[CAPTIONING MADE POSSIBLE BY WXXI]
>> Coming up, an interview with Joel Seligman ABOUT THE IMPORTANT ROLE RESEARCH PLAYS AT THE UNIVERSITY.
And the CHAIR OF THE UNIVERSITY's POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT, Gerald Gamm WEIGHS IN ON ELECTION 2008.
Finally, SIGHTS AND SOUNDS FROM THE JAZZ FESTIVAL.
>> Rochester's newsmagazines in 1997.
This is "Need to Know."
>> Welcome to this edition of "Need to Know."
Preventing Alzheimer's disease, slowing the spread of AIDS, FINDING A VACCINE TO PROTECT AGAINST BIRD FLU.
These are just a few areas where researchers of the University of Rochester ARE FOCUSING.
We recently sat down with Joel Seligman to talk about the GROWING ROLE OF RESEARCH AT THE UNIVERSITY.
>> You describe the University of Rochester as one of the nation's leading research universities.
Why is RESEARCH important to the university?
>> RESEARCH is imported because that is how universities grow.
When you focus on what we will permit -- what we will potentially do in the Greater Rochester area, you are focusing on doing research inside the university and attracting grade students, faculty members, and doing basic work.
Research has the opportunity through job creation and economic development.
Right now, we have over 21,000 full and part-time employees at the University of Rochester.
We are just short of 19,000 in the official count.
We're close to $2 billion in play role -- in payroll.
In recent years, we received $359 million in terms of support from the federal government, farm corporations, and from others.
We use that to support efforts to find new discoveries, new ways of addressing fuel crises, new ways of addressing a urgently felt human needs.
When you ask students, why come to the University of Rochester?
And they get to work with professors doing cutting edge research.
They get to help with the research as well.
In part, it is because of the problems that we're addressing our fundamentals to society.
>> Is research a growing field before universities?
>> Certainly at the University of Rochester.
If you look at the support from the National institutes of Health, the budget has been flat.
The National Science Foundation has been growing.
If you look at the University of Rochester in general, we have seen our outside research support increase to $359 million.
Clearly, it is a clearly important area.
>> By what criteria do you call it a leading research universities?
>> The 62 leading research universities are part of what is called the American Association of universities.
If you look at how well we do in medical research, we came in about 25 overall last year.
In some specific areas, we are the leading program in the country or one of the leading ones.
>> What are the highlights?
If you run across someone in a coffee shop and wanted to tell them about research highlights, what would you say?
>> I would focus on the fact that the medical discovery of the year was in part based upon work that john traynor did, commercializing a bird flu vaccine.
I worked on a vaccine.
I would focus on the James dee Cancer center.
The very next day, literally the world's most efficient laser of its type was opened at our laboratory for laser energetics to give the capacity to help solve the energy crisis.
We can figure out a way to make fusion ineffective form of energy.
It is a long challenge, but one that is worth pursuing.
I would focus on our cardiovascular research center that opened the prior summer.
I would focus finally on new clinical transitional VAT science buildings that allow us to work on buildings that will begin reasonably soon.
That is an area where we can provide what we think is vital applied research and focus on delivering it to patients and those who need care throughout our society.
>> People may be surprised to know that there are not medical research efforts going on at the university.
This includes the effect of the color red on achievement.
What other things are going on that people might be surprised to hear about?
>> We are a comprehensive university.
We have the leading organ program in North America.
One of our faculty has been working on replicas of some of the world's greatest organs.
We have in education, someone who is focusing on preschool science education.
We have one of the nation's leading experts on Pentecostal as some -- pentacostalism and evangelicalism.
Carmela garcion is a young geologist focusing on why some mountains pop-up so quickly.
She is working on the Andes.
It has discovered that mountains do not grow at a steady rate.
Every so often in what is short and geological time, they will double their height.
That may sound like a fascinating tidbit of information, but it has potentially very significant implications for climate and evolution.
Her evolution, which is at the basically -- basic research level is potentially going to help us better understand geological processes, which we hear about in the news every time we have a tsunami or other unpleasant disturbance of that kind.
>> That brings up a query question and -- A great question about the apparent frivolity of some research efforts.
Anything involving the government finds itself in the political arena.
It is easy for anything in politics to be a target.
People might say that some research is frivolous.
How important is it for the community to understand the benefits of some of these research projects?
How can they folia comprehend what is going on?
