sars to the world. pro met ran a note from a physician in saudi arabia who three months earlier who had

died from what turned out to be the novel coronavirus. this has been of enormous public health interest for about a month now. it is of interest to the world health organization, the cdc. tonight, the new england journal of medicine published the first two peer reviewed pieces on this novel coronavirus. one is a case report on what turned out to be the first case, the case in saudi arabia, not the case in london. this gentleman died very rapidly. it was a very fast-moving ammonia and renal failure. the second failure is actually an editorial written by the former director of viral diseases at the cdc who is now at emory university. the question he raises, and this

is why this is important for science writers, is that in this editorial, reflecting on this new outbreak in the middle east, which at this point does not appear to be going very far, although ian would have much more to say about that, that he cannot say, but just in the past 10 or 15 years, if you go back to 1998, west nile in 1999, sars in 2003, h1n1 in 2009, in each case we found them faster. as a result, public health strategies were agreed to more quickly. the problem with that is that the identification, the alarm over it and the agreement to form a public health strategy in some cases happened before we knew how big the outbreak was going to get.

in this case, that might be dead, because -- might be good, because if something is going to happen with this novel coronavirus, we are in danger. and the other hand, it might be too much, too fast. >> the region -- the reason the saudis are so worried about this is just weeks away millions of people will be converging in an area where if this is a potential, it is a serious risk. we faced a pandemic with h1n1. if you do not jump out and make a big case for this and you are wrong, it is a horrific outcome. if you jump and make too big a

claim, you are belittled. >> i have a lot of follow-up questions i would love to ask about the, but at this point, let's open it up. there is a microphone there and a microphone there. if you have questions, please go to the microphone and line up and we will get to as many as we can. >> we have had some students come and. >> students from where? we don't know. from a high school. they are also very welcome to ask questions. do we want people to identify themselves? i guess it is not necessary. yes, make your question concise

and these folks will try to make their answers concise, and we will try to cover as many as we can. >> i was just curious what you thought about the controversy over publishing viruses in case they could be weapon is and whether that is a real danger. >> there was research done in the last year in rotterdam and elsewhere on whether it is possible to create a form of bird flu in captivity that is transmissible. >> we had a meeting here of the academy of humans back on this point -- at the academy of a few months back on this point. what was described there was a method by which a virus which was not capable of ready transmission in human to human or mammal to mammal was converted into something that

could do so. there were several issues that came up. one was should be done in the first place -- could it be done in the first place and if so, what should we do about it? the question -- the answer was if it could be done, the work should be done in the first place. is not clear that the model with which they worked was the one that was going to make a difference. my concern is not the people are going to take these sequences and use them to make a virus, but there have been many incidents in the past 10 years

were people working with viruses have had difficulties with inadvertent release. this happened after sars. people working with the viruses were not as careful as they should have been. i argued a week ago in a prominent journal that my feeling was that we had to have an international consensus on how to do data function research. it was not going to be just h1n1. there would be other examples as well. to have a sufficient level of containment, there are parts of the world where bsl3 is not going to be as good as it is at the university of wisconsin or rotterdam. as a result, my concern is that

the risk of in and burn release of these agents the inadvertent release of these agents. i am not that concerned about age 1 and 1. i do not think it will be -- h1n1. i do not think it will be a lethal pathogen. i am concerned that there are other pathogens being worked with the could be more lethal and problematic. >> another question over here. >> it seems to me you ignored the most dangerous place for americans, the american hospital, where more people die from infections and so on. just recently, a doctor came to

the hospital. he broke his leg. they provide him his septic shock. now cost a half million dollars. >> it is a good question to marin is thethink amri person to answer that. >> people spend seven hours in the emergency room. >> yes. have a chance to reply. i have just been reading about this in her book. he was saying what about hospital acquired infections?

this is a severe and statistically significant place where people get sick from infections. >> which is uniquely tragic, because unlike the emerging infections we are talking about, we know what the hospital infections are. right? they are for the most part not a surprise. what is failing to keep hospital associated infections under control is a combination of the structure of our health care system and simple human error. when i was reporting for the book super bug, one of the things i did was i went to a hospital that has had incredible success in controlling infections in the hospital. i wanted to see how they had done it. one of the things they did was

they hired people to watch their staff and grade them to see if there staff were washing their hands. astonishingly, the rate of hand washing among health care personnel as something like 60% of all the opportunities they have to wash their hands. even with someone washing them -- watching them, even when they knew who the person was, not a mystery shopper, someone standing there with a clipboard, they still made a mistake. how we get rid of mistakes is something we have yet to solve. how that leads back to emerging infections, well, in toronto, one of the reasons they managed to contain sars, particularly the second time, was because it

was toronto. the stated order of the government was, of peace, order and good government. not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. when they asked 35,000 people to stay home, they do it. >> a lot of things seem to make it worse. a lot of things make it better. i am not sure if there is a net win. the 1918 flu killed a lot of people. drop it in mexico city. better? worse? what is on our side? should i go home and never sleep again?

>> i recommend crawling under the bed. that is my strategy. lot that is different between now and 1918. one thing that is really important is early detection. we have diagnostics now that we can detect things much faster. we have drugs that can treat things. we have the ability to keep people alive with antibiotics and treatment for secondary infections. we of information and ways of sharing in formation that we never had previously. whereas the virus can go very quickly from one person to another, we can also do that with information. we can share things. there are virtual platforms where clever years can come together and share information about -- collaborators can come together and share information about the virus and what they're

doing. all of that really improves the capability to contain. in 1918, samoa had 25% of their population die. now, we share with them. we send agents to them. we have agents ready to be doing testing long before a the infection would ever even get there. from a diagnostic sharing standpoint and also from the regulatory sharing standpoint, these are no longer things you report after you figure the mouth, we of changed how you report concerns -- after you

figure them out, we have changed how you report concerns. come up with a plan. the affirmation is better. the technology is better, and i think people's expectations about what can be done in a quick way are there. >> and yet, in 1918, it took the virus 11 months to go around the globe because the fastest travel was trains and steamships. ars five days. [inaudible] >> she means that on the negative side. >> yes, that was not a positive.

>> happy halloween. how worried should we be about these things and how adequate is the funding for what you folks do? >> can you answer that? >> there were two questions. how worried should we be about weaponization. you have something that is already dangerous and you bring it out of nature and put it into humankind. until recently, that was the most worrisome thing we had. it is true now that with synthetics you can make genomes of what ever you light, including -- like, including small pox. an advisory committee was

started under bush and continued under obama because this is a challenge that has not gone away. we have reintroduced concerns about synthetics. that is quite real. the second question is about funding. funding is dismal. i am glad you raised that as an issue, in many respects. first, we have problems with infrastructure. some of the funding that became available early on after 9/11 has been decimated. we are not training people. we have not supported them. it is a huge issue. the nih budget now for infectious diseases is funding a the sixth percentile. six. we not seen that in my entire career. that is a stop-gap decision until we have the budget for the

following year, the fact of the matter is this is a huge challenge. now, i was in china a month ago, where they are ramping up just as we are shutting down. so, there is some effort in other parts of the world where there is more support to keep the science going, but there will be a brain drain away from the united states unless this is corrected. so if you have anywhere with all either personally or politically to help this situation, it is critical. the other thing i should point out is that we are not educating kids to go into science, engineering and math. there is a big stem initiative to try to reverse this, but we clearly need to educate kids better so they can go into careers where they do things better than we do now.

i thank you for bringing it up. the funding is dismal. >> specifically cdc, what are the funding prospects there? >> that is not a great thing for me to respond to. >> fair enough. [laughter] >> of our men employee cannot lobby for support of his -- a government employee cannot lobby for support of his agencies, but i can tell you what i described for our program is the same. he has the same problem. it is dismal and getting worse. >> this year has been the worst year for west nile virus since it arrived in america in 1999, the worst outbreak this year for west nile virus was around dallas because of budget cuts. remember, this is a disease spread by mosquitoes.

texas has no entomologist anymore. they cut the position because they ran out of money. >> for over a century, the u.s. fire service had the task of extinguishing any fire that was started on federal land. that wound up with a situation where we have these huge, hot, devastating forest fires in the modern era. is our public health policy doing something similar? >> is an interesting metaphor, but i do not know if it is completely transferable.

>> what about the trend in decline of vaccination. another colleague wrote a book called the panic virus. he talked about the virus spread of belief that vaccinations make people sick, especially children. vaccinations cause autism, among other things. a lot of science shows that is a false concern, but it has led to a serious decline of rates of vaccination in children in some areas. >> let's not completely step away from the point that was just made. it is an interesting idea. there is another way of looking at that, and this is that there has been an increase in certain atopic illnesses commack asthma, allergies and so forth.

and the suggestion has been put forward that as a result of you not being exposed to certain types of infections, your immune system has shifted in a way that you see more of these allergic reactions. some people are trying to address this using warm therapy -- worm therapy. >> maybe i am not the only one who does not know what you mean. >> people are being given infections with certain worms that are infected, so the immune system shifts to being more balance. some people think that by eradicating all of these illnesses and exposure in childhood, we are leaning that direction. it is an interesting point.

