In 2016, while Vice President for Research and Economic Development (OVPR&ED) at the University of Iowa, I invited faculty from across the university campus to author essays, sharing what attracted them to their field, why they had devoted careers to exploring big questions, and what research and scholarship have contributed to the world. The indefatigable Stephen Pradarelli, communications director in the Iowa OVPR&ED, skillfully edited the faculty contributions. Last week, I was privileged to be back in Iowa City for the unveiling of the resulting book. Stephen and I co-wrote the introduction, an abbreviated version of which I have reproduced below.
Few scientists in the history of the University of Iowa embody the American spirit of discovery and innovation as vividly as the late James Van Allen. Born on a small farm near Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Van Allen was fascinated by mechanical and electrical devices, and he was an avid reader of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines. In the 1990 issue of the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Van Allen wrote that he loved to tinker as a child, building elementary electrical motors, crystal radios, and, once, to his mother’s horror, a Tesla coil that discharged foot-long electrical ribbons and “caused my hair to stand on end.”
That tinkering led, in time, to Van Allen making some of the most important 20th century discoveries in space science while a researcher at the University of Iowa. A device he designed and helped build for Explorer I—America’s first satellite—enabled him to detect a zone of energetic charge particles that originated from the solar wind and were held around Earth by its magnetic field. The finding of what was later dubbed the Van Allen Radiation Belts landed him on the cover of Time magazine in 1959, when the United States badly needed a PR boost after the Soviet Union’s successfully launched Sputnik. It also led to the establishment of a new research domain, magnetospherical physics, and demonstrated that brilliant scholarship takes place in big cities and small, coastal Ivy League institutions and Midwest public universities.
In the same way that the 31-pound Explorer I needed a rocket to reach space, researchers—scientists and scholars—depend on financial and public support to seek answers to the universe’s most intriguing questions and to explore and elucidate the human condition. With public and political backing, universities have blazed a path of discoveries over the past fifty years that have reshaped the world, translated basic research and scholarship into new cancer treatments and smartphones, life-changing public health policies and social science insights.
The universal human drive of curiosity—the thirst not just for information, but for deep understanding—has survived all manner of challenges over the centuries. That is certainly true at the University of Iowa, whose medical research, writing programs, and space exploration have been providing fresh insights into the nature of the universe and the human experience since the school’s founding in 1847, just 59 days after the state of Iowa was admitted to the Union.
This book highlights some of the current research and scholarship at the University of Iowa, not just from an academic perspective, but from a human one. We asked the contributors to write about their work in language accessible to a general audience, to help readers understand why such work is important to the public, and to share what attracted them to their chosen fields of study. Research is about the systematic exploration of the unknown. Of course, not every line of inquiry leads to a great breakthrough; in fact, there is value in having one’s expectations confounded. As James Van Allen has said about science, “pure investigation has enormous benefit. I can't tell you what this might be good for, but learning about nature is important. And lovely things turn up.”
My wish is that this collection of essays builds understanding about the value of academic inquiry and inspires hope for the future. If nothing else, you should take away a sense of the passion, dedication, and vision University of Iowa’s researchers and scholars bring to work each day.
Happily, for those of us who parlayed youthful curiosity about the world into a lifelong profession, there is no end of mysteries to solve. In her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Gilead, author and longtime Iowa Writers’ Workshop faculty member Marilynne Robinson wrote, “This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.” Indeed.
To solve some of the most challenging mysteries and to better comprehend and celebrate what it means to be human—understand how the world works, explore how and why we respond to it in the ways we do, and express the fruit of those inquiries in bold and creative ways—we need public trust, support and vision for the role of public research universities like ours.
May this book help persuade you to join us on this journey of discovery.
Comments