Rep. John P. Murtha, a powerful Pennsylvania congressman renowned for his prowess in bringing home pork-barrel spending to his district, has steered $50-million in earmarked, noncompetitive grants to a homeland-security institute at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and there’s little to show for it, The Washington Post reported today. A former director of the John P. Murtha Institute for Homeland Security called it a “paper institute” with no clear mission, the Post reported. The university’s president, Tony Atwater, said leadership changes at the institute “may have contributed to deferred and limited productivity in certain areas,” but he said the university was proud of its federally financed research projects.
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6 Responses to $50-Million in Pork Created ‘Paper Institute’ at Indiana U. of Pennsylvania, Report Says
mrmars - September 21, 2009 at 5:00 pm
As we are all aware, these earmark funds qualify as “pork” only when they are not being spent in your state or at your institution. Seeing as Indiana U of Pa is part of the system in which I teach, I am confident that this expenditure is long overdue and fully justified and will result in essential research that will prove vital the the security of our nation, the preservation of our family values, and will probably result in greatly accelerating our economic recovery to boot – not to mention allowing all of us to live longer happier lives!
mrmars - September 21, 2009 at 5:00 pm
As we are all aware, these earmark funds qualify as “pork” only when they are not being spent in your state or at your institution. Seeing as Indiana U of Pa is part of the system in which I teach, I am confident that this expenditure is long overdue and fully justified and will result in essential research that will prove vital the the security of our nation, the preservation of our family values, and will probably result in greatly accelerating our economic recovery to boot – not to mention allowing all of us to live longer happier lives!
mrmars - September 21, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I support the views of the previous two posters whole-heartedly!
ttuenglish - September 21, 2009 at 9:03 pm
The above poster should be named “On-mars”, not “Mrmars”…
lpettit - September 22, 2009 at 1:25 pm
At the time of the 9/11 attacks, IUP already had underway a number of security related projects, including cybersecurity, emergency response and weapons of mass destruction. Some of these were a result of Mr. Murtha’s “pork,” and others were a result of IUP faculty competing successfully in the usual peer review process. The number or projects grew, and in 2003 I, as the president about to retire, pulled them all together in a Homeland Security Institute named for Murtha, designed for more efficient management, cross fertilization and cooperation, and, I had hoped, to create a critical mass for the development of an intellectual center as a resource for the federal government. I am unfamiliar with what happened since 2003. Perhaps some of the programs have been less successful than others. Maybe the administration of the Institute has been ineffective. In any event, it is inappropriate, given the variety of projects involved, to level a wholesale condemnation at the entire enterprise. IUP has been a doctoral level institution since 1965, incidentally, and a good share of its faculty is actively involved in research and have their doctorates from the nation’s leading graduate departments in tneir disciplines. Moreover, in my own experience I know Mr. Murtha to have high professional expectations of programs he funds at colleges and universities, and I know that he is not hesitant to discontinue funding of programs that fail to meet his expectations.
searchpros - September 24, 2009 at 10:59 am
[Edited by moderator because of personal attack.] … HE isn’t funding anything–WE are. Whatever happened to the idea that federal funding should serve a federal purpose and that, to do so, it should be awarded to the best qualified institutions and researchers on a competitive basis?