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Investing in Universities: Genesis of the National Science Foundation's Institutional Programs, 1958–1963

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

J. Merton England
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Extract

Alan T. Waterman, the first director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), often said that a sound federal policy for basic scientific research should have three elements: a research-projects system, fellowship and other education programs, and support for the development of research institutions. Reflecting on the independent federal agency's first decade of operations, Waterman thought it had done well in providing the first two elements but not the third: “.… the inadequacy of the resources available to our educational institutions is a national problem,” he wrote, “and one which the federal government must help to meet.”

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Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , April 1990 , pp. 131 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 1990

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References

Notes

1. Waterman, Alan T., “National Science Foundation; A Ten-Year Résumé,” Science 131 (6 May 1960): 1353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. President Science Advisory Committee (hereafter PSAC), Strengthening American Science (Washington, D.C., 27 December 1958); PSAC, Education for the Age of Science (Washington, 24 May 1959)Google Scholar; PSAC, Scientific Progress, the Universities, and the Federal Government (Washington, D.C., 15 November 1960)Google Scholar; Weaver, Warren, “A Great Age for Science,” Goals for Americans … The Report of the President's Commission on National Goals … ([Englewood Cliffs, N.J.?], 1960), 103–24.Google Scholar

3. For incisive accounts of the effects of government influence on higher education during the early 1960s, see Piel, Gerard, The Acceleration of History (New York, 1972), 247—79Google Scholar; Klaw, Spencer, “The Affluent Professors,” The Reporter 22 (23 June 1960): 16–25.Google Scholar

4. American Scientific Manpower, 1966: A Report of the National Register of Scientific and Technical Personnel (NSF 68–7; Washington, D.C., 1968), 34.Google Scholar

5. Piel, The Acceleration of History, 278, 279. Piel's and other panelists’ comments also appear in Government, Science, and Public Policy. Proceedings before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, 89th Cong., 2d sess. (Washington, D.C., 1966).Google Scholar

6. National Science Board (hereafter NSB) Minutes, 45th meeting, 12 March 1957, 17; 54th meeting, 28–30 June 1958, 12, 20–21.

7. Biological and Medical Sciences (hereafter BMS) Divisional Committee minutes, 10th meeting, 21 January 1958, 5; 11th meeting, 12–13 March 1958, 5, NSF Historian files (hereafter NSF HF).

8. Colman to Alan T. Waterman (hereafter ATW), 31 March 1956, Office of the Director Subject files, Record Group 307, National Archives (hereafter ODSF), Laboratory Refurbishment file.

9. ATW to John S. Bragdon, 4 April 1958, NSF HF.

10. Comptroller to Assistant Director of Administration, 9 April 1958, ODSF, Laboratory Refurbishment file.

11. NSB Minutes, 54th meeting, 28–30 June 1958, 11–12, 13, 20–22.

12. Julius Stratton of MIT and Paul Gross of Duke University were the leading advocates on the board of the new policy, but Waterman fully agreed with it. (Senior Staff Meeting Notes, 24 June 1958, NSF HF.)

13. Maurice H. Stans to ATW, 11 September 1958, and attached staff memorandum, 3 September 1958, ODSF, Laboratory Refurbishment file.

14. ATW, Diary Notes, 13 July, 9, 12 September 1958, ATW Daily File (hereafter DF); NSB Minutes, 55th meeting, 16–17 September 1958, 10–12, 17; ATW to George D. Humphrey, 22 September 1958, ATW DF.

15. ATW to Stans, 24 November, 3 December 1958, ATW DF; ATW to NSB, 5 January 1959, NSF HF.

16. House of Representatives, Hearings before the Subcommittee [on Independent Offices] of the Committee on Appropriations, pt. 1, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 627.

17. ATW to Senior Staff (Policy Guidelines for the Initiation of NSF Support of the Modernization of Graduate Level Research Laboratories), 28 May 1959, NSF HF; ATW to Weaver, 6 May 1960, ATW DF.

