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

DATE: FRIDAY, August 20, 1993                   TAG: 9309170420
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: HENRY H. BAUER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BRINGING HOME THE BACON FOR TECH

The first editorial (``Biotech on region's horizon'') applauds the $8.5 million in federal dollars Tech is getting for a biotechnology center. The second one (``Taking time to smell the pork'') mentions several criteria for what is ``pork'': ``If one or more of the following apply ... 3. It is not competitively awarded ... '' The second editorial noted that none of the 50 pork projects mentioned by Citizens Against Government Waste is of any particular benefit to Southwest Virginia.

You failed to point out that the dollars for Tech's biotechnology center came not in competition, but through the efforts of Congressman Boucher. That marks them as ``pork'' dollars just like the ones mentioned in the second editorial, for swine-research in Minnesota or root-rot research in New Mexico.

It used to be that if the federal government decided that biotechnology, say, needed some centers, it designated some money and then asked the National Science Foundation (or some other agency) to decide where such centers would be best located - considering the availability and quality of facilities, people, infrastructure and so on. Awards were made after peer review. Nowadays, more and more universities have their congressional representatives designate such funds for a center at their favored institution, without benefit of peer review to decide whether that is where the money will be best spent.

A number of years ago, Cornell's president rejected tens of millions of dollars for a supercomputing center at Cornell because it had come in as pork. President Rhodes said that Cornell could compete on the basis of its quality and didn't need such handouts. No other university, though, has yet followed Rhodes' principled lead, so your editorial writer(s) certainly expressed the prevailing attitude:

If they get it, it's pork, but if we get it, then it's ``building for the future - not just Tech's, not just this region's, but the future of all people likely to benefit from biotechnology's quickening advances.''

\ Henry H. Bauer of Blacksburg is professor of chemistry and science studies at Virginia Tech.