Feb 28 2011
While officials are touting a major investment recently made by Lockheed Martin as a research funding coup, some students are questioning the university's expanding relations with the local defense technology corporation.
Lockheed Martin — a Bethesda-based global security company that is contracted primarily through the U.S. Department of Defense and other federal government agencies — announced a $200,000 investment last week to the Dingham Center for Entrepreneurship to advance nanotechnology research underway at the university.
The funding will be spent on nanowire technology research that is developing sensors for robotic vehicles, said aerospace engineering professor Alison Flatau, one of the project's lead researchers.
"We're delighted by this investment and that a company like Lockheed Martin recognizes our vision for this research," she said.
"We're proud to work with leading institutions like the University of Maryland to develop and field cutting-edge technologies like this nanowire," Douglas Britton, a Lockheed Martin executive, said in a press release.
"Partnering with colleges and universities is one of the many ways we drive technology innovation for our customers."
Business school Dean Anand Anandalingam said Lockheed Martin's most recent show of support will take the university's long-standing partnership with the company to the next level.
"We do a lot of things with Lockheed Martin … but they had never really been a lead in supporting new ideas and new technology," Anandalingam said. "I'm confident this has expanded the breadth and scope of our relations with Lockheed Martin."
But the university's established dealings with the company has garnered protest from some students in the past who did not want this institution affiliated with a company that manufactures war weapons.
In spring 2009, a banner reading, "Lockheed Martin out of UMD, out of Iraq, out of everywhere," was unfurled by students over the engineering building. College Park Students for a Democratic Society hosted forums and handed out fliers protesting the Iraq War and university dealings with defense corporations such as Lockheed Martin.
Flatau said she was aware some students disagreed with the university's partnership, recalling a particular incident where students protested last year at an on-campus lecture given by the company's Chief Executive Officer Bob Stevens. Despite this, Flatau maintained that ties with such a company has tremendous benefits for the university.
"I recognize the difference in opinion, but I do see value in what Lockheed Martin can gave to the university and to the state of Maryland," she said.
Anandalingam also noted Lockheed Martin does other work besides weapons manufacturing, such as intelligence and aeronautics research.
"It's a pretty diversified company," Anandalingam said. "Just focusing on the defense work that they do would not be fair to the company."
But SDS member Bob Hayes said such reasoning demonstrates a campus wide lack of awareness over the issue, noting that all aspects of Lockheed Martin's work ties back to military operations. And while SDS does not have a concentrated campaign against the company, Hayes said it is still on their radar.
"I'd like to see Lockheed Martin off the campus," Hayes said. "Do we think it will happen tomorrow? No. But I don't want this campus represented as the foreground of military weapons research. I don't want the institution linked to a company that produces machines for killing people."
But several students said while they understand such concerns, they did not think it should hinder future university investments.
"I can understand why students might feel that way, that it would give us the image of, ‘Oh, we're a university that's partnered with weapon manufacturers,' and that might have some negative connotations," sophomore economics major Henry Kahwaty said. "But I wouldn't say that's necessarily anything to be worried about."
Even freshman English and sociology major Samantha Davis, who described herself as being "totally anti-war," said such concerns are unfounded because the money is going toward education, not weapons.
"We're here at a university to learn, and we're not learning how to make weapons," she said. "It's not like they're showing up on campus like, ‘Here, I'm coming to your school to show you how to make weapons,' so I don't know why people would have a problem with that."
"They're a business and this is the business school," junior international business major Sophia Siddiqui added. "At the end of the day, they're just another business."
Source: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/