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Articles: Los Angeles Times, Daily Bulletin
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Formal convocation is hastily moved after groups block entrance to tent
erected for celebration.
Los Angeles Times - November 18, 2000
By TIPTON BLISH
CLAREMONT -- The Keck Graduate Institute's formal debut Friday was
marred by a loud, mostly peaceful protest that forced the opening
celebration from an airy tent into a dimly lit conference room on the
temporary campus southwest of downtown.
Students have been in class since late August at the newest addition to
the Claremont Colleges, but Friday was the official convocation for the
school.
However, about 200 students and faculty members with a variety of
criticisms of the school descended on the ceremony, carrying signs and
wielding noisemakers. Many, some in costume, broke through a rope line and
blocked guests from entering the tent.
The most pressing issue for many protesters is the Claremont University
Consortium's plans to build a new Keck campus on land north of Foothill
Boulevard in the Bernard Biological Field Station. That project is nearing
final approval, particularly after the announcement this week that an
opposition group was dropping a lawsuit challenging the project.
But Keck Graduate Institute also is under fire from faculty members at
the other schools for not offering its faculty tenure. They believe tenure
is needed to guarantee the free exercise of scientific inquiry in a
corporate environment.
Students and faculty members also have a more general criticism of
biosciences, which are at the core of Keck's mission. They railed against
genetic engineering in particular with skits, chants and song.
Keck's chief academic officer, David Galas, was head of the U.S.
Department of Energy's Human Genome Project, which aims to map the genetic
code for the human species.
Friday's action was the culmination of a week of protest and
celebration of the seventh Claremont College, the first since Pitzer College
opened in 1963.
Students from the inaugural class of 28 found themselves defending
their school at a symposium Tuesday night organized by critics of Keck. On
Friday they argued briefly with protesters outside the tent.
"There's a lot of misinformation out there," said Jason Moon, a
22-year-old graduate of Wittenberg University in Ohio. "They think there's a
lot of corporate influence here. We're not in contact with corporations
except for their human resources departments."
The school is designed to train students to work as managers in the
burgeoning biological and medical sciences and prepare them for private
industry. Students will earn master's degrees.
These protests are nothing new to Keck administrators, who have been
planning the school for about five years and trying to get approval for
their new home for at least two. At least eight campus security guards were
on hand Friday as were 10 Claremont police officers, including Cmdrs. Russ
Brown and Daryl McGehee and Chief Roy Brown.
Protesters marched from a rally at Pomona College to the temporary Keck
campus where 11 students and Pitzer College professor Joe Parker blocked the
entrance to the tent while a brass quintet played to empty chairs. A tense
standoff ended peacefully after campus security officers were unable to
persuade the group to move, and John Maguire, president emeritus of the
Claremont Graduate University, elbowed his way into the tent.
School officials gave up on holding the ceremony in the tent and moved
to a conference room, hastily rearranged with plants and a Keck banner.
The ceremony was a celebration of the creation of a major academic
institution. Robert Day, president and CEO of the W.M. Keck Foundation,
which gave the school its founding $50-million grant, described the opening
of a new school of Keck's standing as extraordinary.
Protesters continued to rally outside the ceremony, although they were
barely audible inside. Mayor Karen Rosenthal told the audience that her city
"encourages conversation about politics and goings on."
Henry Riggs, president of the Keck Graduate Institute, took most of the
protest in stride.
He has never spoken with student leaders or faculty members protesting
his school, and dismissed arguments that the Keck faculty will be beholden
to corporations or anybody else.
"We have a comprehensive academic freedom statement," he said in an
interview before the convocation. "We are not on a crusade about tenure. We
believe it does not fit with this institution ... The curriculum and choice
and direction of research is 100% in the hands of our faculty."
"When you do something sort of innovative, and we're pushing the edges
of science, you're bound to have protest," he said.
Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times
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Saturday, November 18, 2000 12:00:00 AM
By Matt Krupnick
Daily Bulletin Staff Writer
CLAREMONT -- More than 150 chanting protesters delayed but did not prevent
the city's newest college from holding its first convocation Friday.
The raucous group of students, professors and residents marched from Pomona
College to the fledgling Keck Graduate Institute, holding signs and shouting
their opposition to the biotechnology school.
No arrests were made, but 10 Claremont police officers and several campus
security guards watched as the demonstrators first prevented attendees from
entering a large tent set up for the event before following the guests
toward an alternate site.
Keck officials and organizers shrugged off the protest, saying the
demonstrators misunderstood the purpose of the new school. Protesters
targeted a variety of issues, including the college's corporate ties, its
plans to build a permanent campus on the Bernard Biological Field Station
and the lack of tenure for its professors.
"When you do something that is innovative, you're bound to have protests,"
Keck President Henry Riggs said. "The thing these people refuse to
understand is that the curriculum and research are 100 percent in the hands
of our faculty."
The corporate ties and lack of tenure make it difficult for Keck teachers to
conduct meaningful research, protesters have argued. The college opened its
doors in August with an inaugural class of 28 students.
The school, which offers a master's degree in bioscience, was founded simply
to earn money and bring prestige to the other six members of the Claremont
Colleges, said Rick Worthington, a public policy professor at Pomona College
who spoke at a rally before the march.
"Keck Graduate Institute is an aggressive move by mostly Southern California
elites," Worthington said. "It's not about education, it's about profits."
Keck students took the protest in stride, bantering with protesters and
shaking their heads at the demonstrators' claims.
"They have no clue what we're doing here," student Kevin Hambly said. "They
think we're cloning people here. Maybe they're just using us as a scapegoat
for the whole industry."
Another major problem with the school is its lack of an ethics professor,
said Ann Davis, a moral philosophy professor at Pomona College.
"I don't think they can do what they're doing without an ethicist on staff,"
she said. "The claim that they are an academic institute is not true."
Student Wenli Wang, who said he enjoyed watching the protesters, said the
innovative structure of Keck's curriculum convinced him to come to the
school from China. Links with industry are necessary to provide a practical
education, he said.
"If you want to ensure your future career, you need industrial support,"
Wang said. "All of us are happy to be here."
Matt Krupnick can be reached by e-mail at m_krupnick@dailybulletin.com or by
phone at (909) 483-9355.
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