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Song Sung Blue
At the twilight of its tercentennial, Yale's Levin examines the big picture
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Business New Haven
12/10/2001
By:
BNH
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Richard C. Levin is president of Yale University. He spoke with reporters on November 27 at his office in Woodbridge Hall.
What have been the main themes at the university throughout this tercentennial year?
The biggest projects are our [$1 billion] major science initiative, and the second is the internationalization of the university we announced about a year ago. Both of those initiatives are faring extremely well. In the sciences, we've had some terrific recruitments of world-class scientists - the fact of announcing we're going to invest a half-billion dollars on the main campus and a half-billion dollars on the medical campus has really had a powerful impact on the interest of scientists elsewhere in joining our faculty. On the international initiative, we're very excited about the greater international diversity of our students this year. We've been able to attract students from the more needy countries of the world in greater numbers, and I think that's a good step forward. This has a local impact, too - the science one very directly, because the spin-offs of having great science at Yale have helped with the start-up of a number of these technology-based companies. And biotech companies in the region are - I wouldn't necessarily say recession-proof - but they certainly fare better in the economic downturn than the dot.coms or other kinds of companies that are less long-term in perspective. Biotech companies are basically developing technologies that are going to take five to 15 years to come to fruition, and they're capitalized for the long term - that massive wave of investment these companies got in the year 2000, $1 billion of capital investment in New Haven-based companies. That won't all be spent in a year, [such as] the investment Bayer has made to CuraGen that will flow over a period of years. So these companies are definitely positioned for the long haul. As for the international issues, Yale's greater global presence will be bringing international visitors and more international students to this city - I think it's good for the image of the city; people [from around the world] carry back the word that New Haven is an exciting, positive city.
What about a new contract with Locals 34 and 35 [whose pact expires January 20]?
What really would be so powerful as a way of strengthening Yale's ability to contribute to the community would be to have the kind of relationship with the people who work here that is not just a 'partnership' but reflects a true commitment and collaboration in the workings of the university. We're an employer that pays good wages, provides good benefits - but historically that has not elicited a sense of positive identification that the employees have with the employer. We can do much better. There's no reason we can't have collaborative relations and the kinds of ongoing conversation between workers and the people who supervise them that the best practices in American industry have today, where workers have much more direct input into daily decisions. It makes everybody feel better about their work. You don't achieve that by going to war every four years in public, and then kissing and making up in the end.
Shortly before Thanksgiving you announced the formation of a Committee on Yale College Education. What do you anticipate will be the output of that group's efforts?
It's an important thing. We hadn't reviewed the [undergraduate] curriculum comprehensively for 30 years. We've looked at pieces - we strengthened the science and language requirements over the years - but we hadn't really taken a comprehensive look at Yale College. The point of doing this now is not that we are dissatisfied with the Yale College education - students get a great education here - but what's happened is we're making big investments in science, in internationalization, in the arts, that might or might not redound to the benefit of Yale College students. We could improve scientific research here and become a world-class research institution - and not have the undergraduates know or feel it very much.
Following up on commercialization of research, has the pace of founding new companies based on university research slowed in this down economy?
I think it's probably softened a little. We still get invention disclosures within the university. I don't actually know how many potential start-ups, and I haven't talked to [Yale Office of Collaborative Research head] Jon Soderstrom lately, but I think it's been pretty steady up through six months ago. Venture capitalists actually have plenty of money to put to work - but they're a little wary about putting it to work right now.
Do you think the benefit of that commercialization to New Haven is somewhat oversold, since many successful start-ups - Alexion, CuraGen - end up leaving the city?
It's inevitable that as companies grow and become successful, they want big campuses, they want green space. We don't have the land in the city to accommodate them. So part of the natural trajectory of a company like CuraGen. We've met with them to try to encourage them to stay in the city; the mayor met with them; [city Development Administrator] Henry Fernandez met with them…But the truth is, they didn't want a landlord, they didn't want to be renting space down on Long Wharf. They want to control their own destiny in terms of future expansion. I'd love to keep companies like that in New Haven. But we shouldn't be disheartened when they leave because we've done the incubating task, they're staying in the region, they're keeping the same employees in Branford as in New Haven….
But what about the promise of jobs for relatively low-skilled workers at these new companies? That doesn't seem to have been fulfilled.
When we first started talking about this seven or eight years ago, you pretty much had to have a master's degree to work at these [biotech] start-ups. What's happened now is that the mechanization of many of these DNA tests - if you've been to CuraGen, they've got a bunch of robots doing these experiments, and people with a certain amount of training can work in those settings without advanced degrees. In fact, they're hiring people with two-year degrees out of the biotech program at Middlesex [Community College]. And now we've introduced a biotech program at Gateway [Community College in New Haven]. That program will be an avenue for local high-school graduates to get good-paying jobs in this sector. [Companies like CuraGen] have industrialized their research operations to some degree.
How did you personally feel about and react to the events of September 11?
It was clear that the occasion called for stepping up and trying to do something significant to help our students cope with the situation. The first wave of involvement was to call together all the deans of the various schools and the masters of the residential colleges. And we gathered together right in this room at 11 [a.m.] on 9/11 - and of course at that moment we expected the magnitude of personal tragedy in our community to be much greater than it turned out to be. It felt important to come together, scope this out and hear ideas about how to deal with it.
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