>> Without commenting on any project that is characterized as frivolous, those are rare exceptions.
We have 78 scientists at the University of Rochester FOCUSING ON stem cell research.
One is focusing on Cancer stem cell research.
He is potentially doing work that could lead to a cure or therapy for what previously was often hand still occasionally is a fatal disease.
This is the kind of research that is much more common in our medical sector than anything that could be criticized for being frivolous or otherwise.
We have researchers who have focused on adaptive optics.
It addresses a series of blinding diseases and to developing special lenses for those who use the various forms of corrective vision.
Most research done at the University either is basic research, which helps us better understand a field, or is directly helping people through its applications.
>> A lot of research to the untrained eye that may seem frivolous is actually not frivolous.
There is important implications.
Is it a battle to get the public to understand and therefore support that research?
>> In a time when people are hurting in an economy and there are other needs, we always have to make the best possible case.
We have to work very hard at it.
I want to say something that does not get said often enough.
This community has been enormously supportive of efforts to create a great research university to focus on ways we can stimulate employment and job creation.
I am very grateful to the Rochester Community for the equipment provided to the cancer center.
This was almost all support that came locally from thousands of individuals.
I'm very grateful for the support that came for the Eastman Theater renovation project.
This is a way of strengthening downtown Rochester.
This kind of support came because the community cares and understands these projects and has taken the time to learn about them.
>> Is their value in RESEARCH just for the sake of knowledge without immediate short-term objectives?
>> Of course there is.
Oftentimes when you try to understand the kind of research, it is a very easy to distinguish basic research versus applied research.
Applied research for the most Park -- For the most part cannot occur unless you up on the basic research first.
So many people are drawn to a career in academia to understand the world.
The basic understanding, whether it is focusing on the atom or focusing on how fuel operates and focusing on what music is is a start of all that we teach in research.
>> That was Joel Seligman.
Now on to another INTERVIEW, THIS ONE WITH THE POLITICAL SCIENCE CHAIR from the University of Rochester.
Hi RECENTLY ASKED Gerald Gamm about a recent comments made by REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN TOM DAVIS.
>> I think Davis is absolutely right.
This is going to be one of the most difficult years that the Republican Party has experienced in generations.
They had a very difficult time in 2006.
There was a tidal wave moving against the Republican Party in 2006.
They lost control of both the House and the Senate in a year when it seemed very unlikely that it would lose the Senate and quite unlikely they would lose the house.
The last time we encountered a year like this was back in 1974, right after Watergate.
The evidence for this that it is shaping up to be such a should receive a tough year for Republicans is three recent elections ever held.
When was in Mississippi, one was in Illinois, one was in Louisiana.
All three congressional seats were regarded as safe districts.
They voted for Bush in 2000 and then in 2004.
Democrats have now picked up all three of the seats.
That is a very scary portend for Republicans.
They went into 2008 sinking of " we can roll back the gains that the Democrats made in 2006.
The Republicans have given up that hole.
They now recognize that they are not going to be able to regain their majority in 2008 in either the House or senate.
What they're battling now is to hold seats that were once regarded as safe Republican seats.
>> There are also trying to hold on to the White House.
How does the presidential race impact the congressional race?
>> There are two ways the White House is affecting the congressional race.
President Bush was elected and reelected, but he now enjoys a very low approval ratings.
The numbers of Americans currently disapproving of the president's performance is the lowest ever measured since public opinion polling began in the 1930's.
It is lower than it was during the Truman and administration or Jimmy Carter's malaise.
So, part of what is going on with the Republicans is they are suffering from the perception that Americans have.
Part is the concern about the Iraq war, economy, what it is the Republican Party stands for right now.
The other way the White House has an effect on the race as you point out is that there is now a battle to see who is going to succeed President bush.
John McCain is point to be a very strong candidate for the Republicans.
Even in a year when the Republicans are facing the prospect of losing a significant numbers of seats in the Senate, he is a candidate who has a lot of appeal on both sides of the aisle.
He is iconoclastic, he is a maverick.
He is somebody that a lot of Democrats have a great deal of respect for.
Barack Obama is also someone who could potentially appeal to a lot of independent voters and some Republicans.
They have candidates across party lines.
There is the possibility that this is a race where there is real discussion of issues and where McCain at the head of the ticket is able to contain some of the losses that the Republicans might face.
>> All of Republican congressional representatives who were used to being in the majority and having a powerful status are now leaving congress.