>> you opened with a forecast 50 years ago that was both optimistic and naive. with the changes in bioengineering, do you have some optimism that in the foreseeable future we will have these bugs under genetic control? >> i'm actually quite optimistic that we are going to be able to control much of this. it will be a function of science and political will. there is a movement to reduce the use of antibiotics in livestock, which i think will have a huge impact. as long as we do that, i think many of these super bugs about which we are worried now will

come under control. i think the diagnostics allow us to do a much better job of surveillance so we can actually track how things are moving and so forth. i want to come back to the issue of vaccines just briefly. it is true that there was a reduction in the mmr vaccine following reports almost 10 years ago suggesting there was a link between mmr and autism. although i have written papers where i try to say -- where i say unequivocally that i do not think mmr is responsible for outbreaks of autism, i do think

there are people who have adverse reactions to vaccines. we do not know who they are. we cannot predict to they are. it does not account for the vast majority of cases of development disorders, but there are people who have idiosyncratic reactions to vaccines, and unfortunately, it is the price of protecting the larger population. but i do think we have a responsibility to make sure if somebody does have an adverse reaction that they get the best care they can. and i think we ever responsibility to determine who is at risk so they get a different type of vaccine. we cannot vaccinee people who are in a deficient. we vaccinate everyone around

them. >> is there a point in the near future where you see emerging measures in public health in conflict with civil liberties? that has happened in the past. is it in the future? >> in taipei during sars, they really lost civil liberties and a situation. >> in the past, during certain times of the early of 20th- century, there was mandatory smallpox vaccination. 12 years ago you could get on an airplane carrying a pocket knife. you cannot any more, but you can

still get on carrying a virus. is the transportation security administration going to be screening us for body temperature? >> they do that in asia now. when you go through passport control, there is a formal stand. that is quite common in other parts of the world. >> you cannot get of thea visa m the hague unless you can prove you have been vaccinated against certain ellises. >> a believe i read a study a few years ago in which researchers looked at a hospital or a handful of hospitals and were looking at treating every patient's room as if it were part of a surgical unit. they found that drastically reduce the number of cases they had of infections within

hospitals. i think i read that the problem was how to replicate that and get people on board and make sure it was not too costly or time consuming. >> costly and time-consuming. if we could solve those two, we could solve the hospital epidemics. >> my question about vaccines, earlier you were talking about the possible failing of the community and creating a flu vaccine that could be given once in a lifetime or on a less regular basis. my question is about public perception and what you have already started to address tonight. between personal experience among highly educated adults in addition to studies i have read, there seems to be a huge push back against vaccines and not just because of the idea that it may cause autism. there are many misperceptions about the consequences of

vaccination. i understand your point about protecting people who cannot have certain vaccines, but heard immunity will not work if 40% of the community is not being vaccinated at all. i'm wondering what you think could be done better to increase awareness because it seems like the misinformation about vaccination is alarmingly prolific. >> some things have changed. rihanna movement several years ago where a lot of folks were come -- we had a movement several years ago where a lot of folks were coming on board with anti-vaccine messages. articles have held some, but there is still a need -- it is very hard to have a vaccine campaign. you have to have money. you have to have people set up. you have to inject everyone.

it is not that difficult to have an anti-vaccine campaign. a blogged can do that. it is very easy. for flu vaccine, we have seen the highest coverage we have ever had in children. we have seen racial disparity for those under 18 years of age go away. there are campaigns out there trying to get to folks who really need it. when we put our mind to it, we can do it. i think we still have to address those issues and figure out why people are concerned about it. if you have never seen measles, mumps, chicken pox, it is easy to say why on earth do i have to have this?

if you go to web sites were parents post pictures and stories about children who have died or had significant illness, you can remind folks that this is something that used to be a significant problem. we had an incredible way of getting rid of it. we have to keep vaccinating to keep it from coming back. >> trying to demonstrate that there is no relationship between one factor and the outcome, whether it is mmr and autism or xmrv, plrv and chronic fatigue syndrome, the approach the people take is to try to replicate it as best they can and then say i do not find it so it doesn't exist. the only way we can do this is

make the people who create the initial report a partner in finding validity in what they have done. that is what we did with mmr. they could not replicate early findings. similar with the chronic fatigue story, they were unable to find a link between the presence of the agent and the disease. again, i think scientists frequently live in a world of their own which is not interactive with the world that they want to influence and help. it is very important to have meetings like this where we have discussions about what you understand about what we do and what you don't understand, because we do not necessarily know whether or not we communicate effectively. >> we are going to take just a little bit more time to have a question from our high school students.

>> what do you suppose we should do with the fraction of the population that refuses to be inoculated because of their religious beliefs? >> who wants to handle that one? [laughter] >> from the mouth of -- >> charlie, i say something. >> you do not have to do anything. it will take care of itself. [laughter] >> thank you, charlie. >> in regards to super spreaders, today's super spread for specific diseases -- do they super spread specific diseases

or multiple diseases? if they super spread the common cold, is it possible to determine if they would spread something more serious? >> the concept of the super spreader really came out of sars. and those individuals died, so we do not know if they were capable of spreading other agents as well. it is not just a question of genetics. there was a mention of typhoid mary. she lived on an island of manhattan and was finally placed on this island because she was told not to work in the food industry and every time she was told not to do this, she went back and infected people because she was carrying the virus in her gallbladder. she was a super spreader of a

tight. there are people who shed certain bacteria. dentists with hepatitis have infected multiple people on whom they have worked. there are individuals infected with hiv who go out and knowingly infect other people. those are situations where i think you do have to have some sort of legal ramifications, real legal ramifications regardless of religious persuasions. that is not going to take care of itself, charlie. >> with super spreaders, at a hospital in taipei, the individual we described in the laundry, who was delivering stuff, probably had gi illnesses and was just not washing his hand. there may be behavioral factors

and a whole other -- a whole lot of other things that lead to super spreading. >> final question. >> do you think the cdc should have the right or mandate that people be quarantined if they have the disease from a legal constitutional, medical and ethical perspective? >> there are very few authorities that cdc has. the authority to quarantine is one of them. my first outbreak in 1994 was here in manhattan on a cruise ship called the celebrity. they had legionnaires' disease on it. i flew up, came out, met the ship with the quarantine folks.

abc news was there, everybody. that was my first outbreak. we thought, just stop the boat from moving, because we had that authority. recall that the authorities and said how do we -- we called the authorities and said how do we invoke the only authority we have? they said we don't know. we have not done it since 1920- something. it is used very infrequently. we do not work through heavy handed authority. we generally work through wearing a white cowboy hat and shaming people into doing something appropriately by exposing what the problems are and by collaborating in ways in which no one ever knows we are involved. that tends to have a much greater capability to have

change occur than to have a heavy handed approach. >> i was placed in quarantine in 2003 by the new york city health department. it can be done locally. >> i am going to end with two observations that are very cheerful to me and in a constitutionally very gloomy person. i think it very cheerful, very encouraging, very reassuring that we have professionals like you have heard from tonight working on the subject and very encouraging that we have people like you in the gene in the subject, coming out on a night like this -- engaging in the subject, coming out on and i like this to hear about this. -- on a night like this to hear about this. thank you. [applause] >> on behalf of the academy, i would like to thank our excellent panelists and invite

you to join us for a drink or a soft drink in the lobby. there will be a book signing. thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> here is a look at our prime- time lineup tonight on the c- span networks. federal reserve chairman ben bernanke gives his economic outlook from an event hosted earlier today in new york city. on c-span-2, obama biographer's discuss his evolution as president. and on c-span-3, a professor how rainy on the threats and challenges facing -- hal raney on the threats and challenges facing the government work force.

