Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: DRI is a Nevada asset

Thursday, Feb. 11, 1999 | 12:01 p.m.

ABOUT EVERY 10 YEARS, for the past 40 years, some person or persons arrive on the Nevada scene and mess with the Desert Research Institute. Most often this destructive activity is goaded on by history-ignorant legislators, regents or higher education administrators. Despite the small amount of state dollars going into the DRI, the uninformed believe it should go into the University and Community College System of Nevada's overall budget. Wisely all attempts to fold this prestigious research center into the two universities have been rejected.

As an active Nevadan I've found the resources of DRI invaluable when seeking to solve energy, water, air, soil and weather problems that affect our state. When traveling abroad, the work of the DRI becomes most evident during conversations with educators and government authorities in other nations.

So who are these people of the DRI and what do they do for Nevada? There are about 400 of them with about 300 in Reno and about 100 in Las Vegas. Last year their payroll was $16.8 million with state dollars only amounting to about $2.1 million. Among these people are 121 professional researchers who don't have tenure and aren't guaranteed much of anything other than an opportunity to bring in grant money and do the work that benefits Nevada and the rest of the world. They are true scientists who take personal and financial risks to produce the information we need for a better state, nation and world.

Incidentally, this faculty and staff have 91 doctorates, 84 masters and 118 bachelor of arts and sciences degrees in more than 50 fields of knowledge. According to the answers to what these people do, in addition to valuable research, they tell us:

"In the last five years, we've supported 105 Nevada graduate students with $5,139,408 from nonstate funds. We also paid more than $324,517 in tuition for those same students.

"In the last five years, we've awarded $166,366 in DRI scholarships and fellowships to 39 Nevada students.

"Our faculty teach about 35 courses a year at the state's universities and community colleges, including Nevada's first graduate-level 'tele-teaching' course.

"Every summer, we employ Nevada high school science teachers who take their real-life research experience back to their classrooms in the fall, and to teachers across the state through DRI's distance education program. In the last five years, we've supported 29 'summer teacher fellows' with $200,000 in nonstate funds.

"To help Nevada's K-12 students do better in science and math, we coordinate the UCCSN's Space Grant Consortium, which sponsors scholarships and workshops for students in elementary and secondary schools."

Yes, the DRI has conducted studies at both extremes of our world, in the jungles and also in the deserts of Africa and the Middle East. But what about Nevada? Jackie Allen's history of the DRI gives us the following bits of information.