Research collaborations with the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories, the role of UC in lab governance, the morality of nuclear weapons and the impact of the Los Alamos lab on Native Americans were among topics discussed at an Academic Senate forum last Thursday.

The Department of Energy plans to open the contracts to manage the labs to competitive bidding. New contracts could be awarded next year.

An important question was whether UC faculty could play a greater role in the management of the labs than in the past, said Tu Jarvis, associate dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and a member of the Academic Council Special Committee on the National Laboratories. UC also had to consider whether it could afford to run the labs as a public service to the nation, he said.

Several speakers talked about their collaborations with the labs. Kai Liu, an assistant professor of physics, said that since he arrived on campus in 2001, links with the Livermore lab had helped him land grants and recruit students.

Ralph deVere White, director of the UC Davis Cancer Center, described the Livermore lab as "a gold mine of incredible people and technology." The lab had played a critical role in winning National Cancer Institute designation for the Cancer Center, he said.

"We should do everything possible to hang on to Livermore," he said.

Phil Rogaway, professor of computer science, argued that the Los Alamos and Livermore labs are overwhelmingly dedicated to designing and building nuclear weapons.

"We're talking about the U.S. facility for building weapons of mass destruction," he said. For UC to lend its name to this enterprise is fundamentally not legitimate, Rogaway said.

Annie Ross, of Native American Studies, said that Native Americans affected by activities at Los Alamos had no voice. If UC continued to manage Los Alamos, it should consider how to respond to health problems, poverty and damage to sacred sites in New Mexico, she said.

Dennis Matthews, director of the Center for Biophotonics, said that UC management brought benefits to UC faculty and students in the form of research facilities, fellowships and jobs. Lab employees benefit from the university's academic credibility and are protected from becoming political puppets, he said. Private-sector management in whole or in part would change the culture of the labs, Matthews said.

UC's management also benefits the country, Matthews said.

"Do you want the nuclear stockpile guaranteed by a company or a government agency, or by the University of California?" he asked.

That point was echoed by physics professor Joe Kiskis.

"I would rather it is done by UC than anyone else," he said.

Kiskis observed that UC, rather than the Department of Energy, gets the blame for problems at the labs and said that any new contract should be set up so that the perception of responsibility reflects UC's actual degree of control.

Harry Brandt, emeritus professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering, recounted his experience as a young man in Nazi-occupied Holland, when he spent months in hiding to avoid conscription into the German Navy.

"The world is not a safe place," he said. "For a strong defense, you need excellent technology from places like the national labs, and that excellence depends on the management of the most respected university in the world."

The meeting was wrapped up by Daniel Simmons, a law professor who has served on the national security and environmental safety and health panels of the UC President's Council on the National Laboratories.

Simmons said that when the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed, UC had been able to bring a unique combination of expertise to the table to work out how to maintain the stockpile without nuclear testing. In health and safety, the labs had gone from being one of the most dangerous workplaces to the "best in class," because of the expertise UC could bring to bear, he said.

The systemwide Academic Senate will conduct an electronic poll in early May to gather more opinions about the bidding process and lab management. More information, including some presentations from the town hall meeting, is available at http://www.mrak.ucdavis.edu/senate/ntnllabs.htm.