here is a brief look at some comments from this morning. >> when i left the white house i did a tour of the country and talked to a bunch of smart people because the truth is the world has changed. technology, entertainment, your world, all those things have changed drastically in four years. one person gave me a great piece of advice. he said you have to blow up the 2008 campaign. you're only the 1965 rolling stones once. the second time, you have to overcharge for your tickets. i told the president, it is not going to be 2008 again. he said what are you talking on?ut, we wan

i said, but we're in a different time. we have to do things differently. he said, ok, but it has to be about the grassroots. >> and you have to win. there was a real debate about this. there was people wondering if there was a split between the west wing and the campaign. having it in different time zones, how did this work? >> you had committed folks that spent all day, every day, sitting in an open space in chicago, and they built a brand new campaign. the reason i knew it was going to work was the in august, 2011, during the debt limit deal, one of our software engineers walked

into a meeting i was in and said it is there something going on television these days, what is happening? they were focused on building. we were able to just spend a year building a bunch of things and becoming helpful on the ground. we were able to spend 15 hours a day, every single day for 18 months building a grass-roots campaign. >> all of that political event with jim messina this evening at 6:0 p.m. eastern c-span.org. >> this place still resonates with the shattering in the hearts of the american people. more than any other name connected to the civil war except lincoln, gettysburg

reverberates that what happened here was the crux of our american trial, and americans who do not know precisely what transpired on these fields know that all of the glory and tragedy we associate with the civil war presides most palpably here. >> thursday night, and steven spielberg on the battle of gettysburg and abraham lincoln's legacy. >> the university of vermont hosted a conference looking at the future of public research universities, comparing private universities to public universities, focusing on faculty, funding, and degrees that will lead to jobs. this is 90 minutes. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> welcome back to the program. good morning. scott jaschik. welcome to the concluding day of this symposium on the future of public research universities. before i introduce the panel, just to remind you all, we are filled for c-span so when we get to the questions and answers, it is important to use the microphone. thank you for your interest. i want to introduce the topic and then turn it over to discussion with panelists and get you involved. we are talking right now about research, scholarships and the arts at the great public research universities. in essence, what we are talking about is the faculty, their role, and who the faculty are,

including teacher faculty, including graduate students. i would argue we are at a huge challenge in the ability of public universities to recruit, retain the best, and sustain the conditions that create outstanding scholarship and teaching. it is little remembered today, and i find it when i speak in public it surprises that 50 years ago it was not a given that the best programs in best finances were at the lead, private institutions -- elite private institutions. for much of the history the very best with defiant -- found in public. the renown of berkeley's physics department, although not every year people talk about whether it is in decline, but history of the university of wisconsin, the

social sciences at the university of michigan -- you have areas where for much of the history of higher education the very best did not necessarily go to the ivy league schools to teach and do research. today, we are at a significant disadvantage for public universities in attracting and keeping faculty. to give you some figures on salaries, to set the stage, the average, full-time faculty member at a private research university this year is hurting a little more than 160 two thousand dollars. -- earning a little more than $162,000. public, $122,000. the average salary for an assistant professor at private universities is 89,000, which is greater than the average of an associate professor at public universities, which is $82,000.

it used to be that if you of that great research universities, public and private, -- looked at great research universities, public and private, the close to one another, many times the public paid more or was at least equal. if you look now at stanford and berkeley, stanford is paying on average $40,000 a year more to their professors in berkeley. duke, $30,000 more on average than chapel hill. chapel hill professors earn less on average than those at wesleyan college, a liberal arts college that tactically would not have seven -- typically would not have the salaries of a great research universities. here in vermont, middlebury pays more on average in the university of barack -- vermont. if you look at the top figures,

assistant professors, future talent, you have a situation where there are nine universities were new assistant professors earn six-figure salaries. eight of them are private, and the one that is public is a medical institution. the future very much for favors private in attracting and retaining talent. it is not just in terms of salary. many people in academia choose their field not because they want to get rich but there is a calling to the academic life, but it is beyond that. spoke to a research university president of a public institution this year and we were talking about counter- offers his institution has to make, and he says when he was lucky he could find enough money someone to manage many

salaries but he could not match the conditions of the buildings, the ability to produce the number of graduate students desired by star faculty members to work with them, and he could not magic course reduction, where as a private research president could offer an amazing package overall to star faculty that is very hard for publics to match. this turns up all over the place. as a result, we see right now, when talking about how to sustain excellence in scholarship and research, you see a lot of polls searching where institutions are trying to think about how "private" they can become. so many institutions have basically given up on the state. as i was reminded this morning, there are institutions like the university of vermont that have

a public/private relationship, what characteristics and history in both, but for many institutions there is no such history and talk of becoming more independent could be controversial and upsetting to many people. yet, to many leaders, if they do not talk about that, they feel their excellence is in danger. there is a debate at ucla about giving up state funds for its business school. there was a debate at the university of wisconsin at madison two years ago where a chance to try to become more independent, and perhaps it is not a coincidence that chancellor is the president of the liberal arts college in massachusetts and no longer in wisconsin. these are difficult issues to deal with. we have a panel of people that have been trying to deal with these issues. i will introduce them briefly, starting at the end on my right

with tom sullivan, who is the president of the university of vermont, our host today, and was previously senior vice president at the university of minnesota. then we have james duderstadt, who is president america's at the university of michigan, and who has led many panels trying to grapple with the future of research universities. to my left, domenico grasso, was president for research in dean of the college here the university of vermont, and then we have william diverse. they have answered questions in the advance that i would draw from. i want to start by asking all of the panel, and maybe start with our host, to ask about the aspirations. when you think about scholarship

and research at public research universities today, should there be a different expiration for public and private great universities, where it is it the same? >> i think the answer has to be a definite no, there should not be a difference. i think the public, when they are supporting, regardless of what level, public institutions need to know they will be of the highest quality, first rate and compete on the global stage for faculty and students. it is particularly important for public universities to raise expectations and the aspirations for quality and excellence and our students and constituencies should not accept anything less. there is a cost. there is a substantial cost to that, and we have to simply make

a better case than we have made to political and public constituents, as well as private constituents including alumni and other entities. why higher education in this country is absolutely critical if this country is going to be in the forefront on the big global issues of today. it has always been, as you suggested in your questions, our big, public research universities that have led this country in break through, in addition, a scholarship and research, and we simply cannot lose that investment. we have to make a better case with our constituents. >> higher education in america is intensely competitive. which compete for faculty, students, -- we compete for faculty, students come the went to pick, -- philanthropy,

students, and some are fortunate to compete on the football field. we seek the best, and we tended to recruit from the same pool, but we are different in character, and that difference, to some degree is an advantage in recruiting faculty and students in some cases, a particularly when we look at how we are supported. it can be a challenge. back in the days when i was just learning how to be a university administrator i had an opportunity to spend an afternoon with derek bok, and at that time michigan and harvard were a communication channel between the public and private, and he noticed the vast wealth of harvard could be focused in ways that were hard for an institution like michigan to even imagine. he said we could deploy resources to recruit outstanding faculty and students and it is typical for you to compete, but

he said institutions like university of michigan have one advantage, and that advantage was our combination of not simply excellence in intellectual span, but capacity. we have the capacity to take risks, can do things in a way privates were not able to do. at harvard tried a new experiment in a new program and it failed, everything was in jeopardy a place like michigan, we could offer significant -- jeopardy. at a place like michigan we could launch significant programs. we launched one of the first human gene therapy programs, building critical space combat and found ourselves 20-to-30 years ahead of time. in the late-1980's, we were

asked to build a network that would link them together with a scientist, and lo and behold that became the internet. if that was a big experiment that succeeded. in a sense, it is the excitement of large public universities take risks and in some cases change the world that give hawse an edge in attracting talent that sometimes the lead privates, even though they might not -- they might pay higher salaries, might not have. >> scott jaschik, u s they important question, but i would like to which you asked an important question, but i would like to -- u.s. an important question about public and private, but we are competing on a global scale, and the public has a sense of responsibility that many of the private did not.

where they came is a projection of where they are going to go. the private might not be as well resources. we're not trying to privatize, but become more self-sufficient on the public side of the academic structure here. i think what the bottom line is is best what the public's have it is what the public's have through their state connections to aat the public's have state connections is a sense of serving a greater population, and that defines its application in terms of what they decide to pursue in terms of research

enterprise, and also how they pursue it. i think the research issue is certainly going to be a question and a factor that will play out across the entire academic structure in the united states, but it will have repercussions that will go across the globe. >> i think it is important for the public to bear in mind in terms of scale, public research universities produce something like 85% of the undergraduates in the nation, the majority of the graduate students, something like 60% of all federally funded research. it has been pointed out that the entire undergraduate student body of all of the i believe this schools put together could fit inside the football stadium

of any public university. i think it is important for the public to realize that teaching is only -- i'm just pointing out something obvious, but the discovery mission of the public research universities has a transformational impact on our quality of life and standard of living. the list of discoveries that come out of research universities is something most people are not aware of. the often cited lasers, magnetic resonance, a global positioning systems, the of the rhythms for google searches -- the breakthrough technologies that we take for granted, all of public and private research universities. >> you all seem generally

optimistic about the conditions that public universities can have, and i want to push back a little bit scared when i read headlines and when i'm searching for news, i see public research universities talking about things like selective excellence, or here at the university of vermont, the spires program, but the idea that these days the public universities need to focus on a few areas and sacrifice breath that one might find the top universities -- private universities. michigan might be an exception. i wonder, does that limit the areas where you could have research breakthroughs? does that say it will only be in some areas that we really compete? >> the question has to be one of balance, the right proportion, and the context within one who

finds -- which one finds circumstances. your question note said the importance of differentiation, -- notes that and portents of differentiation. that is where the investment should take place. there might be things that we do not have high-quality or particular distinctiveness, and perhaps we have to declare that given the constrained budgets that we live with we certainly cannot do certain things anymore, but i think that is strategic and it permits us to make investments where we have strength and comparative advantage as, and perhaps engage -- advantage is, and perhaps engage much more on the collaborative, court-sharing on the research side. we do not do that particularly well.

