HARVARD MEDICAL SCNOOLW
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGICAL CHESISTRY
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS O2115

Dr. Henry A. Harbury

Department of Biological Sciences
University of California

Santa Barbara, California 93106

Dear Dr. Harbury:

As I told you in our telephone conversation, I have de-
cided to accept a position in the Biology Department at the
University of Utah. The decision was made in spite of many
attractions which Santa Barbara holds for me, among them an
excellent, though small, molecular biology group which I found
very congenial, pleasant and ample laboratory space, a very
pretty surrounding community, and the personal fact that both
my own and my wife! s families live in California. Dr. Englesherg
has suggested that it might be of help to you to have a letter
describing in some detail the negative aspects which nonetheless
prompted a Gecision against Santa Barba ara, and this letter re-
sponds to that suggestion.

All of my concerns about Santa Barbara have a common ori-
gin, namely what appears to be a continuous decline in state
commitment to, and financial support for, a vigorous and excel-
lent university system. Some particular consequences of this
decline which would have affected me directly (and which thus
formed the substance of my reluctance to join the Santa Barbara.
faculty) are the following:

lL. ) Because of financial strictures, the salaries that
can be offered, at least to junior faculty, are not competi-
tive with those offered by other universities.

2. ) Vhe recent sequence of announcements canceling contem-
plated increases in faculty numbers and even eliminating exist-
ing faculty positions makes the future of a junior faculty mem-
ber an uncertain one at best. (You may remember that one such
announcement on the day of my visit to Santa Barbara made it
temporarily unclear whet her the position for which I was being
interviewed would actually exist.) It may be worth pointing
out that besides its obvious, personally unsettling effects,
such uncertainty also diminishes the sense of confidence and
responsibility that one can bring to the effort and commit-—
ments (to students and grant awarding agencies) required to

Oo

n ~
initiate a research program.

3.) As a corollary to the decreasing support for faculty,
there seems little prospect that the Biology Department or
Santa Barbara as a whole will soon enjoy the growth for which
it is prepared. For example, the department now has an excel-
Dr. Henxy A. Harbury April 5, 1971
, Page 2

lent nucleus for a biochemistry and molecular biology section,
but, to provide a truly high level of internal stimulation and
excitement,.that section should have representatives of several
areas of interest and expertise now absent. There seems little
liklihood that such representatives will be added in the near
future.

4.) For whatever complex of historical and political rea-
sons, the university seems burdened by a ponderous bureaucra-~
tic organization, .tthe inherent disadvantages of which have
‘been magnified by the present financial crisis. (The inertia
of the system was evidenced for me by the sequence of proce-
@ures which the Biology Department was reguired to follow in
preparing to offer me a position and in the qualifications
and uncertainties which had to be attached to descriptions of
that position.) The implication of this organizational awk-
wardness to me is that the pursuit of even modest academic,
procedural, or other changes I might come to regard as desir-
able would be likely to demand exhausting expenditures of time
and energy. An academic environment refractory to change
because of externally imposed organization can only be a frus-
trating one.

I hope you can sympathize with these reasons for my decision.
Because of my admiration and good wishes for the University of

California system, I also hope that time will see the scurces
of most of them corrected.

Sincerely yours,

Lawrence Okun