18. Office of Institutional Programs (hereafter OIP) Annual Reports, Fiscal Years (hereafter FY) 1961–63, passim, NSF HF; NSF Annual Report, FY 1961, 56.

19. Pusey, Nathan M., “The Carnegie Study of the Federal Government and Higher Education,” Higher Education and the Federal Government: Programs and Problems, ed. Dobbins, Charles G. (Washington, D.C., 1963), 25–27.Google Scholar

20. ATW to Senior Staff, 28 May 1959, NSF HF.

21. BMS Divisional Committee minutes, 17th meeting, 21–22 October 1960, 1, 6, and attached resolution to Director and NSB, 7 November 1960, NSF HF; NSB Minutes, 68th meeting, 17–18 November 1960, 7–8; 69th meeting, 19 January 1961, 8; 70th meeting, 16–17 March 1961, 12.

22. Fred C. Cole to ATW, 5 March 1962, attached to minutes of Advisory Committee for Institutional Programs, 3d meeting, 26–27 February 1962, NSF HF.

23. OIP Annual Reports, FY 1961–63, passim, NSF HF.

24. Ibid., especially FY 1963.

25. Ibid.

26. W. W. Dowdy to ATW, 11 September 1958; ATW to Dowdy, 1 October 1958, NSF HF.

27. England, J. Merton, A Patron for Pure Science: The National Science Foundation's Formative Years, 1945–57 (Washington, D.C., 1982), 219.Google Scholar

28. Murtaugh, Joseph S., “Biomedical Sciences,” Science and the Evolution of Public Policy, ed. Shannon, James A. (New York, 1973), 165.Google Scholar

29. Looking back a few years later, Shannon believed: “Viewing the comparative development of the NIH and the NSF during the 1956–1965 decade, it is clear that the NIH had overt social purposes while the program of the NSF tended to be perceived by many as selfserving of science and exotic to social concern and need, with no clearly defined and understandable purpose. The NIH flourished and the NSF languished because of these differences in perceived objectives.” Ibid., xii.

30. Bush, Vannevar, Science—The Endless Frontier (Washington, D.C., 1945), 53Google Scholar; England, A Patron for Pure Science, 328; Murtaugh, “Biomedical Sciences,” 165.

31. ATW to Phillip S. Hughes, 20 July 1959, ATW DF.

32. ATW to Stans, 18 March 1959, and attached comments on “DHEW Staff Study Dealing with the Implementation of the Bayne-Jones Report,” NSF HF; ATW to Hemming, 23 March 1959; ATW, Diary Notes, 10 March, 22 July 1959, ATW DF.

33. Wilson to ATW, 28 July 1959, ODSF, Office of Institutional Programs file.

34. ATW to NSB, 12 August 1959 (NSB-94), and attached paper, “Factors Bearing Upon the Question of ‘Institutional Research Grants,’ “12 August 1959, NSF HF.

35. Ibid., Attachment A, “A Program of Institutional Research Grants,” 20 April 1959.

36. NSB Minutes, 61st meeting, 27–28 August 1959, 15–16.

37. ATW to NSB, 7 October 1959 (NSB-120), and attachments, NSF, HF.

38. Ibid.

39. NSB Minutes, 62d meeting, 12–13 October 1959, 10–11.

40. NSB Minutes, 63d meeting, 7 December 1959, 16.

41. Unless otherwise noted, the following discussion of formula institutional grants is based on the program's annual reports, FY 1961–69, and on England, J. Merton, “Institutional Grants of the National Science Foundation,” Science 148 (25 June 1965): 1693–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42. Strickland, Stephen P., Politics, Science, and Dread Disease: A Short History of United States Medical Research Policy (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), 169–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43. See, for example, Pusey, “The Carnegie Study of the Federal Government and Higher Education,” 23; and John C. Weaver, “The Federal Research Endeavor and Higher Education,” Higher Education and the Federal Government, 64–65.