jim would know this. i am reminded of the 50-year success of the university of chicago in the big tent, -- 10, collaborating significantly on infrastructure, technology, coarse-sharing -- we simply have to do a lot more collaborative and interaction with each other to be able to increase the scale so necessary for the investment if we are going to have those breakthrough research opportunities that we have seen in the past. we cannot do this alone, individually, and we cannot do this without each of us trying to be distinct in our own strength. >> these competitive issues have a policy character and a cultural character. i have always found it amusing

that if you contrast stanford with berkeley, stanford is far and away the most public of the institutions because we have to include the tax benefits they receive not only for charitable contributions, but for earnings on their endowment. so, in a sense, our government policy right now does have in place certain benefits for private higher education in much the same way that, as you say, 50 years ago, public policy attended to favor public universities. most deans are rewarded for scallops, the quality of the faculty they are able to recruit. in public university, the tradition is they recruit outstanding junior faculty and develop them in the institution. in the elite private it's you find a making lateral

appointments by reading public institutions. when there is comparable level of resources, that give and take tends to balance out. in the current situation, part of the challenges the public to universities have become farm clubs for a lead private universities. to belt region in the private universities. to balance that is that -- elite private universities. to balance that, the survival rate is much lower. most tenured assignments are made from other institutions. those cultural factors shape the nature of the competition between these institutions probably as much as the raw celery numbers and the resources they might have available at --

salary numbers and their resources they might have available let the time. >> 1 reports about that focused on the challenges facing -- when reports come out that focus on challenges, public administrators expressed support, and several say they would show support by not reading the public. if they are really so concerned about draining the talent from the public, should your private colleagues say we should not take advantage of this? >> several years ago, we try to broker such a dialogue in a closed session. the difficulty, the critical point of focus should be the culture of the deans because they are rewarded for reading or developing and so on. a case that has to be made that is more constructive is that in

a sense the quality of the private universities is heavily dependent on the quality of the public universities because we generally produce most of the students that go on to further education that the private institutions, to the degree that we develop many of the faculty they end four rating from us. -- end radian from us. the key point here is that the public universities and private universities have to recognize they are dependent on one another and the fortunes of one has a huge impact on the other. >> to the other half of the panel, do you feel that the private that compete with your institutions take advantage of the inequities that exist today? >> are you asking if they offer

more attractive packages? >> and do so in a way that takes advantage of their relative strength. >> if you were at a private, and your responsibility was to build the best program you could, i do not see how you would not want to do something like that. you would leverage resources to take advantage of the opportunities in front of you, and i was personally in a situation where i was at a public university, and i was solicited by an ivy league school and made an attractive offer to go there. i decided to go elsewhere, but if you are successful at one institution, and it is not just private schools reading public schools, but we have lower-

division raids, so this is part of the market, and i cannot give manage the imagine you do not want to play the advantages that you have. with regard to focus research areas, different schools have different capacities and resources and skills. some schools, and the university of vermont is an example, can mount specifics buyers of excellence. james duderstadt, and the university of michigan, produced a strategic plan that used spires of excellence, but charged each of the colleges and schools to develop them, so they have a larger number. those spires are not something better immutable. when they reach their status, the university can invest in other suppliers. it is something that evolves

over time. it is not to say the university will focus on two things for the rest of the history. it is just a plan to take advantage of their resources, build strength and excellence, and then move on and continue to do that. usually, even harvard cannot build across all of its disciplines in the cannot make strategic decisions, and that is what presidents and provosts do. >> at arizona state, how does it look? >> it is important to bear in mind that all public universities and privates have been at a time of fiscal crisis, and disinvestment in higher education for publics has been historic. arizona state had legislative

support reduced by the largest percentage in absolute dollars of any public university. this has had an enormous impact. in terms of your focus on the faculty, the american association of university professors has pointed out that the decline in the percentage of tenured faculty over the past several decades has been of a huge proportion. there is something like only 75% of total instructional staff that arnelle contingent academics, and this has a long term -- that are now contingent academics, and this has a long- term impact the private universities could leverage to their advantage. >> your question had to do with raiding with regard to faculty, but i think the competition is

more severe on what has been called the arms race on facilities. many of our universities, when the recession came in 2008, had either a hiring freeze or hiring pause, that slows down the competition the you were speaking of, but i am assured there will be an abatement of the increase of facilities and enormous costs, whether they are of laboratories or other facilities -- student unions, and athletic facilities -- i think the real competition is in the facilities. high-school students and their parents but come to campus are impressed by that, quite frankly, and we need to make it better case on why the fancy store the shiniest might not be the best, -- fanciest or the shiniest might not be the best given the trade-off on where

those investments are made or not made. many of those should be made in more scholarships and financial aid to lower the problem of affordability in this country, as opposed to building giant buildings that compete with the college next door. >> i want to shift to assess the -- subset, the humanities. i hear story after story from faculty members and all kinds of institutions, but particularly publics, where humanities scholars feel they aren't the bottom of the totem poll, and when -- are at the bottom of the totem poll, and when centers of excellence are defined, they will use the dog to the nanotechnology division. while the grass is not -- lose out to the national technology

division. while the grass is always greener, as someone that gets constant visits from university presidents, when i asked them what they're excited about and engage in, almost always it is much more likely to be the new nanotechnology center. i do not hear about exciting research and development in the humanities. young faculty in the humanities are incredibly depressed. the issue that was mentioned about contingent faculty seems particularly difficult for those in fields like literature, and many of your universities will still have a new ph.d.'s in these fields, but not necessarily hire them. is it worse in the humanities, and what can be done about it? does anybody want to take a stab at that? >> well, i think the humanities do feel a battle in that sense,

but they do represent the absolute academics core of the university, of what just and moral envisioned, as dan fogel pointed out in the book he edited,,. -- edited, commemorating the passage of the act we are celebrating this year. the vision was for a liberal education as well as utilitarian, and the american research university surfacing drew from the classical tradition and signs -- science and technology. science and technology draws more federal support, but without the humanities, and there is extraordinary work done in the humanities, which informs our intellectual culture, and it

is so pervasive that i think it is just not as -- it does not produce breakthrough technology, as you said that science and technology does. >> do the panelists think that the humanities are getting the short end of the stick, or are they just jealous of the new building for the engineering college? >> there is no question they feel downtrodden, but if you looked at the fundamental purpose of the university and education, although we have this vocational focus right now, it is sometimes said the purpose of the college education is not to prepare the student for their first job, but their last job, and that requires a broad education involving the arts and humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences to give the individual the capacity to

continue to learn and adapt to change. we believe that our students will change constantly jobs, but entire careers many times during their lives and those careers will be much longer than ours were, and they need a much broader education to prepare them for that. that is one of the great frustrations in our society, that they have a short-term focus in lose sight of that. then a vocational focus on the part of society permeates and causes, in the humanities, perhaps, a great deal of concern. the me mention one variation, which has to do with the arts. if you have to characterize the next stage of evolution in society and institutions, it might be more akin to the early stages of renaissance and the reason is because of the tools we have to create.

whether it is synthetic biology, artificial intelligence -- involves another mental skill level is more familiar to the arts and humanities that it is to scientists and engineers. so, their value, as we shift into a society that places a greater value on creating things that never existed before might actually prioritize the arts and humanities, not simply within the university faculties, but within the curriculum with no way simply has not for many decades beginning way that it simply has not for many decades -- in a way it simply has not for many decades. >> in the same way the conversation is driven that you need to go to college to get a job, we need to point out that is not the essential purpose,

and it really goes to the right balance. it is our responsibility to make sure those new dollars and reallocated dollars are invested in the strengths and the competitive advantages, and we have to make that case before legislators about the importance of centrality of the liberal arts, the humanities and social sciences, and if we do not need it, others will not or cannot, so it is our direct responsibility to make the case for the liberal arts in the humanities. that starts with a conversation with the parents at home. >> is it a legitimate criteria in evaluating opportunities in excellence to factor in the availability of all outside funds? that is what seems to tip the scales in favor or against the humanities, because obviously

the occasional neh grant will not equal what somebody could aspire to land from the nih, and a lot of universities are defining excellence by where they can raise money. >> i'd like to put something out there. i think the use of funds to evaluate research stature, crawlers -- prowess, it is a surrogate parameter. the funds are used to determine outcomes. is the outcomes that should differentiate schools, not the ability to attract the funds. some funds can be attracted from competitive sources, but do not result in eventual impact. it is the impact that we should be mentioned, and this is something be academy has not -- the academy has not done a good

