Congratulations, Class of 2010! - Columbia College - Columbia ...

the great american university
columbia college today
top university professors and researchers typically miss out on
even their fifteen minutes of fame Nevertheless, we use products
derived from ideas generated at our great research universities
countless times a day — whether we realize it or not.
For example, in the morning you may brush your teeth with
an electric toothbrush, then stagger into the kitchen, open the
refrigerator, and take out some orange juice. The toothbrush
can vibrate thousands of times a minute, creating fluid dynamics
that can dislodge bacteria and plaque much more efficiently
than an old-fashioned toothbrush; the refrigerator has
a compressed gas circulating through its coils; and the orange
juice has been preserved while being shipped from a distant
location. All three are based on discoveries made in university
research departments. Contemplating that night’s dinner, you
take some steaks out of the freezer and make sure you have
the ingredients for a salad. Most likely, you are not thinking
about the fact that the meat’s fine quality is a result of artificial
insemination and scientific breeding techniques, both the
result of university work, or that the special tomatoes on your
counter have been genetically modified. You put a nice bottle
of California wine into the fridge to chill, with nary a thought
of the heartier vines made possible by research conducted by
university enologists, then turn on your favorite FM radio station,
made possible through university inventions over in engineering,
for a little background news.
The station gives you a weather update, based on knowledge
originating in the meteorological wings of universities.
Then there are news stories about an earthquake that
measured 7.5 on the Richter scale, the number of hurricanes
predicted for this year, and the latest public opinion poll on
the upcoming election, all of which are based on information
learned through university research. You swallow the antibiotic
your doctor prescribed for you, and then, as your conscience
gets the better of you, decide to go out jogging. You
bring along some Gatorade (another university invention) so
you won’t get dehydrated. As you begin, you notice that your
muscles are sore from your last run, and that reminds you to
order some flowers for your elderly mother — her hip replacement
surgery is tomorrow. On your way home you stop at
the closest ATM for some cash, which, of course, uses another
university discovery, and later, when you’re driving to work,
you flip on the GPS to navigate a construction detour. A few
minutes later, back on route, you use your E-ZPass to glide
through the bridge toll booth — which uses laser technology,
not to mention computers — paying a premium for driving
into the city during peak hours (congestion pricing is also a
university invention).
Whatever your job, you are very likely to continue using
methods and devices that are the fruits of university research
once you reach the office. As the manager of a hedge fund, for
example, you would be using sophisticated mathematical programs
to help make investment decisions, and the mathematics
and investment algorithms, of course, would be based on advances
made in universities. When you entered the office, you
would turn on the computer to find out how the foreign markets
were doing. In fact, all day long you would be using the
computer and the Internet, which also began with university
discoveries. If your advertising agency was using focus groups,
it would be basing its work on university research, and when
you took your lunch break, and the clerk at the local deli swiped
your sandwich and soda over the bar-code scanner, you would
again be encountering a university discovery. Enough. The list
could go on and on, but the point is clear. As we march through
our daily lives, all of us are continually enjoying the benefits of
discoveries made at our great universities.
The universities play a huge role in bringing all of these inventions
and discoveries into our daily lives, but they do not do it
alone. The research conducted at our great universities is part of a
larger national system of innovation. That system is essentially a
social system for producing and applying new knowledge. It is a
complex network of affiliations, collaborations, associations, and
formal relationships that includes our universities, government
agencies and laboratories, and the private sector, including the
nonprofit research sector. Each plays a critical role in enhancing
the overall stockpile of knowledge that we possess and in bringing
it piece by piece into our lives through the practical applications
that make up our world.
A Productive Partnership:
The Impact of Universities on
Industries and Local Economies
Industry and research universities are interrelated
in many ways — not only through
licensing agreements (explored in Chapter
5), but also through production of the highly
trained, talented individuals who work in industrial
laboratories and through the founding
of companies by university faculty or former
students. As of 2003, over 70 percent of all science
and engineering graduates were working
in private industry. Forty-four percent of all
the science and engineering students who had
earned Ph.D.s were working in industry; 43
percent were working at institutions of higher learning; and 13
percent were doing other things. It is clear that research universities
represent the main pipeline to our nation’s industrial research
laboratories. And the 100 or so greatest research universities produce
the majority of Ph.D.s in science and engineering. The great
industrial laboratories could not function without these universities
feeding them new, talented individuals on a consistent basis.
Although the universities supply the talent — people with
the aptitude, the skills, and the training to contribute to industry
— as well as many of the ideas that industry uses, however, the
credit for creating and developing products and services based
on discoveries in science and engineering cannot go solely to the
universities. Industry picks up where the universities leave off,
playing an equal role in the innovation process. In that sense,
there is a very productive partnership between the universities
and industry. And the knowledge produced at universities and
then developed by industry has huge societal payoffs with an
enormous impact on local, national, and international communities.
The national system of innovation in America has many
components, as mentioned above. Here we will take a closer look
at the relationship between two of those components — the universities
and industry — with an emphasis on how the universities
have an impact on the economies of their local communities.
Stanford and Boston area universities, particularly MIT, have
attempted to measure the economic and social impacts they have
had on their local communities, and the data they have generated
can help us estimate the impact of universities on local communities
in general. Stanford University reported, for example, that
july/august 2010
28