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UC System  The Business
By Brian Holmes
 Many of our, if I can put it this way, businesses are in good
shape. We re doing very well there. Our hospitals are full,
our medical business, our medical research, the patient care.
So, we have this core problem: Who is going to pay the
salary of the English department? We have to have it. Who s
going to pay it in sociology, in the humanities? And that s
where we re running into trouble.
Mark G. Yudof, President, University of California
transcript here
Intriguingly, one finds almost no information on the net about the
UC Center for Nanoscience Innovation for Defense, except the
now-vanished page recounting its foundation back in 2002,
preserved at archive.org, and a mention of its continuing existence
by the National Nanotechnology Initiative  which is one of the
many federal centers coordinating the development of so-called
 dual-use technologies with civilian and military applications.
Maybe I m paranoid, or maybe just anti-militarist, but whenever I
look into the ways that higher education in the United States is
being transformed into a functional innovation system for those
profitable businesses that Yudof talks about, it s the Defense
Department funding that catches my eye.
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A few years ago I wrote an article on flexibilization, corporatization
and militarization in the universities of North Carolina s Research
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Triangle. What the investigation revealed was an education system
that had become the perfect lamp and mirror of neoliberal
Drift
management. When Bob Samuels remarks, in a very succinct and
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useful article, that  research universities like UCLA now spend less
than 5% of their total budget on undergraduate instruction, the
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questions worth asking are: Where does the rest of the money go,
and where does it actually come from in the first place? Why are
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the administrators so keen to drastically reduce the size of English
and Sociology departments? What kind of research is being
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supported by students overpriced tuition? And how did formerly
public universities reach the point where their agenda is set by a
corporate accountant s logic grafted onto the priorities of the Sign me up!
national security state?
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These are some of the questions that we re going to raise at the
upcoming Continental Drift sessions at the Public School in LA, on
Feb 27-28, just in advance of the next UC walkout on March 4.
* * *
 > For more insights into the management of the UC business,
consider these podcasts and articles on UC Regent Richard Blum 
upstanding citizen, construction and real-estate magnate, owner of
the $7 billion Blum Capital Partners private equity firm and
husband of Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein. Thanks to Daniel
Tucker for sending the podcast:
 Richard Blum, Alpha Regent
 Richard Blum: The Man Behind California s  Developing
Economy
 Disaster Capitalist University
This entry was posted on February 23, 2010 at 4:18 pm and is filed under 1. You can
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2 Responses to  UC System  The Business
Jon Says:
February 23, 2010 at 7:42 pm | Reply
Mr. Holmes,
A complete answer to these questions would have take us back to
Vannevar Bush and the establishment of the National Science foundation,
as well as on a number of historical tangents. However, these articles may
at least provide some context, and at best reveal some of the ways these
decisions are rationalized:
The American research university system as America s de facto technology
policy. Science and Public Policy, Vol 28, Number 1, Feb 2001
The growth of patenting and licensing by U.S. universities: an assessment
of the effects of the Bayh-Dole act of 1980. Research Policy 30 (2001)
The Emergence of a Competitiveness Research and Development Policy
Coalition and the Commercialization of Academic Science and Technology.
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 21, No. 3. (Summer, 1996),
pp. 303-339
Best of luck at UC.
 > Brilliant comment, thanks very much. I am well aware of these
dimensions of US economic development, and at the same time, very
interested to read each of these three articles. All the best, Brian
sportsbabel Says:
February 24, 2010 at 2:10 pm | Reply
Hi Brian,
I also wonder what role top-flight sports teams play in the mix you are
beginning to outline above.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/16/most-valuable-college-basketball-
teams-business-sports-final-four.html
UCLA, Duke and North Carolina, three universities you mention in your
post, have basketball teams collectively valued at $58 million by Forbes,
which does not include the vast social capital that allows, perhaps, for
such little resource allocation to flow elsewhere to undergrad
programming.
Anyways, perhaps a small piece to a complex puzzle& ?
 > Thanks for the contribution. Many of the commentators on corruption
at the universities point to the cost of sports teams, which are supposed to
bring in money through advertising revenue and millionaire donations but
very often are a big drain on resources. I have read claims that in some
cases they are subsidized by tuition. It is definitely a piece of the puzzle
and it has to do with the power to capture the imagination and the senses.
Ciao, BH
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