THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY

1230 YORK AVENUE NEW YORK, NY 10021

February 11, 1981

 

TOSHUA LEDERBERG

PRESIDENT

Mr. Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr.
Alcoa Building

1 Maritime Plaza

San Francisco, California 94111

Dear Ed:

You will recall that we spoke briefly at the Lindzeys'
home about the challenges of your role at the foundation (I
took it for granted, perhaps incorrectly, that this was the
System Development Foundation).

First of all wearing my university president's hat, I
am glad to have the opportunity to share with you a couple
of pages of a proposal intended to elicit some interest on
the part of Texas Instruments. It is directed specifically
at getting computer sciences moving here at the Rockefeller
University. I am rather dubious about being able to get TI,
or any other single corporation, to make a major commitment
in view of the competitive uncertainties of the integrated
circuit market during the next few years. However, I am
still far from giving up on the concept and hope to piece
it together from a complementary set of sources.

Removing that hat, and speaking more broadly about the
problems of university organization and how to promote
specific innovations in it, I thought you might be interested
in the enclosed interview in Organizational Dynamics. I think
you really do need a pretty intimate knowledge of the organi-
zation, personalities, and fiscal flows of an institution to
be able to say with very high confidence just what leverage
a specific grant can have. There are some circumstances where
I would applaud the idea of self choice, by a department, of
its worthiest recipient; there are others where this would
both reflect and aggravate political tensions and alliances
better left no worse. ' Happily the Rockefeller in relation to
its size and scope is the least complicated of the institu-
tions I have ever inhabited, but even here the overall priori-
ties of the institution do not always accord with maximization
of a single laboratory.
Mr. Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr.
February 11, 1981

-2-

Universities and similar institutions are generally not
nearly such rugged and self sustaining organizations as they
used to be and one should not take it for granted that they
can survive prolonged neglect of over-arching needs. The
dilemma is that it is very difficult to "market" the insti-
tution as a whole; and there may be very good reasons for
an external donor to wish to emphasize the needs and possi-
bilities of some particular segment.

All of this is just introductory conversation and I look
forward to mutual enlightenment when we can have more dis-
cussion. Please do let me know if I can find some of your
time while you are in New York; and I hope this precedes my
own next visits to California.

Yoprs sincerely,
Encls.

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