Tens of millions of dollars have flown from the coffers of Congress to the hands of Dartmouth researchers since last October, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
A study released by the publication last week reported that Congress awarded a staggering $1.668 billion in earmarks to American universities and colleges, including Dartmouth, during the 2001 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. The number marks a 61 percent increase from last year's total and is the largest quantity of earmarked academic funds in congressional history.
Critics often label earmarks - funds set aside by Congress for specific purposes - as "pork." Pork-barrel spending is a term employed within the beltway to describe funds allocated by legislators to their home states for projects in order to please their constituents. Such projects are often perceived to be unnecessary or frivolous.
Some argue to the contrary - that earmarked funds go to benefit worthy causes and initiatives that have few, if any, other sources of financial support.
Still, the Chronicle of Higher Education referred to earmarks for higher education as "academic pork."
"Pork" at Dartmouth
If earmarked funds are truly to be considered "academic pork," then one could suppose that the College's plate is full, piled high with ham and several sides of bacon.
Dartmouth received nearly $26 million in individual earmarks, most of which went toward funding work done by the Dartmouth-based Institute for Security Technology Studies, and another $1.4 million geared toward ecosystem research in the Northeast, to be shared with other schools.
The sizeable earmarks earned the College the ranking of fifth amongst academic institutions receiving large-scale funding. Ranked right above Dartmouth at number four is its neighbor to the east, the University of New Hampshire, which received over $27.5 million dollars to support its marine sciences and climate change programs.
Government officials themselves will admit that the fact that two New Hampshire schools were among the top receivers of earmarked funds is no coincidence.
New Hampshire Senator Republican Judd Gregg has taken advantage of his status on the Senate Appropriations Committee to secure funds for both Dartmouth and UNH, according to the senator's press secretary, Jeff Turcotte.
"Senator Gregg is in a fortuitous position on the Appropriations Committee," Turcotte explained.
Gregg actively worked to direct funds toward both Dartmouth and UNH for the 2001 fiscal year during his time as chairman of the appropriations' subcommittee on commerce, state and the judiciary. Following Senator Jim Jeffords, I-VT, defection from the Republican party and the resulting demise of the GOP majority, Gregg lost his chairmanship but remains a ranking member on the committee.
Prominent Programs at the College
Turcotte stressed that even though Gregg's work may be largely responsible for the earmarked funds, the projects being funded "have proven themselves to be leaders in these fields."
A prime example of such a project, according to Turcotte, is the Institute for Security Technology Studies.
ISTS, explained current director Michael Vatis, was created via congressional funding to focus on the development of counterterrorism technology and cybersecurity.
"This is an area where there is a clear national need," Vatis said. A recent indicator of this need, Vatis added, was the disastrous spread of code red worm virus, which has defaced web pages across the Internet since late June.
Dartmouth was an ideal place to locate the institute, Vatis explained, because the College provides a convergence of residential expertise and faculty interest in security technology.
"If Dartmouth can develop techniques to prevent cyber terrorism, that's going to benefit the whole nation, and any part we can play to help in that, we are happy to do so," Turcotte said.
While ISTS received the lion's share - $21 million - of the earmarks given to Dartmouth, the Thayer School of Engineering also garnered a substantial amount of funding, with $3 million directed toward research on biocommodities, such as the gasoline additive ethanol, and another $1.25 million for a study on the physics of ice.
The latter project may initially appear to exemplify the term "academic pork." The Boston Globe, in an article on pork-barrel spending for New England Colleges, referred to the program simply as "ice research."
But like the work being done by ISTS, so-called ice research also may yield important national benefits, according to the Thayer Dean Lewis Duncan.
In their studies of the material properties of ice, Duncan explained, scientists look into, among other things, ice fracturing in cold climates and its impact on engineered materials such as concrete, which is used in the construction of many roads and bridges.
Thayer Professor Victor Petrenko, a member of the ice research team, was recognized by Discovery Magazine last year as its aerospace inventor of the year for his work on ice adhesion. Petrenko's research, Duncan explained, could potentially result in the de-icing of airplane wings without the use of environmentally hazardous chemicals.
The Drawbacks of Agency Grants
Despite assertions of the legitimacy of projects funded by earmarks, some critics still view the funds with skepticism, pointing out that academic institutions may also attain funding in the form of grants from government agencies.
The primary difference between such grants and earmarked funds? Grant recipients must first undergo formal review processes overseen by scholars and experts in fields of study relevant to the funding proposal.
But any claim that Dartmouth applies for congressional funds to bypass the peer-review process mandated by government agencies is unsubstantiated, according to Laurel Stavis, of the Office of Public Affairs. Dartmouth has principles under which it will accept federally earmarked funds, Stavis said.
"The College accepts earmarked funds for research where there is no recognized peer review process or other means to conduct the research," she explained.
Duncan said that, in fact, there are no real agency-funding opportunities for much of the research proposed by the Thayer School.
When funding opportunities do exist, the grants offered are often too small to support large scale products, such as those undertaken by ISTS, Vatis said.
Overall, government agencies are reluctant to fund high-risk projects despite their potentially enormous pay-offs, according to Duncan.
"There's always a tendency in most of these agencies to be funding work that incrementally builds on past success," he explained. "It has become correspondingly more difficult to propose what could be breakthrough technology where there's less evidence as to whether the final outcome will be successful or not."