Research Mission of Land Grant Universities

Lecture 1: Research at land grant universities

This course is intended for students at land grant universities studying for the highest degree in their fields. In many cases, the degee you seek is, the doctorate of philosophy. To be eligible for the coveted title, Dr., you must produce new knowledge. To produce such knowledge you are expected to conduct research.

Research takes different forms in different fields. In engineering, you may be expected to produce a new software code. In molecular biology, you may have to come up with a novel method to sequence genes. In public administration, you may work to create and interpret a new survey designed to reveal the attitudes of government officials toward state-run lotteries. Whether you are producing a statistical algorithm, a new procedure for determining the function of a gene, an architectural design, or an historical narrative, you are distinguishing yourself and your institution by adding your piece to the immense storehouse of human knowledge, creativity, and invention.

While research is a highly variable enterprise, it is not overly misleading to think of all of these enterprises as a search for generalizable knowledge (1) or genuinely creative human expression. Often, the products of research in the disciplines of engineering and the applied and theoretical sciences are the result of the testing of hypotheses and the drawing of conclusions, whether the medium is DNA, a software code sequence, or the historical or astronomical past. The expression of the results of successful research results not in arcane bits of trivia or meaningless streams of data, but in ideas and syntheses that cast light on areas of experience beyond themselves. Sometimes, the results of research produce observations or breakthroughs leading to revolutionary new principles or exciting theories.

At land grant universities (LGUs) research has a special character. LGUs were established by a bill sponsored in the US Congress by Justin Morrill in 1862. The Morrill Act levied taxes on citizens in every state (2) to establish higher education for “agriculture and mechanical arts.” Campuses were intended to be open to all who wanted to study, regardless of income level or class and, eventually, race or gender. (www.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/isern/morrill.htm)

To see how distinctive is the LGU mission, consider its historical context. Medieval universities (Al-Azhar University in Cairo, established in the 10th century, may be the oldest) were constructed for the sons of land-owning fathers to pursue religious knowledge. The main subjects the young men studied were theology, history, and trades.These subjects continued to be the main objects of study in the renaissance universities: Oxford and Cambridge being set up in the 11th - 14th centuries. Again, only men, and mostly the sons of wealthy elites, were allowed to study, and they studied religious traditions using Greek and Latin as their primary research tools. The object of a higher degree was to become a professor who would pass on knowledge of the humanities for the sake of the classical values and norms embodied in it.

In the 17th century, in the nascent United States, private universities such as Harvard and Princeton were modeled on the British universities and established for the sons of society's leaders. Research meant learning Greek and Latin and other ancient languages in order to preserve the study of the texts in which were found the values and norms of "the classics." Scientific research may have been pursued in addition to these humanistic studies, but never in place of them.

In the 19th century, however, educators committed to the ideal of democracy began to realize that US higher education was not serving the majority of Americans. The vast majority of Americans were farmers living, of course, in rural areas. Their sons, the farmers believed, did not need the kind of classical education Yale and Princeton offered. Land grant universities (LGUs) were conceived according to a brand new ideal: the idea that universities would educate not a small class of a few privileged men but rather the large numbers of commoners and farmers. And the LGU would provide knowledge meant not to preserve ancient languages and methods of study, but practical knowledge to improve the technologies of farmers, merchants, and industrialists.

In the last few decades of the 19th century, writes James Bonnen in “The Land Grant Idea and the Evolving Outreach University,” (3) LGUs emerged because of Americans' increasing "frustration with an unresponsive set of mostly private colleges providing a classical or ‘literary’ education for a wealthy elite of less than 1% of the population.” As Bonnen notes, few US colleges at that time were willing "to sully their hands addressing society's common but real needs.”

You, therefore, are studying for a doctorate at a very special place, a place intentionally conceived as, and designed to be a place for, the pursuit of new knowledge that will speak to the needs of all people. Morever, the education and research that goes on here is largely funded by the people of the state in which this institution is found. Public funding is not provided for private universities, which are by definition not, supported by taxing the general population. LGUs are supported by general taxation, however. Indeed, the idea that the general public would consent to be taxed for the purpose of higher education was a uniquely American idea, a novel experiment that had not been tried before. In return for the support of the taxpayers, therefore, students and faculty at LGUs are under a special obligation to insure that their efforts are consistent with the interests of those who support them.

That said, a proviso must be entered into the story. In the last two decades of the 20th century, things began to change, and the percentage of the typical LGU budget coming from state taxes began to decline ("At Public Universities, Warnings of Privatization," NYTimes (4). Increasingly, the LGU budget comes from student tuition, federal research grants, and private sector support. Indeed, some observers are now beginning to argue that LGUs are on a path of "privatization." Some have begun to wonder whether LGUs are not losing public support because they are slowly abandoning their historical mission of promoting the well-being of all of the people in the state.

