
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 3, 1995                   TAG: 9506060020
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MICHAEL N. HAYES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

UNIVERSITY RESEARCH: COMMONWEALTH'S BEST-KEPT SECRET?

THIS NEWSPAPER deserves a pat on its collective back for its May 23 editorial ``Cockroach caviar?'' Any reader can see that it would have been tempting to simply present details of the research on watching bugs eat, and hold the research up to ridicule. Instead, the writer found it wiser to explain how we all might benefit from the research. One extension of the editorial is that there is no guarantee the research will be successful.

As the editorial pointed out, creative searches for problems that plague our everyday lives are going on everywhere in America, especially in its colleges and universities. Institutions in Virginia and even those in this region are certainly no exceptions.

It surprises many outside of its stone walls to learn that Virginia Tech is 14th among the nation's universities in research-related patents granted. Anyone connected with patent law can tell you that government doesn't give patents out frivolously. There must be a substantial promise of benefit to society before one is granted. And Tech isn't the only place hard at work. The next time you see Jerry Boone, ask him about the work Ferrum College is doing at Smith Mountain Lake.

The problem is that much of the hard work done outside the classroom is news to those not connected to the institutions. Is it any wonder then that taxpayers object to so much public money going to higher education? They see no tangible return on that portion of the public investment. The applications of university/college research occur everyday in many different aspects of our life, but we seldom notice it. It goes on quietly - perhaps too quietly.

Every one of us, and especially those who pay taxes, needs to be informed of what is going on in our colleges and universities. More importantly, we need to be informed the way it was presented in the editorial, and not in the form of a technical report.

Allow me to distinguish information, such as that of the bug eating, from data, which probably is what someone read to get to an understanding of the project. People can easily understand and use information. Unfortunately, we too often get data few can read, let alone understand. A natural, human reaction to something we cannot understand is to ridicule it. Just as a certain commercial currently running on television argues, most new ideas are first condemned as ``silly.''

It seems people in higher education see their job as producing the data of research. If they seek to inform, it's done in the classroom. Otherwise, they tend to let the data stand by itself.

While teaching is a most valuable form of information, it isn't the only one. Yet, somehow, for a faculty member to try to inform in other ways is seen as less professional than research or teaching. If it isn't expressed in professional jargon, somehow it's not worthwhile. The result is that for all of the work done outside the classroom, very little filters out to those who need to know about it. Colleges and universities, especially those in Virginia, haven't done enough to inform the public about what they are doing.

Some regional leaders have said often that local colleges and universities need to market their product more than they have been doing. It shouldn't be so much of a surprise to the public what is being done. I'm willing to bet that a large part of the success of the Research Triangle in North Carolina comes from the widespread public support for higher education that thrives in that state. North Carolinians do not seem any different from Virginians, other than they are probably better informed about what their universities are doing. Virginians have always been proud of their higher education; we just may not have known all the reasons why we should be proud.

Fortunately, if local colleges and universities are only gradually making the transition to better public information, we have the media who produce translations of higher educational data, like the bug-eating editorial. This region and the entire state could do with much more of this kind of information. Instead of going for the quick gimmick like a Golden Fleece, the media should follow this bug-eating example and go for true information. I'm reminded here of what sportscasters seem to always say of superstars (and only superstars) - they make the tough play look easy.

If real talent lies in making tough data look like easy information, and that is what you did in your editorial, then I say more of this, please.

Michael N. Hayes is an associate professor of economics at Radford University.

by CNB