job in thus far killed we have used surrogate parameters, -- thus far. we've used surrogate parameters. the humanities could make a strong of a case without the reliance on how much money they are bringing in to support their impact. the humanities are critically important to the universities and to the future of this nation, our civilization and the world. to do science or engineering that is not consistent to live within the human condition is really a recipe for disaster and we have seen many disasters from the 20th century that did that. we need to have holistic education for scientists and engineers that are well grounded in humanities and the arts. secondly, the future of research in the humanities has to change. the human condition and the human record is changing rapidly, as james duderstadt

just said with regards to things like synthetic biology or artificial intelligence. what'd means to be human is different now than what it was in the middle ages and the humanities have to address that. there is an area of digitized amenities on the forefront, but humanities research has to be involved, and as it evolves, it will become relevant and jermaine -- increasingly relevant in germane. the case that we need to make will become easier as that evolves. >> to get up on what domenico grasso just said about understanding the -- to pick up on what domenico grasso just said about understanding the human condition, culture has been moving to interdisciplinary convergence, which very much includes the humanities, and

applied science and technology projects often involve philosophers, legal scholars, economists and these address the grand challenges that, for example, the national academy of engineering, which professor james duderstadt can speak to act like, identified as grand -- speak to at length, identified grand challenges including sustainability, health, reducing vulnerability, human well-being, intercultural interaction, developing sustainable cities -- all of these embraced in tire spectrum of disciplines, and -- the entire spectrum of disciplines, so it is shortsighted to give a short trip to the humanities.

>> i guess i have to say that perhaps we have an enlightened panel here, but when you looked at what is going on at many public universities, the titular leader public regional universities, maybe not -- particularly public, regional universities, many announced it will be an international university and then eliminates many of their foreign languages. we will have room for the humanist or philosopher in these projects, but you just do not see them included. we have also touched on the role of the faculty in terms of tenured, a tenure track, and chung, and then the issue that some of you touched on, retirement policy. as you look from the perspective of how to manage the university

to encourage their right flow, the retention of talent and attracting new talent, how -- would do you see as the personnel policies related to faculty that need bolstering or changing? >> i think it starts with how you define your budget model and how it actually operates on the ground, if you have to have the right principles that in form and shape those decisions on where the investments will be made. i think the principal criteria has to be incentives. we know the human condition, in some way, is motivated by a reward system, broadly defined as we have it at universities, whether they are prizes, awards, salary, compensation, retirement benefits, etc., and

the only way to get at that is with hiring, -- is to make sure that your budget, in the operation, has the right incentives that are very positive in encouraging faculty to progressively be able to advance for their career. if you do not have the right incentives, you simply will not get there. >> this is a challenging effort that comes about in part because of a broader issues facing our society. in our national academy's study it was clear that the impact of the recession in 2008 was great on faculty and defined contribution retirement programs, typically losing 30%- to-40% of those assets. a lot of that is recovered, but their confidence is not

recovered, and as they approach the date they would normally choose for retirement, they wonder if this could happen to me once again, so they delay retirement at the same time, with young faculty looking at -- delay retirement at the same time that young faculty are looking for new positions. with the doubling of the nih budget, there has been a large number of post-doctorates, looking for a runway in a university to land in a many public universities have found the easiest ways to patch up the whole system simply expand enrollment but hold tenure track faculty size constant, which means they are dependent on part-time faculty. the majority of undergraduate education, even in most public research university flagships is done by nontenured faculty in

the first two years. they might be very talented teachers or scholars looking for positions, but we do not know how to grapple with it yet. i am more concerned with the issue of retirement, research funding that seems out of whack with the needs of the students, and advanced students, at least, and our increasing dependence on part-time faculty. there might be outstanding teachers that simply need to be treated with more respect and security and these are issues most institutions have not dealt with. >> since you are it -- a retired president, if you could step your fingers in restore the mandatory retirement for faculty members at a certain age, would you? >> probably not, but i would pay more attention to how you handle

faculty retirement, by realizing that their social and intellectual life is wrapped up in institutions, and they can stay engaged. all too often public institutions open the door and show them out. more sensitive to that is a better way to accommodate. furthermore, many of these, even in retirement, are still scholars and outstanding teachers and have skills of enormous benefit if used correctly. >> i think that the fact that we have moved from a retirement and that was secure, as james duderstadt said, to one that is at risk in the market, is something that has impacted retirement decisions around the

country. it is not just faculty members that are suffering. everybody seems to be working longer. we have to find ways to create situation, an ecosystem, where the faculty are making the decisions themselves through incentive plans, as tom sullivan noted earlier. you want a situation where the faculty is looking out for the best interests of not only themselves, but of the units they spent a large percentage of their time in, realizing that their students and the institution will be at risk based on their decisions as well. if you develop incentive plans, the faculty will always do the right thing. >> i just think that all of this should be appreciated in the context of the decline of public support for higher education just in general terms. that is the background.

that is driving, for example, the decline in tenure. >> i want to shift to the entry point into academic careers, a graduate education, and our great public universities are great trainers of new ph.d.'s. you alluded to the necessity to have multiple post-doctorates, with a lot of people in the humanities and not in adjunct careers or life. should phd programs be graduating as many people s there is the date are when there are not jobs for them -- graduating as many people as they are when there are not jobs for them? >> you have to understand there is an enormous difference in the way a doctoral education happens and the motivation of students. in science and engineering, most citizens have no interest in

academic careers. they are interested in research, or research as a tool to move into other areas like management, but do not intend to enter faculty. furthermore, it is the case that since the nature of graduate education in those fields involves an apprenticeship, working side-by-side with a faculty member, their progress is assessed on a continual, and almost instantaneous basis, and that leads to a much shorter time of preparation, the four years, five years, and in some cases shorter. it is in contrast to biomedical research, which, it is, in reality, the ph.d. s the precursor to the real education at the post-doctorate level, and

unfortunate, the post-doctorate experience is one of contention to. i think a significant factor is not seeking academic positions, but they have to go through these processes. in the humanities, withy expectation of a monograph or a book as the outcome, they do not have the intimate relationship with supervisors, so the length of time that the graduate education can happen over is much longer, 10 years or longer in many cases, and for most of those things they really are interested in academia, and that is where the crisis is -- the balance between the number we are producing, the length of time it takes to produce them, the attrition rate, and in the absence of adequate opportunities for them to move into academic positions.

i think some serious reconsideration needs to be given to how to handle it. the principal way that we support graduate students through graduate teaching assistants or research assistants, really do not have the motive, although we might claim that it does, of graduate student education, but rather of cheap labor in the classroom and in a laboratory coat. in the 1960's, the principal support were in graduate fellowships. when we shifted to labor for the principal way to support, we lost our way and motivation. when you determine the size of your graduate population by the number of graduate students in need to teach courses and need in your laboratory you have lost the way about what the purpose is, and that needs to be reconsidered by universities and the federal government in how

they provide support. >> scott jaschik, i think it is helpful to examine and reexamine the size, scope and quality of graduate education. as your question implies, there is a link between the quality of research and the quality of the graduate students and the graduate program. if one looks at history, you will see this is quite cyclical, and we have to figure out where we are on the transformation. some call it the new normal. i think it is very healthy. here at the university of vermont we are engaged right now, looking a the size and scope of our graduate programs. our vision is one of being a preeminent, small research university. that is small in size, and that requires us to look at whether or not our size and scale right

now is perhaps too small. i think that faculty and administrative leaders have an obligation to look at the market factors, and we make adjustments along the way where we see big demand in industry or the academy for the talent that comes out of our graduate programs. i think that the periodic, strategic review of our programs is absolutely essential. >> i want to open it up to the audience, and invite you to ask questions or elaborate on some of these themes. even though we now number of you, because this is being filmed, please use the microphone and introduce yourself before your question. you are all invited.