And here arises one of the most important questions in research ethics at LGUs. When private corporations provide substantial research dollars to public universities, is the traditional mission of the LGU compromised? When the taxpayers of North Carolina provide 100% of the funds to researchers at NC State University, it is clear to whom those researchers owe their allegiance. But to whom does the faculty member owe primary loyalty when a corporation is providing 20% of their research dollars? Or 50%? Or 80%?

Conflicts of interest and commitment may arise as a result of the increasing dependence of LGUs on non-taxpayer support. Questions of ownership of data and about your freedom to publish your results may arise when the company funding your research wants to commercialize any and all practical results.

Of course, not all observers are convinced that LGUs are under the sort of pressure just described. Some argue that current stresses on LGU budgets are the expected results of the business cycle. During recessions, state governments cut funding to higher education. But the funds will be restored, argue these observers, when the economy begins to pick up again.

LGUs are presently acting more like private universities or simply experiencing the pangs of a temporary economic downturn, the historical mission of the LGU remains clear. Your institution was established to pursue practical education and research resulting in generalizable knowledge of value to the working people of your state. And, given the rural background of most of 19th and early-20th century constituents, LGUs have developed considerable expertise in the industries of central importance to its "industrial and rural classes:" agriculture and the life sciences, engineering, veterinary medicine, and education.

Two fundamental ethical values of LGUs

Unlike the private universities, LGUs such as North Carolina State, Iowa State, Purdue, Wisconsin, Hawaii and North Carolina A&T were open from the beginning to the sons and daughters of “the industrial and rural classes.” The founders of the LGUs stressed two moral values:

Equality of opportunity
Research for the working classes

Equality of opportunity is seen in the widespread access to higher education, irrespective of wealth, race, or social status. Research for the working classes is found in the language of the act written by Morrill that established the LGUs, charging them to provide education, research and extension that will improve welfare of the most disadvantaged: farmers, industrial workers (“mechanics”).

Professions served by LGUs

LGUs were instrumental in the rise of critical new professions. While the renaissance-inspired universities were the birthplaces of the earliest organized professions--theology, medicine, and law--LGUs helped give birth to these new professions:

Engineering
Agriculture and life sciences research
Veterinary medicine
Physical and mathematical sciences
Design
Education
Management

Professions are groups of individuals with advanced knowledge who organize themselves to pursue social goods. These organizations are allowed to regulate and police themselves as long as they serve public interests and hold society’s trust.

Two characteristics of a profession

To serve public interest and keep public’s trust, professionals must behave responsibly, pursue lifelong learning, and use their privileged positions to serve others.

Self-regulating: Members are allowed to make their own rules and codes of conduct.

Pursue social goods: Members must behave responsibly, pursue lifelong learning, and use their privileged positions to serve others.

Professional ethics refers to the rules and goals specific to a professional group, rules and goals that are established by the specific social services and roles the group is educated to perform.

Two ethical dangers facing professionals

Two prominent moral dangers in the professions associated with its two characteristics:

Tunnel vision, focusing not on society's good but rather on one's narrow professional obligations, failing to consider the impact of one's actions on all others.

Favoritism, profiting unfairly from the lack of external oversight, one provides undeserved benefits to members of one's own family, company, or group.

At LGUs we develop knowledge that serves the public in part by renewing and replenishing these professions. For example, LGUs historically developed seeds improved for yield or drought resistance or hardiness and gave them to farmers, free of charge, through the cooperative extension service.

Professions are allowed to regulate themselves. Therefore, it is critical that the members conduct themselves in ways that will continue to inspire public trust. When a profession is no longer trusted by the public, the public responds by imposing the heavy hand of governmental regulation. Each of the major professional societies has developed its own code of professional conduct. To succeed in your profession, you will need to know the rules. And you will need to follow them.

Notes

(1) According to one influential definition, research is "a systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge." Department of Health and Human Services Title 45, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 46.102(d). Protection of Human Subjects (Last revised November 13, 2001).

(2) "Shrine to Justin Smith Morrill," www.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/isern/morrill.htm

(3) James T. Bonnen, "The Land Grant Idea and the Evolving Outreach University," To be published as Chapter 2 in University-Community Collaborations for the Twenty-First Century: Outreach to Scholarship for Youth and Families, eds. Richard M. Lerner and Lou Anna K. Simon, New York: Garland, 1998. www.adec.edu/clemson/papers/bonnen2.html

(4) Sam Dillon, October 16, 2005, Sunday, http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00A12F93F5B0C758DDDA90994DD404482