Kunhardt foresees “profs who patent” in The New York Times
Dean of Stevens’ School of Sciences and Arts looks at the University of the Future
HOBOKEN, N.J. — In today’s edition of The New York Times, the dean of Stevens Institute of Technology’s School of Sciences and Arts considers, in an Op-Ed Page guest editorial, the kinds of credentials that will be required of the tenured professor of the future. Dr. Erich E. Kunhardt, a renowned physicist who assumed the school’s deanship in late 2000, believes that “intellectual property creation” will one day be a featured topic on the résumé of every dedicated practitioner in higher education.
“As we fret over the nation’s fitful economic growth and the growing number of jobs moving overseas,” writes Kunhardt, “few are discussing a matter that may be a better indicator of our future in the global marketplace: the declining number and quality of patents awarded to Americans.”
Kunhardt argues that the university has increasingly become the arena in which forces have combined to reverse this negative trend.
“As corporations have cut back on research,” he says, “the government has increasingly encouraged universities to take a larger role in maintaining American economic competitiveness –as, for example, in the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which encouraged universities to commercialize inventions created with federal financing. However, ‘academic entrepreneurship’ – the patenting and licensing by universities and their faculty – has not become part of the academic mainstream, and is generally viewed within the Ivory Tower as conflicting with the mission of the university.”
Nevertheless, Kunhardt contends, the university must perforce become a place that requires entrepreneurial creativity of its full professors, especially in the realms of science and technology. He believes that the longtime mission of the university, captured by the phrase “to teach, and to research,” can and must acquire a third element: “to invent.”
“The quickest way to change this mind-set,” he suggests, “will be to get administrations and faculties to accept successful inventing as a step toward tenure. After all, in a few decades research went from being a foreign concept in academia to being the most important factor in tenure decisions.”
Kunhardt suggests the establishment of a peer-review process for evaluating inventions, and to evaluate the academic significance of a new idea beyond its potential economic value.
The academic community, he believes, “perhaps with a push from the professional societies and the financial support from the government, should take the lead in clarifying the principles for doing so. Not only could it have profound benefits for the intellectual vigor of the university, it would also help America keep its place in the global economic order.”
About Stevens Institute of Technology
Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.
Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.
For the latest news about Stevens, please visit StevensNewsService.com.