>> hello. i'm with the university of vermont. i am not sure if the panelists are aware of this, and i wanted to verify this, but i understand that post-2008, the recession, that in the job market, the individuals best-positioned to alter careers, find new positions or new jobs were those that were liberal arts educated, and not those that were technically trained for specific disciplines. that, in itself says that when the economy is contracting, there is an advantage to having a liberal arts education. >> having just placed one of my students at apple, it struck me that apple would much rather have students with a liberal arts background because they view them as much more

adaptable, and capable of adapting to change. i am not aware of the study, but during the late-1990's, the business higher education forum conducted a study of ceo's to see what they saw most from college graduates, and while they expected some skills that might have had relevance, what they were really after were individuals that were committed and have the capacity to continue to learn, that could not only adapt to change but could drive change, and adapt to an increasingly diverse world in terms of culture, characteristics and so forth. that defined the importance of a liberal education as the background for this. a final thing that i would mention is that i irritated a number of my colleagues at the national academy of engineering by challenging them to go through the process that madison

went through one century ago, and realize that an undergraduate professional degree makes no sense in the world has we know it. at michigan, right now, aside from the engineering, the only undergraduate professional program that we have is dental hygiene. it is about time for engineers to grow walked and realize they need a liberal arts undergraduate degree before they enter the training for engineering to i think it reinforces exactly what you found -- engineering. i think it reinforces exactly what you found >> while you are right about the data in the long term, there's a lot of evidence that in the short term, what parents want, is the guarantee of a job. there reported that more students than in the past are asking questions about jobs that result from programs, but twice that they reported parents weren't demanding it, and i'm

hearing from liberal arts colleges -- were demanding it, and i'm hearing from liberal arts colleges attracting students, telling them that their parents do not want them to be english majors. i see this as a proud history major. i would also criticize my own field of journalism in this regard in that you cannot go away without reading a profile in a publication about the philosophy major working as a barista, and that is a theme the press loves to talk about, and it ignores the evidence that even though things are really bad right now, college graduates are doing better than non- college graduates, liberal arts graduates are, in fact, getting jobs and doing well, but nobody is doing to totally well right now. >> when i talk about the liberal arts education of the 21st century, i think we need to do

what happened during the mid part of the 19th century when other things such as history and modern languages were added, but in the way of technology, because i think the degree to which technology reshapes our world and our lives, is something -- lives is something that needs to be better understood. it has to be an important part of >> thank you. >> david, with aplu. mac to the question about universities. the technical science areas. it appears to me part of the reason for that is the crisis

the universities have -- it is very difficult to sell to the states things that do not relate to economic developments, attraction of industry. i am not aware of the university in its campaign for additional funding, to maintain the state funding, to use the humanities as the selling point. they use these technical things. i am wondering if it is wrong to suggest that these universities do not have a leadership role? i wonder if we are not simply captured by the finding potential? -- funding potential? >> david, that was my point earlier. it is hard as chancellors and provosts to make the case for humanities and the arts and sciences. we have to do it in the public

institutions before our legislatures and before donors, who are another very important piece. if we do not do that, it won't happen because of the societal trends that you and others have talked about. if we believe what the humanities and the liberal arts are central to the core of our universities, as we do at the university of vermont and i know my colleagues have, then shame on us. >> would you like to speak to that? >> totally -- i will agree with my boss. [laughter] humanities are indispensable in today's society. if you look at economic

development, if you look at short-term economic development, you are going to end up in a lot of trouble. i think it will be increasingly easier for us to make the case for the humanities and social sciences as part of what is being attributed as economic development by universities. >> absolutely. i think it is important for the public to realize even the scientific literacy or the quantitative literacy that is required of citizens in a democracy is something that comes out of context into our spectrum of the liberal arts, which includes social scientific perspective.

there is always reference made to critical thinking skills. creativity. this is why employers to value liberal arts graduates. >> again, not to be a downer, but i think it is important to note there are a lot of states where these arguments are not carrying the day or even coming close. we have seen in the last year a pretty strong attack on the university of texas at austin. they did an analysis based on the very basic rubric, judging grants brought in. it is not surprising.

in many departments with the sciences and other funding opportunities -- there are many outstanding departments that have other funding opportunities. this is in fact going on in many states in a way that disadvantages the disciplines. the point about apple, one of steve jobs's last big speeches was just about that point. the focus of the gates foundation is very much on training people for jobs. so, there is a very strong poll, i think, right now in american political society against the trends -- against the ideas being talked about here. >> let's talk about that for a moment. for political arguments to have traction, you have to be sensitive to the realities.

for example, when we put the title on the national academy study, while we followed along with prosperity and that is important, i was insistent on adding the words "prosperity and security." the reason for that is we have a congress right now that certainly gives lip service to jobs. if you look at states right now, these simplistic approach is to say we are going to spin off companies, so forth and so on. we have been making that argument for a long time and i think it is beginning to wear out. you get really sick -- the only place you are going to get cured is at our hospitals. we are finding what is traction, interestingly enough, look, our institutions are global in

character. we do not want to hinder access to international markets for wealth. we are one of the few institutions that attract the best people from around the world that will then benefit this region. so, you have to tailor the message to the perception and the reality of the times. >> to pick up on his point, i think it is a practical matter of how you do that. we bring the spokespersons to the campus. to welcome to our labs or our research facilities, to show them how this kind of creative faculty activity and research has a direct impact. so, the power of the director --

but you cannot do that through press briefings or brochures. you have to bring them to campus and show them. i think that is very powerful with the public policy makers. >> the cultural understanding and sensitivity and even the linguistic ability for the united states to navigate in an open knowledge economy comes from these degrees in the liberal arts. >> from contort -- i am from cornell university. a wanted to bring the discussion back to what we were talking about yesterday. i think one of the major policy issues the public faces in the years ahead is government-

appointed trustees. the provost at cornell used to talk to me not only about managing the people below you, but also about managing the people above you. one of the difficult jobs is managing people above them. they are trying to tell the trustees what is of academic value and what is important. the trustees were all graduates of the university's. love the university. will buy yen very quickly to the arguments the university -- will buy in very quickly to the arguments the university will make. they have to do the same thing with the board constantly changing. it is a major problem. but i think they have it exactly right as to what they should be doing. >> in july, regent university of

michigan approve the budget for the interim campus, which was $6 billion and they put it on a 5-3 vote. $6 billion a year. is about the size of -- it is about the size of the institution more in the board of directors -- and i am on the board of directors. i could not imagine in 1000 years picking a board that would have accountability in the way that we pick the governing boards for our universities today. it is quite a position that dates from colonial years. i guess it comes from the scottish tradition of having laid boards oversee extraordinarily complex -- having lay boards oversee

extraordinarily complex government institutions. you need to have people on those boards that understand the nature of the business. that does not mean they are on the faculty, but they have to understand the university. they have to understand how hospitals operate. help complex search organizations function. i do believe the private trust generally have the capacity to add those kinds of people keeping but quite frankly, the lay boards are politically determined, most by point appointment. having fought this battle for the last several decades, i do not have a clue how to solve

this. >> your point is well made. i think this is a tipping point, perhaps in our country where we see a significant decrease in state funding. yet, i have not seen in many institutions or states where the number of public trust these have been brought down accordingly. one asks the question about proportionality. proportionate to the investment the state makes on the board? we at the university of vermont had a wonderful opportunity to lead this conversation. the governor commissioned a committee to look at how do we strengthen in vermont the relationship, the partnership between the university of vermont and the state? a very positive affirmation. and the report came back and said that with 25 board of trust

the members at the university of vermont, 12 whom are appointed publicly -- three by the governor and nine by the legislature -- maybe we need to rethink their relationship and the proportion in light of the very substantial decrease in funding? the university of vermont only gets between 5% and 7% of our budget from the state. report last week indicates that is the lowest state funding for public university per-capita. we are going to have an opportunity -- i do not know what the result will be or what the appropriate balance will be. we are going to have an opportunity to have this discussion in the state about the relationship with public funding.

perhaps more mall will lead again. >> hi. i'm from the university of vermont. i want to comment on what the president said as well, very quickly. ase found in my years president of the university of vermont -- we saw yesterday with a trusty who chairs the house appropriations, -- with the trustee who chairs the house appropriations, what understanding public trustees can bring to the board table. the problem is precisely what jim touchdown though, and it is a question of proportionality -- touched on a though, and it is a question of proportionality. we cannot determine the skill sets that the other appointees

of the legislature and gov. bring to the governor to meet the needs of the board in those areas from academic and strategic issues for compliance and risk-management and the like. it is there what we need to emulate, the best practices of the board. i am now a professor of english, and i just wanted to comment very quickly on the discussion about the humanities. yesterday -- scott was drawing on the recent survey of the mission's directors. parents care of a lot about whether their undergraduate students are going to find jobs. i will tell you as the father of a ph.d. candidate in english,

parents care a lot about whether there graduate students -- their graduate students find jobs as well. i would like to take up a page from the question for which this conference is named, precipices or crosswords -- principles or crossroads? i think we all have an obligation to keep our student'' eye on the ball that there is a life after university. i gave a seminar here call screening the modern. i gave a student a terrible time lashing -- tongue lashing when the student asked "why are you

grading us on our riding?" it went right to when they go to the work force, every time they answer a question from the boss, they were taking an examination and they needed to pass allowing callers. not only for their sake -- with flying colors, not only for their sake, but so graduates from our universities are known as skilled communicators. >> hello. i am a graduate student here. on internationalization, how can you assure that such things as diversity and tolerance are in place for faculty members and students? for example, i was discriminated

against by my professor just because i am not american. i would like to focus more on the relationships between the student and the professor. it is going to be a whole different story. thank you. >> i think it starts of the top with regard -- at the top with regard to leadership and the modeling. what we call here at the university of vermont "common ground," which is fundamentally based on respect and civility in our discourse, even though the understanding should have a rule about all conversations involving nature and the meaning

of life, one of the conversations we were talking about earlier. it has to be done in a respectful and a civil way, a student to student, students and faculty. all of us are part of a community. i think we all have the obligation as a chancellors and deans to model and talk about the goals that we share and have for each other, and we can only do that by listening to each other and learning from each other and working together to move the institution for word. i think it starts from the top. when you see that deviating from that kind of culture, you have to call out. -- call it out. >> i think one of the interesting changes in american higher education has to do with international graduates. america's great research

universities, public and private, have long had a large population of international graduate students. likewise, many american universities of have a lot of discussion about intergroup relationships among undergraduates. a lot of that has been about american undergraduates from different groups. for a variety of reasons, some of them educational and some of them financial, we have seen a huge shift in recent years where american universities are recruiting many more international undergraduates. i do not think they have always talked about issues related to that. two recent stories that struck me. we did an interesting study, announced international undergraduates if they have significant friendships among students. large numbers said they did not.