44. ATW to Hughes, 6 September 1960, ATW DF; NSF Senior Staff Meeting Notes, 7 November 1960, NSF HF; ATW, Diary Note, 21 February 1961; ATW to David E. Bell, 13 March 1961; ATW to Wiesner, 20 June 1961, ATW DF.

45. ATW, Diary Note, 28 June 1961, ATW DF; NSB Minutes, 72d meeting, 29 June 1961, 4–5; Bureau of the Budget draft circular, 16 April 1962, NSF HF.

46. Edward Wenk, Jr., to FCST, 13 August 1962, and attached Bureau of the Budget paper, “Institutional Grants,” 3 August 1962, ODSF, Office of Institutional Programs file.

47. ATW, Notes Concerning Attention to Institutional Needs, 5 May 1962, ATW DF.

48. On the NIH program for research professorships, see Shannon, James A. and Kidd, Charles V., “Federal Support of Research Careers,” Science 134 (3 November 1961): 1400— 1402Google Scholar; on NSF's aborted program: BMS Divisional Committee to Director and NSB, 7 November 1960, attached to BMS Divisional Committee minutes, 17th meeting, 21–22 October 1960, NSF HF; NSB Minutes, 68th meeting, 17–18 November 1960, 6–7; 69th meeting, 19 January 1961, 10; 70th meeting, 16–17 March 1961, 14–17; 73d meeting, 1–2 September 1961, 18; ATW, Notes for Board Meeting, 19 January 1961; ATW to Julius A. Stratton, 7 February 1961; ATW to Head, OIP, 17 February 1961; ATW to David Bell, 7 July 1961, ATW DF; Rufus E. Clement to ATW, 27 March 1961, NSF HF; ATW, Diary Notes, 2 May 1961, Alan T. Waterman Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Box 2 (hereafter ATW MSS).

49. Scientific Progress, the Universities, and the Federal Government, 2, 10–11, 14. George B. Kistiakowsky, the President's science advisor, “took great personal interest” in preparing and clearing the report and recalled that Eisenhower “took it very seriously and finally warmly endorsed it for publication.” Kistiakowsky, A Scientist at the White House: The Private Diary of President Eisenhower's Special Assistant for Science and Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), 379.Google Scholar

50. Page, Howard E., “Lessons of the NSF Science Development Program,” Educational Record 46 (Winter 1966): 51.Google Scholar

51. Waterman posed a number of these policy questions to a board committee on institutional programs. The difficulties of answering them and defining a science development program are obvious in the confusing summary notes on one of the committee's discussions. (ATW, Notes for Ad Hoc Committee on Institutional Programs, 26 February 1962; ATW to Stratton, 13 March 1962; ATW, Notes Concerning Attention to Institutional Needs, May 16, 1962, ATW DF; interview with Randal M. Robertson, 21 June 1985, NSF HF.)

52. NSB Minutes, 64th meeting, 14–15 March 1960, 10–11; ATW to Glenn T. Seaborg and McGeorge Bundy, 23 June 1960; ATW to Bell, 20 February 1961; ATW to NSB, 16 May 1961 (NSB-338), ATW DF.

53. NSB Minutes, 69th meeting, 19 January 1961, 10–11; Investing in Scientific Progress, 1961–1970: Concepts, Goals, and Projections (NSF 61–27; Washington, D.C., 1961), 3Google Scholar, 5, 11.

54. ATW, Diary Notes, 15, 17 May 1961, ATW MSS, Box 2. Two years later Randal M. Robertson, NSF's associate director for research, became “quite concerned” when a NASA official initiated talks suggesting that NASA, NSF, AEC, and the Office of Education “select certain institutions for development through some sort of inter-agency agreement to take concerted action.” Robertson thought the talks should stop, since “any such plan would cause endless difficulty if its existence became generally known.” (Robertson to ATW, 22 March 1963, ATW MSS, Box 29.)

