December 19, 2010 – Jon Saari, as published in the Mining Journal

University professors occupy an unusual niche in American society. I speak from the experience of having been one for 34 years at Northern Michigan University.

Professionals by virtue of their long and specialized graduate training, professors are considered an educated elite, and looked up to by many.

But disdainful critics see only too-smart experts and intellectuals.

Our democratic noses sniff out patronizing and smug attitudes. Yet we often enjoy demeaning caricatures of our supposed ” betters” as well as our “inferiors.” Along with the greedy fat capitalist and the baby-kissing conniving politician is the figure of the bumbling professor who is hopelessly out of touch with reality.

The truth is professors are interested in much more than the real world. Take the concept of profit and loss. It means the bottom line to a corporate executive, or the keys to electoral victory to a politician.

The university community fairly hums with multiple perspectives on the concept: economists theorize about externalized costs, linguists trace the changing meanings of the word “profit,” historians construct portraits of economic life in different cultures and eras, and philosophers look at the logic and consistency of our use of the terms.

Stop, you say! Just give me a common sense definition. But reality has many faces in the university, and in becoming educated we learn to try them all on, like dancers putting on masks at a ball.

Such reality testing is at the heart of what professors do; we are trained not to be cogs in a machine, but critical thinkers who take very little at face value. But however much Americans praise free-thinking, many of us actually prefer like-thinking.

Conservative parents are horrified that their daughter has a Marxist professor, corporate clients want research that produces results favorable to their interests, and legislators often want to run universities like businesses.

Because of these pressures, special traditions have evolved around universities to protect them as sanctuaries for free inquiry. On principle, parents and legislators are held at arms length from the classroom, and professors (after five-to-seven years probation) are granted career-long tenure that can only be ended for serious misconduct or demonstrated incompetence.

In recent years, the mining controversy in our region has drawn NMU faculty into its vortex. At least five faculty members (three retired, including this writer) have been active opponents of the Eagle Project on the Yellow Dog Plains, while a number of others have seen it as an opportunity for professional research, even collaboration with a new multinational mining corporation.

Such diverse reactions are to be expected in an academic subculture of free thinkers and professional entrepreneurs.

But one recent collaboration between two NMU faculty members and Kennecott Eagle Mineral Company has a number of observers raising their eyebrows.

Tawni Ferrarini (Economics) and Marcelo Siles (International Studies), as independent contractors, have undertaken a study of community attitudes for Kennecott.

The first phase was completed during the summer of 2010, and utilized a SWOT analysis, which stands for an analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats related to new mining in parts of Marquette and Baraga counties. A second phase is being launched.

The main scholarly concern is that Kennecott is a client paying for this research study. It wants the information, and will ultimately use it as part of a strategy for building ties in this community.

To their credit, the researchers and their focus groups turned up perceived weaknesses and threats, even though opponents were excluded in phase one. But other problems remain.

Ferrarini and Siles emphasize that they are not representing NMU in this study, but in fact the credibility of the study rests on their degrees and university affiliation.

It would have been more transparent and convincing if it had been funded by NMU research monies instead of KEMC community outreach funds.

Editor’s note: Jon Saari is a retired Northern Michigan University professor and member of the Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition.

Also read Thomas Polkinghorne’s letter to the editor concerning the controverial Kennecott haul road:

http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/556865/Changes-are-coming.html?nav=5067