56 



that this change is merely the beginning and that this will con- 

 tinue at a more rapid pace in the future. 



During this redefinition of goals and expectations for higher edu- 

 cation, particularly in the phase that we seem to be entering, the 

 land-grant agricultural components are having to work very dili- 

 gently with the governance factors within higher education to con- 

 tinue to focus our effort in the direction of client satisfaction and 

 to defend the place that we have earned in the disciplinary array 

 that is viewed to be the purview of higher education. The actions 

 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Federal Govern- 

 ment take with regard to the manner in which they relate to the 

 land-grant university has a very real impact on the manner in 

 which we relate to the fiill educational component of our institu- 

 tions, and we appreciate you keeping that in mind. 



The last point that I'll stress, and this has already been talked 

 about in several other testimonies, is the grassroots nature of our 

 planning processes and the manner in which we bring together the 

 opinions, thoughts, and creativity of our cUents from the county 

 level through the region within our State, the State level, and to 

 the national level to identify both long-range and short-range op- 

 portunities. We feel that our priority setting process is one that has 

 received a great deal of attention. We know that which it's capable 

 of doing, but we also know that it can and will be improved as we 

 devote our attention to it. 



We believe strongly that the system that has been created 

 through your investment and others is strong enough and flexible 

 enough to meet the challenges that have been identified here 

 today. We particularly support the stated goals of the chairman in 

 JDeginning these hearings; of focusing on relevance and accoimtabil- 

 ity, because we feel quite strongly that those are two components 

 of our system that really differentiate us from many of the other 

 elements within academia, and we're proud of what we've done. We 

 feel that there are opportunities always for improvement, and we 

 pledge to this committee and this Congress our commitment to that 

 improvement. 



Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



[The prepared statement of Mr. Foil appears at the conclusion of 

 the hearing.] 



Mr. Stenholm. Thank you. Dr. Foil. 



Would any of you care to comment on the question that was 

 raised earlier concerning the current balance and what might be a 

 proper balance between the formula funding, competitive grants, 

 and special grants? Do any of you have any comments? You were 

 all there and listened to some of the previous questions and an- 

 swers. 



Dr. Fischer, 



Mr. Fischer. If I may, Mr. Chairman, in the testimony that I 

 presented, I talked about the nature of funding of agricultural re- 

 search and the three components being the National Research Ini- 

 tiative, the base programs, or, if you will, the formula funds, and 

 I brought out the point that these formula funds do go through a 

 peer review process, and then the special grants and what they 

 present. In these three funding mechanisms, it is interesting to say 

 that the Federal component of the total partnership money with 