a large number websites have sprouted up at ohio state and nebraska, and they are called ohio state haters, neb. haters, and they go to the twitter feed of the undergraduate, and they find a racist statement, and they basically call out by publishing with the student's name, did you know that so-and- so's said this? a remarkable number of the comments on the web site are actually about asian students, suggesting a real lack of tolerance, let alone to inclusiveness, for the population. i think that there is a missing part to university efforts promoting policy, the discussion

about international undergrads, which just turned the -- change the dynamic of many american universities. >> i very much -- i very much agree with the idea of the humanities been a core part of the university curriculum. and i resonate with the argument that, particularly at large corporations, they are more interested in the bright humanity's major then the science major. humanities major then that the science major. but i think that is a limited group of students. i think america of 20 years ago, involved in hiring some folks, we really wanted an extremely

bright -- even a philosophy major, but they had to be extremely bright from a high- ranking school. that is a fairly limited pool, a percentage of our humanity is graduates -- humanities graduate. if you do not have a b plus average, you're not in that group at all. in fact, we do not really want that philosophy major for that first job. you are training them for the second whatever job. to some extent, the argument that humanities does not hold its weight with a broad group of people -- i think what parents

and students -- it is not just parents that one jobs. it is students. the way to get that first job is to know something concrete that the employer can use. this is not just as skills training program we are in. but you have got to know how to write, speak, think. i think a lot of our problem is we graduate students who do not necessarily do that well. if they do'ies majors, not extremely well, then they have got troubles. and they cannot necessarily prove they do those things well as they try to get a job. earlier someone said, talked about the need for computer

skills. my guess is that the humanities majors, it would really help if there was some certification that showed some skills. i think we have not fully grappled with how to deal with our desire, are feeling that we need to have the humanities as a critical part of the university, and we need to have the numbers. we believe that, but we have not grappled with how do we get those folks jobs? they are not going to go to the big corporations, and we can not necessarily so far -- it is not easy for them to establish they have skills, especially if they do not have very good grades. so, i wonder what you think about all that?

>> when i think a liberal education, i do not necessarily think of a major in the humanities. someone could major in biophysics or engineering and still have a very liberal education background. i have attended a school for a law school in new haven and got a degree in engineering, but i actually got more courses in history, philosophy, psychology. i always said the most useful course i ever took was a child psychology. not because it taught me how to understand students, but it sure taught me how to understand faculty. [laughter] the first step of the liberal education should be a goal for all students, and if they pick up ph.d. programming along the way and major in elizabethan

english, fine. who cares. -- who cares? education now truly becomes lifelong. i think it is incumbent upon us to think much more strategically. if someone is going to be spending a significant fraction of their time -- 20% of their time or more throughout their lives -- learning and relearning and adapting come up how do you prepare them for that? we heard yesterday the universities have a shopping mall approach to education. the offer in the mall whatever the faculty may teach. you know, the issues you put out are really important, but i think to look at them within this broad context, you will probably use those years to prepare someone for a lifelong

experience that they need to learn. not an easy challenge. >> as you well know, the advent today in higher education is a turning toward many more opportunities for mentor ships and co-op programs, which is a way for these students to get that additional, perhaps out of the classroom experience, or perhaps leave for the semester. i think we're going to see a lot more of that bridging from the pure academic discussion in the classroom to the practical skills development and working collaborative lee -- which is sovely, important. this is not just have to be science or engineering. we can place those liberal arts students in those pathways that will help with that job. >> that is where we have the

most problems with the university. the work in hospitality or accounting for these areas better close to the job market. it is hard to find an internship for a history major. is a real challenge. i agree with you. and like the idea that you're getting into more deeply, because i do believe there is a substantial amount of undergraduate humanities majors -- i think the liberal arts education certain needs to include science. but the humanities majors who are not extraordinarily good students. that do not have -- that have a real job challenge. and we have to figure out how to

help them deliver on nuts -- deliver on that. they go to school in part because they hope to be employed. >> i just wanted to comment on the perception that some corporations may have that hiring humanities-educated students is a sound investment, which it very well may be. a lot corporations tend to hire from select schools. so, they are hiring students from schools that have undergone a selection process for talent right from the start. if you look at those schools, the liberal arts colleges in new england and across the country and the ivy, engineering is a small percentage of the student

body their. if they are soliciting employees from those schools, they will tend to hire more humanities. it is not necessarily that the humanities alone provide more training or education. i have spent a great deal of time in the engineering program, and i found all the students were brilliant, of course. and the course in the humanities was rigorous, as science or engineering. but what we were striving for are a holistic play- educated people. i think in this century they will be shortchanging themselves if they hire individuals only trained in the humanities. they may get that first job. i just want to say this,

because -- for engineers, one of the reasons engineers go into engineering is because there is the pressure to get that job, right? but we have misguided engineering students for years, because we say come to engineering so you can get that first job. we should be telling them, come to engineering so you can go out there and create jobs. this is something we have not done well in engineering, to teach the creativity and the integration with humanity is and the needs -- humanities and the needs of society, so when they leave, they are not thinking where am i going to get that first job? they are thinking, how am i going to create jobs? >> in engineering, the perspective i get from other disciplines is very important.

the entire emerging field -- where engineers draw from, architects draw from understanding the biology and other cultures. it is just impossible to isolate those things anymore. we are moving away from and toward more holistic understanding. >> i wanted to speak to the point that you said about students graduating. the onus is on them for demonstrating the critical thinking skills. they are focused on the results serviceable at institutions that require students to read a lot and write a lot. then i was thinking about our

discussion about public versus private. one of the big changes recently is private institutions have been more successful at protecting things like class size. if you are teaching 15 freshmen to write, you are going to find a lot more riding and meaningful grade a lot more -- writing and meaningfully grade a lot more papers than if you are teaching 30 or 100 freshmen to write. i spoke to two professors with the same class load. but the college professor had 10% of the students at the berkeley professor. and the discussion was about what that enables one to do.

they have lost positions and are having to carry over into things like how much do you write? >> i'm afraid we're out of time. i hope you will join me in thanking our excellent panel. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> and more now from this recent conference hosted at the university of vermont. the next panel discusses the influence of u.s. news and world report rankings. it is 90 minutes. >> i was thinking this over and i was thinking, it sounds nice. not exactly the choice is precipices or crossroads. if i were making the roadside, i think it would be sharp curves ahead or maybe pavement ends,

rough road ahead. [laughter] but it is definitely changing. last night we heard bob say that he thought public research universities have become ungovernable. i think there is some evidence for that. we have a great panel to discuss it, starting with james duderstadt, the -- jane wellman. next to her is donald ehrenberg. he is the current trustee of the state university of new york. daniel mark fogel, past president of the university of vermont.

james duderstadt, the president emeritus of the university of michigan. we put the michigan people together. and we have michael crow, also past president of michigan state herson, past president of michigan state. we have seen a lot of university presidents. shortly after the sullivan fiasco at the university of virginia, -- i am tamar lewin from the new york times -- i was talking to a lot of past and present presidents of universities, and possibly the

most passionately frustrated with the past president of the university of wisconsin. she said, it was so much easier to run the department of health and human services then the university of wisconsin because i have the power to do something. as the university's head, people do not understand we do not have the power. all we can do is try to push and pull and persuade. thinking about that together with some of the ones that have run into real problems. it was not an accident that happened. it was not missed communication with the board. it was a real structural difficulty about should be a candidate be free to do anything and have a lot more independence

and set tuition differently than the others, and the system saying no, no, no. in this happen -- it is probably no accident that she is now at a tiny liberal arts school. the president there went a little further, but got into exactly the same trouble. he said we should be on down from the system and here is my idea for how we will finance its. we will put out bonds. you will put out bonds. we will raise money at the school in between. then we will never bother you for money again. the board did not like that. it was a four-hour public hearing or people said, please, please do not fire him he is our only hope for the future, and he was gone.