I think around 30 of them decided to retire.
How does that impact this?
>> It turns out it is not too much fun being a minority.
The Democrats in Congress the same thing after they lost the control of the House in 1994.
Democrats started leaving.
You do -- you do not set the agenda.
You cannot shake what is happening with congress.
The place is not as interesting.
Part of what we see with the exit of Republicans from Congress right now is that they are not enjoying their work.
Part of it is that they do not anticipate returning to the majority anytime soon.
If they thought it would be in the majority, many more of them would be staying in congress.
The fact that some many of them stepping down means that it will be hard for the Republicans to hold its current number of seats.
It is easier when you have incumbents running.
They tend to have an advantage in the election.
Voters know who they are.
Voters see them on television.
The Republicans now have to defend roughly 30 open seats.
It means that their challengers have a real prospect of Winnie the seats.
The Republicans who want to hold on to these seeds are going to find it tough.
>> We have Jim Walsh over in the 25th district.
That race is wide open.
>> They absolutely are.
If you want to look at Congress and what is happening to Congress, there is no better place to look at upstate New York.
-- LOOK van upstate York.
Back in 2002 when the state was redistricted, there was moaning that ROCHESTER was not going to have representation in Congress anymore.
It turns out, ROCHESTER now has four members of Congress.
There are three other members of Congress.
They worked very hard to represent the interests of Rochester and the interests of other parts of the county.
This election, ROCHESTER is ground zero in the Battle of the Democrats to build a large majority in the House.
There are three seats that are currently held by Republicans.
If there is a tidal wave this fall and an avalanche of support for Democrats, the Republicans could easily lose all three of these seats.
>> Let us talk about what happens not the next election, but in 2010.
A census is taken.
That will determine whether ROCHESTER still has these congressional representatives.
That district might go down to the Pennsylvania border.
What is the likelihood of that happening?
>> We have been doing a census since George Washington was president.
The United States Constitution has mandated a census.
We have a tense -- a sense is coming up.
-- a census coming up.
New York's population is not growing that much.
The population of other states, especially in the south and west, their population is growing dramatically.
Given the number of seats in the House of Representatives, if we are not growing much and States are growing fast, they are going to pick up seats.
The only way they can pick up seats is for us to lose some.
How they will be distributed within the state, that is anyone's guess.
What happened in 2002 was that ROCHESTER went from having a single cohesive District centered in monroe County to being carved up into four different districts.
What happened was, the state Legislature essentially eviscerated the district can't talk four other districts.
Then you had three other districts.
One goes all the way to the Buffalo suburbs.
One goes to the Pennsylvania border.
One goes all the way up to Syracuse.
It is conceivable that we could continue with that same configuration of districts.
Instead of going to the eastern suburbs of Baltimore -- of Buffalo, the seat could go to the western suburbs of Buffalo.
It is conceivable that the sea just expands and gets more farmland and more towns down toward Pennsylvania.
It is conceivable that walsh's seat will extend further.
People are not talking about it that much yet.
What is going to happen to the New York State Senate?
The election with Obama, Clinton, and McCain is going to be unforgettable.
With redistricting coming up in 2010, those decisions are going to be made at a state level.
If the Republican Party loses seats at the state legislature level, that will affect their long-term ability to regain majorities in congress.
>> Democrats will be drawing the lines in it could be in their favor?
>> Exactly.
They gerrymander to favored Democratic control of congressional seats.
When Republicans control legislative chambers, they gerrymander as well.
They redrew of the district lines after 2002 and gained three or four new seats in Congress because of what the state legislature had done.
It is a good prospect of the Democrats getting control of the New York state senate.
If Democrats control the YOU -- The state Senate, they control the state assembly.
In 2010, they will be in a position to redistrict the state in a way that will advantage Democrats.
It is a big year ended is not clear what the implications will be for ROCHESTER.
I remember sitting in your studio and we were all worried that ROCHESTER would not have representatives.
It has not worked out so badly.
One way or another, we will be represented in congress.
>> Gerald Gamm, CHAIR OF THE POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER.
Thank you for joining us for this version of "Need to Know."
Now, a look at the ROCHESTER INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL.
Enjoy.
[APPLAUSE]
>> Previous broadcasts can be seen if you have on demand service.
Go to Rochester on demand, Channel 111.
You will find a selection of recent "Need to Know" programs.