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\'3;↓Q\CSTANFORD UNIVERSITY
\F3\CSTANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LABORATORY\←L\-R\/'7;\+R\→.\→S   Telephone:
COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT\←S\→.415-497-4430
\F0\C23 January 1975




To the editor of the Stanford Daily:

\←=28;\λ\;
\J	Here are some notes on the Faculty Senate meeting of January 23
and what it implies for the future of Stanford.
President Lyman started by saying that
that difficult financial situations tended to have divisive effects and
that unity (of the Stanford community) was needed.  No-one
disputed this.

	On the agenda was a week old resolution
by Professor Colin Pittendrigh
to the general effect that the Faculty Senate should develop its own opinion of
the distribution of budget cuts.  Its  third paragraph
was:

\F1"It is the sense of the Senate that, in general, the University's effectiveness
in discharging its primary functions now, and its resilience to face further
challenge, will be less threatened by a reduction in the generous support
services it now enjoys than by any fiscally comparable economy achieved by
curtailment of the academic program itself."\F0

	Professor Pittendrigh said he was sorry that
some people had interpreted the resolution as expressing a lack of confidence
in the Stanford Administration.  Several speakers then said that the paragraph
might offend the Staff and Administration
and it was voted to strike it.
I then left, and I don't know what happened next

	In back of Pittendrigh's resolution is
the fact that Stanford currently spends $21 million per year out of general
funds on administration and service salaries and $15 million on faculty pay.
Service costs passed academic costs in the middle 1960s, have risen four
times as fast since 1960, and are projected to continue rising faster than
academic costs, reaching $31 million vs. $21 million in 1980.

	There are two ways one can look at an institution like a university
(two \F1models\F0 of institutions - to use social science language).  The first
is as a \F1community\F0 including various groups, i.e. faculty, students,
and staff, with varying interests, and having a policy aimed at
advancing the joint interests of the groups and mediating their
differences.  In crisis times, unity is essential.
From the \F1community\F0 point of view,
President Lyman's call for unity was most
appropriate, and the Senate was right in voting down
Pittendrigh's potentially divisive paragraph.

	The second kind of institution is one created and maintained
by society for a purpose.  A university is then 
for the advancement and
propagation of knowledge, and the relative emphasis given to its activities
are such as will best advance this purpose.  From this point of
view, Pittendrigh's paragraph was appropriate if true.  Since its
truth was not debated - only whether it was divisive, we must conclude that
the Senate majority had the \F1community\F0 aspect of Stanford uppermost in their
minds.

	People who found universities take the \F1purpose\F0 view.  That is
why they set up boards of trustees rather than democratically
elected Community bodies.  They
hope the trustees will hold the institution to its purpose uncorrupted
by having
something personal to gain or by commitments to collleagues.

	When an institution becomes uncertain of its purpose, it may tend to
regard itself more as a Community, and the President's speech showed it.
If Stanford is mainly a Community, the following considerations apply:
It depends a lot on donations, and the
donors like to think their donations advance some Purpose, so
at least lip service to Purpose has to be given.  The Community should
view tolerantly the basically harmless
personal commitment of many of its members to advancing
and propagating knowledge in so far as their numbers warrant the expenditure
of Community resources, and these members don't ask the Community
to do anything contrary to the welfare of other members.
However, the tenure system that requires some faculty to leave
after six years just because they
haven't advanced knowledge enough
contradicts the Spirit of Community.
If external support is too hard to get,
the Community could liquidate the University; dividing
the $300 million being raised by the Campaign for Stanford
into three equal parts would give each student
$10,000, each staff member $20,000 and each faculty member
$100,000, not counting what the Campus would fetch.

	However, if the \F1purpose\F0 model fits Stanford, then
Pittendrigh was too mild, though evidently he knew his audience.
Stanford must reverse the growth of service and administrative costs.
A good general goal is the ratio of service to academic personnel
expense that existed in 1960 supplemented by comparing Stanford's costs
with those of the most economical other institutions.
Different institutions make the transition to over-administration at different
times and some haven't yet;
for many years, Berkeley's Administration attracted faculty to Stanford.

	The Stanford Administration is certainly making some effort to reduce
service expenses, though maybe people displaced are absorbed by expanding another
service.
However, the President and Provost won't easily dismantle
offices they have lovingly created, nor will they get the assistance they need
with a slogan of "unity" addressed to
a Community-minded Faculty Senate.  Maybe they
will get it from the Trustees, since that is what the Trustees are for.
They may need the assistance given by a policeman who
told a jury I was on in a drunk driving case,
"We assisted Mr. X into the patrol car."\.


	
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John McCarthy
Computer Science Department
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