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A money gap and a brain drain

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Times Staff Writer

Corey Goodman and Carla Shatz had a grand vision for UC Berkeley: to build the greatest neuroscience program in the world, to figure out how healthy brains work, and to use that understanding to cure disease.

They wanted a place where chemists and physicists, geneticists and other scientists could work alongside neurobiologists like themselves to unlock the secrets of the body’s most mysterious organ. They wanted to change the world. The university wanted them to do it.

But there was no money to build their neuroscience center or equip their hoped-for high-tech laboratories. Today, Shatz is pursuing similar research at Harvard Medical School, and Goodman is the chief executive of a biotechnology company that develops drugs to treat neurological disease.

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“I was told, ‘Corey, help us raise money for X, Y and Z, and then we’ll get around to yours,’ ” said Goodman, who took a leave of absence in 2001 to start Renovis and resigned his tenured position last year. “I didn’t want to wait five years for my turn to come up. When I see something is good for society and good for research, I want to go for it.”

Instead of going for it at Berkeley, Goodman just left, albeit reluctantly. And he is just one in a line of prestigious researchers who have abandoned the university in recent years -- or are threatening to today -- in part because UC Berkeley simply cannot afford to build enough labs, upgrade technology or even keep the floors shiny.

As voters consider Proposition 1D -- the $10.4-billion bond measure to benefit California’s schools, colleges and universities -- some say UC Berkeley offers a cautionary tale about what happens when the state fails to invest enough money to keep its very foundation healthy, let alone accommodate growth.

California has added some 10 million people in the last 20 years and is expected to grow at about the same pace in the next 20. But growth has barely registered this campaign season, its discussion relegated to a series of bond measures that at best would patch the state’s crumbling infrastructure. If they pass -- and that’s a big “if.”

As it strains to keep up with technological innovation, protect against the Big One and safeguard its reputation while absorbing a decade of enrollment growth, UC Berkeley could be a stand-in for the state that created it.

The oldest school in the University of California system, Berkeley is ranked as the leading public university in America by U.S. News & World Report. It sits atop the Hayward fault and has spent more than $300 million in the last 20 years retrofitting its aging buildings to meet stiff seismic standards. But it needs twice that, and another decade, to complete the job.

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The campus has nearly $600 million in deferred maintenance costs and struggles to keep roofs patched, pipes sound and heating and ventilation systems working. It no longer washes windows, waxes floors, replaces worn carpets or paints interior walls.

Plastic sheeting is tacked above equipment in some Birge Hall physics labs as protection from dripping pipes. The chairwoman of the music department raided research funds two years ago to paint dingy hallways so picky donors wouldn’t turn away. Only 30% of the university’s classrooms are wired for updated teaching technology.

The School of Public Health’s main building cannot be seismically retrofitted and is slated for demolition. To date, there is no money to build a replacement, and Dean Stephen Shortell is trying to raise $150 million for his school’s new home. “Securing the necessary funding is critical for the future of public health in California,” he said.

Nervous administrators hope other distinguished faculty don’t turn their backs on the Bay Area, lured away by institutions offering facilities UC Berkeley can only dream of. And they worry about how long their university’s stellar reputation can last in the face of budget constraints and wealthy Ivy League competitors.

“We are in a war for our intellectual talent right now with major institutions that are far better-funded than we are,” said A. Richard Newton, dean of Berkeley’s College of Engineering. “We as a society just have to decide: Is this something that we’re prepared to invest in, or not?”

One of the toughest battles for Berkeley is over the future of renowned bioengineer Luke P. Lee, an expert in the field of bio-nanotechnology who is on a leave of absence. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology has made Lee a full professor for systems nanobiology, crowing in a press release that he is “one of the world’s leading experts in the area of micro-fluidics and ‘Lab-on-a-Chip’ technology.”

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Lee did not respond to requests for comment. But Berkeley administrators said the Zurich-based institute made the bioengineer a “staggering” offer of facilities and financial support -- something they could never even meet, let alone best. Still, they remain hopeful that Berkeley’s cachet can woo him back.

“He’s said, ‘Let’s see what you can do in the next year,’ ” Newton recounted. “He absolutely, positively does not want to leave Berkeley.... [But] he wants to make an impact on the world that is profound and deep through his teaching and work. The challenge: Can he do that in an institution that is not making the necessary investments?”

