UCSB Campus Point Note from the Editors: UC Student Survey
May 20, 2004

Students of UCSB have probably noticed an email going around with the subject reading, “We need to know about your UCSB experience!” This message comes from Michael D. Young, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs. After opening the message you are greeted with, “The 2004 University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey gives you an opportunity to provide honest and confidential feedback about your UCSB experience: what's important to you, what's working well, and what's not working so well.”

Judging from this introduction, it would be understandable if you were not aware that the purpose of this survey is to collect student feedback about UC's management of three national laboratories. The survey starts off with 50 questions asking you things such as how often you study, then proceeds to five more questions relating to the laboratories.

You should be aware that this is the first time in UC's history that students have been asked their opinions about UC's role in laboratory management. The reason this issue is important now is that this is also the first time the federal government has put the laboratory management contracts up for competitive bidding. The Department of Energy intends to open up the Los Alamos National Laboratory contract for bids in time for its expiration September 2005, while Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's bid schedule has yet to be released.

The survey mentions that Los Alamos N.L. and Lawrence Livermore N.L. “engage in classified, security-related research related in part to maintaining the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, and are the primary sites of the United States ' nuclear weapons research and design program.” UCSB students would know Los Alamos as the place where Berkeley professor J. Robert Oppenheimer's team began the Manhattan Project in 1942. UC has managed the lab since 1943.

The LANL website contains a document called the Decision Applications Division 2003-04 Progress Report (SCRN). On page 12 of 18 it says, “Maintaining a broad-based nuclear weapons analysis capability is critical to identifying the pressing issues and making recommendations to the decision makers who are guiding the weapons programs. Current projects utilizing this capability are the robust nuclear earth penetrator (RNEP) advanced concepts feasibility study.” ( www.lanl.gov/orgs/d/pr/pdfs/Ddiv/PR03Groups.pdf ).

The RNEP is also known by the term “bunker buster,” and is a nuclear bomb capable of drilling through 20-30 feet of rock or concrete before detonating with ten times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb that killed 140,000 people in WWII.

The UC survey lists several reasons for and against bids on LANL and LLNL. The arguments in favor: It continues the sixty-year-old tradition of UC's public service obligation to the nation; UC's scientific and management expertise is very important to the nation's security; The nation benefits from UC's involvement with the labs' non-classified (non-national- securityrelated ) research programs and activities; UC faculty and students benefit from their collaboration with the labs' research programs and activities; UC's management of the labs allows for greater public oversight of the labs than would management by a private contractor.

The arguments against: The national security mission of the labs, in particular its relation to nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship, conflicts with UC's research and public service missions; UC's association with the labs' nuclear weapons work damages UC's reputation; The difficulty of managing the labs outweighs the benefits; UC's management of the labs does not allow for any greater public oversight of the labs than would management by a private contractor; Having managed the labs for sixty years as a public service without having to bid competitively, UC should not now be required to compete against other entities in order to continue its management of the labs.

Campus Point urges students to research the topic for themselves before completing the survey.

Originally published by Campus Point (UCSB).