MEMORANDUM OF TRANSMITTAL FROM THE 
CHAIRMAN 
To the members of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs: 
A major cause of discouragement in contemporary society has been 
the lack of adequate opportunity for serious and responsible young 
people to make meaningful contributions in important public decisions. 
I am concerned that advanced university students particularly have 
expressed frustration over the limited opportunities for such involve- 
ment. It frequently happens that after they have invested time and 
energy in the acquisition of skills and knowledge, and pursued their 
advanced academic work they are obliged to apply their talents in 
esoteric research and analyses which go largely unnoticed and unused 
beyond the classroom. This situation gives substance to the complaint 
that much of formal education is not relevant to the pressing problems 
of our times. 
There is no lack of able young people with good ideas to call upon. 
In my view, it is wasteful to allow many man-years of the best in- 
tellectual efforts of trained graduate students—tomorrow’s leaders— 
to be focused on exercises which lack relevance to today’s concerns. 
We must find the means to better utilize this valuable and scarce 
resource. 
In the activities of the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Commit- 
tee there are many occasions when scholarly and in depth research, 
analysis, and innovative thought by persons trained in a wide variety 
of disciplines and unshackled by institutional attitudes and conven- 
tional wisdom could be of immeasurable assistance. The committee’s 
professional staff can, of course, give only limited time and bring 
only a few disciplines—law, engineering, public administration—to a 
particular study. These limitations are shared by all congressional 
committees and are even more pronounced in the State legislatures. 
Recently, the Interior Committee participated in a preliminary ex- 
periment which was intended to focus the work of several advanced 
students on the information-gathering and research needs of the com- 
mittee in a particular subject area. In December of 1969, faculty and 
student representatives of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
visited with the staff of the committee to discuss a proposed seminar. 
This discussion lead to an agreement that students representing a wide 
variety of academic disciplines would be presented with a policy issue 
of current interest to the committee. The students would perform re- 
search and prepare papers which, while fulfilling academic require- 
ments of the institute, would also provide meaningful and timely back- 
ground information for the committee’s use and consideration. During 
the course of the studies, it was agreed that opportunities would be 
provided for discussions among the participating students and. profes- 
sors, the committee staff and, if possible, committee members. 
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