Although Berkeley is a state institution, money from California’s general fund covers less than 30% of its annual expenditures, down from about 50% in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Through the years, the university itself has grown, along with the cost of running a research institution, but state funding hasn’t kept up. A combination of federal grants and contracts, tuition and philanthropy accounts for the rest of its funding.

The 32,347-student university needs more capital investment than any other campus in the 10-school system, according to the UC capital budget. But it often receives less than the others. The current budget says $243 million worth of projects to improve facilities at Berkeley will begin over the next five years. Though the UC system will receive about $890 million over two years if Proposition 1D passes, just $26.75 million is earmarked for Cal.

“A lot of our capital budget relates to enrollment growth,” said Larry Hershman, the system’s budget vice president. “Most of the growth in enrollment is occurring in campuses like San Diego, Irvine, Riverside, Davis.”

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What Hershman describes as a fiscal “balancing act” between fast-growing younger campuses and needy older ones could prove even more difficult after the election. If Proposition 1D fails, “we’ll get nothing this year” from the state for building and upgrading, Hershman said.

As chairman of the Senate Education Committee, state Sen. Jack Scott (D-Pasadena) is a strong supporter of the bond measure. But he also believes that, in the wake of a recent uproar over compensation, the UC system must show voters that it spends money wisely.

“There are capital needs that UC has, and I’m supportive of their receiving this money from the proposition,” Scott said. “I am also a very strong proponent of accountability and that all of our segments of education ought to be spending the money well.”

Most surveys show that the package of infrastructure bonds on the Nov. 7 ballot faces an uphill battle. The most recent poll, released this week by the Public Policy Institute of California, said that even though the electorate endorses the use of state bonds for infrastructure, 58% of likely voters believe the $43-billion price tag for the five bond measures is too high.

Tom Hudson is the executive director of the California Taxpayer Protection Committee, which opposes all of the measures. The state will spend more than $3 billion a year to pay interest on the bonds, which would force either tax increases or cuts in state services, he said.

Even though Hudson is a Berkeley alumnus, he said it is “unfair

In the 21st century, arguments like Hudson’s are dangerously short-sighted, said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, who calls Berkeley “a huge contributor to the state’s economic resiliency.”

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“Especially in the sciences, you have got to have these kinds of state-of-the-art facilities,” Callan said. “It’s expensive, and there’s a very high price for delay and for risking having our leadership in those areas erode.”

For now, Berkeley still rates as the top public university in America, if not the world, depending on whose rankings you look at. And it is in the preliminary stages of a fundraising campaign that could bring in more than $2 billion.

In the last two years alone, $660 million in money and pledges has been amassed. The funds generally are earmarked for specific needs and will go toward endowed professorships, student fellowships, construction efforts and building the university’s endowment.

Although a neuroscience institute did not get built in time to keep Goodman and Shatz at Berkeley, the Li Ka Shing Center is set to break ground in 2007. It is planned as a home for stem cell, neurobiology, infectious disease and cancer research.

The $100 million needed just for the building was raised entirely from private donors, said Robert Tjian, a gene researcher and head of the university’s health sciences initiative, who hopes to leverage that money to pay for equipment and labs.

Tjian himself has been wooed by Harvard and Stanford, but he is fiercely loyal to an institution that he says is unlike any other. And he’ll remain that way, he said, as long as the best faculty and the best students in the world continue to make their way west.

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“Compared to MIT and Harvard, we’re starving to death,” he said. “When we get raided by institutions with bottomless pits of money, we have a hard time. But we don’t lose as many as you’d think.”

maria.laganga@latimes.com

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BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX

Follow the money

University of California officials face a Catch-22. While the system’s oldest edifices need more money for maintenance and upgrades, population growth is driving construction funds to newer campuses with growing enrollments.

Capital projects* vs. proposed Proposition 1D funding**

*--* Enrollment Project costs Prop. 1D funds Campus growth*** (in millions) (in millions) San Diego 4,561 $223 $95 Davis 4,065 189 30 Irvine 3,557 215 122 Riverside 2,207 199 92 Santa Cruz 2,105 183 150 Santa Barbara 872 126 43 Berkeley 571 243 27 Los Angeles 532 162 39 Merced n/a 84 40

*--*

Note: Includes only UC campuses with undergraduate programs. UC Merced opened in 2005.

* State Capital Improvement Program, projects begun 2006-2011

** UC projects proposed for funding under Proposition 1D, to be paid over two years

*** Five-year increase in full-time enrollment (01-02 to 05-06)

Source: University of California Office of the President

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