Mining Big Data - Department of Mathematics - University of ...

R VIEWThe Morrill Act as Game-ChangerIn April, the University of Californiacelebrated the 150th anniversary of theMorrill Act. This long-ago piece oflegislation had a profound, in facttransformative, effect on public highereducation in this country.The Morrill Act of 1862 gave everystate a grant of public land with which tofund public colleges. Two years later,California legislators seized theopportunity and by 1868 the firstUniversity of California buildings werecompleted.These so-called “land-grant” institutionswere designed to provide ordinary citizenswith a liberal higher education; to carryout basic and applied research in suchareas as agriculture, technical andindustrial disciplines; and to disseminatethat knowledge to the public. The MorrillAct addressed the growing demand forimprovements in agricultural and technicaleducation as the American West openedup, and the need for a technologicallysavvy work force to serve the spread ofindustry and the expansion of thetelegraph.In the first few years of the 20th century,UC instituted two research facilities thatwould become the foundations of UCDavis and UC Riverside. The Riversidefacility addressed such issues as waterdistribution, pests and disease, and itbecame a world leader in citrus andsubtropical horticulture research,contributing substantially to thedevelopment of today’s $2 billion-a-yearstate citrus industry. The CitrusExperiment Station evolved into UCR’sCollege of Natural and AgriculturalSciences, which remains in the forefront ofcrop-saving discoveries and agriculturalimprovement.Beyond that, our land-grant rootsimbued the entire UCR campus with thetradition of providing accessible education,problem-solving research and communityengagement.In the current issue of theUC journal California Agriculturecaliforniaagriculture.ucanr.edu, UCPresident Mark G. Yudof describes theMorrill Act as “a game-changer in socialmobility and economic prosperity.” Thatremains true today.And this issue of UCR Magazineillustrates that evolution perfectly.Through the Water Science and PolicyCenter, UCR researchers connect scienceand policy as it relates to California, thecountry and the globe. Recognizing themultifaceted aspect of water supply issues,UCR faculty from three colleges arecollaborating to teach students how todraw on multiple resources to addressproblems of scarcity.The lead story in this issue demonstrateshow far UCR has traveled from itsagricultural focus to address new areas ofknowledge. Our researchers have beenmaking headlines with the discoveriesmade possible by analyzing huge amountsof data from myriad sources. So-called“Big Data” is an emerging field, but it hasalready begun to change the way wefunction as a society. It affects the kinds ofads that target us on sites like Facebookand Amazon. It is changing the way thatpatient medical notes are stored and linkedto the latest applicable research data. Ituncovers trends from voting patterns tostock-market movements.One researcher recently received anational award for a cell-phone applicationthat uses data mining to pinpoint thedistribution of pests, which inflict $40billion a year in damage to food crops inthis country.Fifty years ago, President John F.Kennedy told a UC group, “The people ofCalifornia ... have supported their collegesand universities and their schools becausethey recognize how important it is to themaintenance of a free society that itscitizens be well-educated.”I would add that they support aneducation open to all and an educatedcitizenry that energizes the economy forthe good of all.When I hear talk of privatization ofpublic higher education because of currentbudget woes, I’m reminded that AbrahamLincoln signed the Morrill Act during theearly months of the Civil War, whennothing was assured, certainly not funding.And yet we continue to profit from thatone action today. I trust that in another150 years, we will still be lauding theMorrill Act.Timothy P. WhiteChancellorUCR Spring 2012 | 3