The April 17 National Day of Action had a great turnout at Cornell. We had speakers from across the university, in the sciences, humanities and social sciences, and the law school. We reprint some of these here.
My name is Alyssa Apsel.
I am speaking to you today as an Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor. Over in the Engineering school we take our roles as teachers and researchers very seriously. Most of us would much rather be in the lab then out here talking about public policy.
We like to indoctrinate our students with things like
- Kirchoff’s current laws
- Digital Logic
- Stochastic Processes
- Computer Architecture
- Charge transport models
As well as numerous other highly polarizing topics.
So last week we, along with many other departments in the college of engineering received stop work orders on tens of millions of dollars of research contracts with the department of defense. Across the college of Engineering, these contracts were awarded to conduct research on things including:
- The design of advanced systems to control electromagnetic emission and absorption with implications for 1) stealth technology (radar detection) 2)thermal management (cooling) 3) efficient electricity generation from photovoltaics
- Materials for high voltage and high temperature electronics to support things like propulsion systems.
- Modeling of quantum mechanical systems to enable development of complex quantum computers.
- Development of novel propellants for space crafts
- As well as grants training workers to build satellites
Each of these research topics makes the US more secure, drives economic growth, and positions us in a research leadership position.
It’s notable that US universities perform roughly half of the basic research done in the US. Eliminating research from US universities will strictly weaken the US, both economically, and as a respected knowledge leader. We will be less competitive globally and have less technology readiness. This will probably make China and Russia quite happy.
Beyond this, it is important to realize that University Research IS education.
Our undergraduate programs can exist without federal research dollars, but graduate education in the sciences and engineering cannot and will not.
Federal Contracts pay these students. Period.
This administration trying to wipe out both sciences today but also the next generation of scientists and decimate engineering research for decades to come.
This is not hyperbole. The top students will not stay in a country that does not welcome and support them. They will go to Europe, or Asia, or whatever greener pasture welcomes them and the US will lose leadership status.
It really is that simple.
And on the topic of trade deficits, you know what our highest domestic export is? Education. Not soybeans, or corn or natural gas, it’s education. This is what these morons are trying to destroy.
So, you wonder, given that we are teaching students math and science and physics, why would Trump and his cronies want to destroy us?
Because truth is inherently political with this administration, and therefor dangerous.
If you are in the business of trying to convince people that up is down and left is right, you can’t have some professor showing up with data about gravity.
You can’t have an engineer showing that alternative power sources are actually feasible, or that lead in the pipes might cause disease and brain damage. You just can’t. That’s dangerous. They fear it. So now they want us to be scared.
So we can’t be. We need to stand up, speak out, and organize. They fear us because we have power. We need to use that power.
The folks attacking us, speak out of two sides of their mouths. They hate us, but they also desperately want us to educate their kids. That’s power.
They Ivy league and other large universities have a large base of alumni with resources. They can work together and reconsider a joint plan of action. That is power.
We need to support each other because otherwise it does not end well for us. What great research comes out of Hungary, I ask you?
Ordinarily and engineering prof like myself would much rather be in the lab then out here, but this, this is existential. And I promise that like me, others are up for this fight.
Thank you.
Alyssa Apsel is the Ellis L. Phillips Sr. Director of Electrical and Computer Engineering and IBM Professor of Engineering
Cornell Chapter of the AAUP 