i am wondering. if you push or pull too hard, do you lose the ship and are out there by yourself? interesting that michael crow of arizona state will be called back today, to not be on this panel. there is something going on. i wonder if you think that this effort -- peter mcpherson, let's start with you. >> i think it is easy to be a little but of a doubles -- a little bit of a devil's advocate here. these are very hard jobs. they are very complex jobs. universities, when you compare it to the business world, it is a huge conglomerate.

they are always complicated. but if we look at the president's to have left their positions over the last year -- the presidents who have left their positions over the last year, think of other industries that are either under financial pressure -- high-tech industries, various sectors that are changing. their ceo's hae shortchangers often, too. i think it is not that it has all the sudden become ungovernable. i think the situation has become more complex. i also think -- i respect donna and i think she did agree job with hhs. -- a great job with

hhs. i think she and other chancellors have been able to do things at universities. it is just different with a ceo. you do not have authority and power the same way you do in corporations come up or in some ways government. having said all that, these are the tough jobs and these are the tough times and the combination makes it harder than it has been. >> [indiscernible] another president at another public university would feel free to suggest an entirely different funding model? or do you think you better stay away? >> well, i'll just compared and with the corporation.

-- again with a corporation. and youlook at ceo's, think about changing their business plan in very sizable ways, that is a very big deal, a very difficult task. it involves the relationships with boards and so forth. it is tough being a ceo in difficult times. mark went to wisconsin ahead of you. when you make those big moves, you sometimes get caught up. mark had the support of the governor, and then apparently the governor could not deliver. i do not mean to minimize this. because i think it is hard to

be a president. and it is all consuming in ways i have never found in any of your job, and government or private sector. -- in any other job, and government or private sector. there are some serious problems. i just do not want to overstate it has been a crisis that is all the sudden cojones. >> -- all the sudden come upon us. >> [indiscernible] >> absolutely. let me deal on a couple different levels. different states have different cultures for how they deal with higher education. you have some states like california which has been the premier example planning for the last 50 years. the state university of new york, you know.

then you have michigan. and michigan, since the frontier days, has selected anarchy. what that means is each of the 15 public campuses and in the state have constitutional autonomy. we have no umbrella organization, and a shield -- no shield. the philosophy has allowed the university of michigan to develop with one of the los all levels of support. actually, no support at all for education until the late 19th century. they spent all the money but came from selling land and kept it. the university of michigan has learned from that.

and consciously over the last several decades has redesigned itself. through a variety of steps, pushing the cold -- the control of resources, the responsibility down to the lowest possible level. that created an organization that was an extraordinarily adapted to change and which at the helm, there's very little concern at all. in fact, the steering wheel was not even connected to anything. that protected it to some degree against mismanagement and misgoverance from the governing board. and it placed it in the hands of the deans. if we get good deans, they do extraordinary things. if we get bad ones, then we make

a change, ok? more and more of the large public universities are following this pattern of pushing downward in the university control of resources, because that is where it is generated. at the university of michigan, we are very much a public university. but the public we serve and the public that supports us have very little to do with michigan. but we seem to have adapted to that very well. so, think perhaps of the future of these public research universities. they are loosely coupled, but highly adaptive. >> [indiscernible] and other ones more easily governable? is this a model that you see? >> well, we are not quite so

loosely linked as the university of michigan. beenhere has historical ly a great deal of centripetal force at our university -- centrifugal force rather, that has placed a lot of power in the hands of deans and the college and school. i want to speak to the question, tamar. i think i agree with peter and that they are quite different from being ceo's of corporation's. they do have a baffling amount of complexity. i do say there is great joy in doing that.

i'm sure that thomas sullivan had great joy in assuming the uvm residency. but it can take a lot out of you. it is in part because of the nature of the organization, the multiplicity of constituencies that need to be addressed, and the fact that it is -- even in places with more centralized control. we have a lot more centralized control and louisiana state than at uvm where i was provost for five years. even without that centralized control, there is an opportunity to be very creative and effects of lot of very significant change. and you can win in times of

constraint. one is forced to be creative. you come to recognize that there are urgent needs for innovation and change. i think one question we ought to ask any university presidents in the public setting exuding -- exiting the office, some precipitously objected, and other slowly dying from the death of 1000 cuts -- we talk a little bit about the kinds of characteristics that make for people who are going to be very effective in serving the missions of our great public research universities. i can suggest a few. it always helped me to remember there are a lot of people on campus are much smarter than i

was. i think there is some humility to be brought to bear when your community represents a continuous renaissance of research and teaching across a broad range of disciplines. a lot of flexibility, since of humor -- sense of humor. you need to be an expert. you need to -- as i did before every board meeting -- pick up the phone and spend time on the phone with each of our 24 board members. i do think one of our topics yes today is as critical structural component, and that is the structure and composition of the public university governing boards and how that affects the relationship between the president or chancellor and the board and especially the board share -- the board chair.

in the discussion yesterday, the really challenging problem of having more chairs turnover rapidly. it is hard to build a stable long-term relationship where the board becomes a real partner in problem solving with the president and the rest of the administration. but i think there are great opportunities, and we need to encourage our talented colleagues to think about shouldering this burden of responsibility and joy. >> [indiscernible] >> let me start by saying, i was in the process of interviewing for provost for several universities. then i went to speak to my

mentor bill bowen, and he said the happiest day of my life was when i left the presidency of princeton. so, please do not give it up. he said, sure. so, i was very happy. but i tremendously admire people in leadership positions at public universities, because of the important work they are doing in extraordinarily difficult times. the governance thing is really, really difficult. i have watched with admiration how nancy has behaved in new york state. you come into a state where all the trustees are appointed by the governor, the governor switches political parties.

the trustees may stick around for awhile, but people in leadership positions do not want to be backbenchers. nancy has now served for three different governors. 1 governor had no relationship whatsoever with the legislature. in new york state, it is not only a problem of the appointment of the board, but it controls everything. we have the freedom to set tuition, but not unless the legislature appropriates it. we have a 64-campus system with research universities, public

comprehensives, 2-year colleges, a maritime academy. and we have a system in which the legislature believes that tuition should be low and there should be no differential tuition on the campus of the great research universities. but i have sort of what could admiration now as this leader has done really, really important things. one thing that we do is appoint president's for each of the campus's. when nancy does not like a set of finalists, she will search longer. i think the campus goes crazy, but we will not hire just because we have an in t-line. and given the crucial importance of the president, that is a very

important thing to do. i have watched one problem with our board, of course, that people feel very attached to a particular institution that they came from. and i have watched the representatives from two institutions argue that these two institutions should be treated differently in the budget allocation formulas and the other universities. and they are saying no. we do not want to define distinctions across institutions. we want all institutions to have the opportunity to grow. i think it goes to a more basic point of should you allow the flagship universities to break off from the rest of the system? this creates a competition for resources, which clearly is unhealthy.

the whole higher education system lobbing together can be more effective. -- lobbying together can be more effective. she did not call it differential tuition. she called it a research university fee, but in return for the fee, you have to say what you're going to do with the money. and it involves hiring more faculty, allowing the university to grow. and finally, she discussed with the governor capital matching in addition to the appropriations capital, basically to build the enterprise. but of course capital expenditures mean jobs, and anyone who has left a public university knows it is easier to

get money for buildings stand for bureaucracy. -- than for bureaucracy. i wish we could move to a mixed system, like they have and in vermont, where they have public and private trustees. i wish we had a system more the needs of the institution were taken into account -- where the needs of the institution were taken into account. we can explain these things at the chancellor and the chairman of the board explain to the governor. maybe we can get a more informed in the process. >> does the system makes sense? is it a good model? >> yes and no. this is a model. is it a good model? i think i agree with most of what has been said on this

panel, including -- i will just comment that we are evolving toward a different type of system. with technology the way it is, the flow of students across institutions the way they are, with money, there are all kinds of reasons. there are administrative units that are not connected to one another. to the extent that systems are a pure metal hierarchy of regulation -- pyramidal hierarchy of regulation, they are dysfunctional and they are not working. i think the system is evolving very rapidly away from being bureaucracies to being much more confederations and focused on quite different things than they were when they were first established. in the old days, they were there to get money from the

state and pass it out and not have to answer any questions. i worked in the california system and i know what i am talking about. but it is a good system. i did not mean to be procured. the new what they were doing. the system was quite strong. -- i did not mean to be pejorative. what the public needs from the system is very different now than it was years ago. i'd think we still need to have a system. some might argue against that. one of my greatest concerns in public higher education, particularly across higher education now, ask to do with the historic fire wall between governments and institutions over academic policy. there are all kinds of things happening and it is not happening and it is not