55. ATW, Notes Concerning Attention to Institutional Needs, 16 May 1962; ATW to NSB, 10 May 1962 (NSB-506), 19 June 1962 (NSB-525 and NSB-526), ATW DF; Robertson to H. J. Carlson, G. Keller, and H. W. Riecken, Jr., 27 April 1962; Carlson, Keller, and Riecken to ATW, 7 May 1962; Bowen Dees to ATW, 2 May 1962, ODSF, Office of Institutional Programs file; Carlson to ATW, 14 May 1962, ODSF, Institutional Grants file.

56. NSB Minutes, 78th meeting, 22 June 1962, 11–16; ATW to NSB, 19 June 1962 (NSB-526).

57. ATW to NSB, 25 June 1962 (NSB-539), ATW DF; ATW to Leland J. Haworth, 24 June 1964, ATW MSS, Box 29.

58. ATW to Wiesner, 25 June 1962; ATW to Elmer Staats, 26 June 1962; ATW to Bell, 11 July 1962, ATW DF; Summary Minutes, Ad Hoc Committee on Science Development Program, n.d., ODSF, Institutional Grants file.

59. ATW to NSB, 17 August 1962 (NSB-567); ATW to Senior Staff, 12 September 1962 (O/D-123); ATW to Buell Gallagher, 8 October 1962; ATW, Diary Note, 2 January 1963, ATW DF; NSB Minutes, 79th meeting, 6–7 September 1962, 14–16.

60. ATW to NSB, 9 April 1963 [NSB-63–61], and attached memo, Robertson to Director, n.d., “Summary Report on the Site Visits to Eleven Academic Institutions by the Science Development Committee,” NSF HF; NSB Minutes, 86th meeting, 16–18 May 1963, 17.

61. ATW to NSB, 12 April 1963 (NSB-63–63), Proposed Plan for Operating the Science Development Program, NSF HF; NSB Minutes, 85th meeting, 19–21 April 1963, 11–14.

62. NSB Minutes, 86th meeting, 16–18 May 1963, 17.

63. NSB Minutes, 87th meeting, 20–22 June 1963, 12.

64. Page, Howard E., “The Science Development Program,” Science Policy and the University, ed. Orlans, Harold (Washington, 1968), 101–13Google Scholar; Science 148 (14 May 1965): 929; Drew, David E., Science Development: An Evaluation Study (Washington, D.C., 1975)Google Scholar; The NSF Science Development Programs, 2 vols. (NSF 77–17; Washington, 1977)Google Scholar, vol. 1, v and passim.

65. Leland J. Haworth, “Recommendations for Action by the Federal Council for Science and Technology to Help Build Increased Strength in Science in All Parts of the Nation,” 17 May 1965, NSF HF; Greenberg, D. S., “LBJ Directive: He Says Spread the Research Money,” Science 149 (24 September 1965): 1483–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66. The NSF Science Development Programs, vol. 1, 53–63.

67. Scientific Progress, the Universities, and the Federal Government, 14; Investing in Scientific Progress, 4, 11.

68. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy … 1963 (Washington, D.C., 1964), 110–11.Google Scholar

69. PSAC, Meeting Manpower Needs in Science and Technology. Report Number One: Graduate Training in Engineering, Mathematics, and Physical Sciences (Washington, D.C., 12 December 1962), 6Google Scholar, 13; A[belson], P. H., “Manpower or Mind Power,” Science 139 (11 January 1963): 79.Google Scholar

70. Newell, Homer E., Beyond the Atmosphere: Early Years of Space Science (Washington, D.C, 1980), 225–32Google Scholar; Greenberg, D. S., “NASA: New Fellowship Program Will Make Space Agency Biggest in Graduate Aid,” Science 139 (4 January 1963): 23–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

71. Caspar W. Weinberger to W. D. McElroy, 17 September 1970; McElroy to George P. Shultz, 23 October 1970, NSF HF.