Saunders MacLane (University of Chicago)
Thursday, October 17, Abelson 131, 2 p.m.
Until recently, budgetary constraints presented the chief difficulties for the support of mathematical research. But now deeper "policy" concerns and pressures for industrial relevance enter. There are stentorian calls to "reinvent" the university, as in a recent conference under this title, held at UCLA. The slogan is an engineering device, often propounded by individuals who do not understand the university traditions, with intent to make the university more like industry, complete with "total quality management."
At the end of World War II, Vannevar Bush wrote Science, the Endless Frontier to record the varied ways in which science could help in peace as well as in war. Today, it has become the fashion to end the endless---usually in order to propose scientific initiative by mindless planning. A recent example is a conference on such endings, held at Columbia University in September 1996, attended by policy experts but not scientists, and in blissful ignorance of the effective wartime research at that university,
"Workshops" are in fashion as a means of imposing policy changes. The NSF recently held such a shop on graduate education. It emphasized gimmicks and industrial internships, ignoring the fact that the Ph.D. involves a thesis presenting an original contribution to knowledge. Similar ignorance has been amply displayed by an earlier COSEPUP report on graduate education, chaired by Phillip Griffiths. A recent NRC workshop proposed to instruct all departments of mathematical sciences on "actions needed" to meet the so-called changing environment. This shop was notable for agitation for publicity of math, adjustments to ideas from industry, and subservience to Congress.
Reform of education, as in reformed Calculus, has been much touted, but there are striking examples where the reform obscures the basic concepts, gives bogus definitions, replaces proof by "justifications," and presents "real world" examples which only live in never-never land.
Conclusion: actions are needed to stem the present flow of anti-intellectual political nonsense.
Hosts: David Buchsbaum (Mathematics) and Harry Mairson (Computer Science)
Saunders MacLane is one of the leading figures in twentieth century mathematics. He has done pioneering work in algebra and algebraic topology and, with S. Eilenberg, founded the theory of categories. His work on categories has had an enormous influence not only on mathematics, but also on theoretical computer science.
He was vice-president of the National Academy of Sciences, president of the American Mathematical Society, and served on the National Science Board. In recent years, he has written and lectured extensively on the development of universities and the problems that now confront them.