Tag: science

National day of action speeches, Alyssa Apsel

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

CGSU-UE letters to community

More resources from CGSU-UE – the graduate student union endorsed by over 90% of the student body. The university administration has shared loudly and widely its perspective. Here’s the other side.

https://cornellgradunion.org/adminletter

Board of Trustees:

The current federal administration’s funding cuts pose an unprecedented threat to scientific research and the infrastructure of higher education. As stated clearly in the recent email from Cornell Leadership, “if the research capabilities of America’s universities are destabilized and undermined in this way, no institutions will be capable of filling the void of discovery and innovation as a public good.” We agree completely that this proposed removal of funding constitutes an existential crisis to research and teaching. The standards of excellence in research and teaching at Cornell are at risk, as are the livelihoods of the workers who maintain them. 

During this moment of crisis, Cornell has the opportunity to play a defining role in protecting education and science against our current administration. We need it to rise to the occasion. If federal cuts to research funding proceed, we call on Cornell’s administration to draw on its considerable financial resources, including but not limited to its $10.7 billion endowment, to ensure that research and teaching continue uninterrupted. 

We came to Cornell for its dedication to its mission to “discover, preserve and disseminate knowledge” and arrived committed to advancing human knowledge and higher education with our work. Cornell’s administration can honor the academic mission of this institution and the people who do this work by committing to offset any losses incurred due to federal funding cuts. Now is the moment for Cornell’s administration to embrace its responsibility as a leader in research and education. …

More at the link!

Another letter is for the wider Cornell community:

CGSU-UE Calls on Cornell “To Do the Greatest Good” for Scientific Progress

Federal courts have halted the National Institutes of Health’s catastrophic funding changes, in part thanks to a lawsuit undertaken by Cornell and other university plaintiffs. This lawsuit is a meaningful stand in defense of science and a practical step to protect the University and those who work here, but its effects are temporary. NIH leadership has stated that the Institute will “effectuate the administration’s goals over time,” making it only a matter of time before we face last week’s funding crisis again.  

Beyond the NIH, United States Agency for International Development-dependent projects are in limbo, executive orders are piling up and the research infrastructure that drives scientific progress across the nation is, if not actively crumbling, at risk. During this crisis, Cornell has the opportunity to play a defining role in protecting education and science against our current administration, and we — graduate workers, participants in American society and drivers and beneficiaries of scientific advancement — need our university to rise to the occasion. As federal funding cuts proceed across agencies, we call on Cornell’s administration to draw on its considerable financial resources, including but not limited to its $10.7 billion endowment, to ensure that research and teaching continue uninterrupted across Cornell.

Cornell is a private institution with extensive financial resources. Expert financial stewardship has protected the University during troubling times, and, in recent years, ensured unprecedented investment returns. Cornell’s financial health must be maintained of course, and the value of the endowment must continue to grow — but not for the sake of growth alone, but for the sake of, in Ezra Cornell’s words, “the greatest good.” Cornell’s administration has reminded the University community of the endowment’s purpose repeatedly. It is a “perpetual and self-sustaining source of support for the University and its mission,” designed to protect and advance the University’s workings, especially during times of trouble, explained then-chief financial officer Joanne DeStefano MBA ’97 in 2020. We recognize these parameters. But, should the federal government continue wreaking havoc on the federal agencies that fund our research, the devastation to Cornell’s research community, and to the scientific progress writ large, will be enormous. To protect science against the most aggressive attack we’ve witnessed in decades, Cornell’s administration must draw on its extensive financial resources to ensure research continues uninterrupted. …

More at the link!

GUEST ROOM | CGSU-UE Calls on Cornell “To Do the Greatest Good” for Scientific Progress