UC Irvine Deal With Hitachi

Your editorial reflects a basic misunderstanding of how new technological information is made available to society and of the role of the university in this process. The fundamental task of the university is the advancement and transmission of knowledge.

The transmission of knowledge by the university occurs in several ways. Faculty members teach, publish and consult. It is nonsense to suggest that allowing private industry “to have access to leading re searchers . . . must raise concern.” University graduates bring their acquired knowledge to their new positions. University knowledge is not an “intellectual gold mine” that must be hidden and conserved, but a renewable spring that makes it surroundings fertile and productive.

It was on this basis that, as the research director of an Irvine subsidiary of SmithKline Beckman Corp., I undertook a lengthy negotiation with UCI in 1987 to erect a dual-occupancy research building at corporate expense on university land. The corporation got the benefit of easy interaction with academic researchers, and the university obtained badly needed research space (and ultimately the entire building) at no cost. In the end, American senior management, fearful of losing its own trade secrets, could not bring itself to approve this plan, and a Japanese company, “shrewdly looking to the future” in the words of your writer, snapped it up.

MANFRED E. WOLFF

Laguna Beach