The University of Toronto’s involvement in a highly praised New York applied sciences research institute is off to a turbulent start.
In April 2012, U of T announced that it would be expanding to New York in partnership with other international academic institutions. One of the highlights of the initiative was the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP), designed to foster collaborative research and technological development for the challenges facing the world’s cities.
The CUSP is part of the Applied Sciences NYC initiative and was intended to benefit students and faculty alike.
As part of the initiative, three new campuses were slated to be opened in New York City. Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Warwick, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, and New York University (NYU) were also involved.
U of T is the only Canadian post-secondary institution involved in this project.
NYU planned to contribute around $50 million to the program, with New York City providing $15 million in benefits, according to The New York Times.
A 2013–2014 U of T budget report allocated funding of $3.15 million, through the University Fund, to support salary and benefits for 21 faculty positions in the area of cities research and teaching. “Divisions in receipt of this funding will participate in the University of Toronto’s educational and research partnership in the Centre for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) located in New York City,” the report said.
At the time of the project’s announcement, U of T hoped to send master’s and PhD students to study at the CUSP and carry out their research. U of T also announced that some U of T faculty would take on the role of visiting professors and teach at the CUSP, allowing them to benefit from the research facilities, government, and industry in New York City, and then bring back transferrable expertise that could help tackle challenges in Toronto or other Canadian cities.
Steve Easterbrook, professor of computer science at U of T, reported a recent research dispute between several U of T staff and Steven Koonin, the CUSP’s director at NYU.
“Incidentally, I’m no longer willing to have anything to do with the CUSP since Steve Koonin, director of [the] CUSP at NYU, started misrepresenting the work of many of my climate scientist colleagues by writing nonsense in the Wall Street Journal last month,” Easterbrook said.
On September 19, Koonin published an article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Climate Science Is Not Settled,” which argued that we are very far from the knowledge needed to make good climate policy.
Koonin posited that the uncertainties of climate science prevent it from being a solid base from which to enact policy decisions. “While the past two decades have seen progress in climate science, the field is not yet mature enough to usefully answer the difficult and important questions being asked of it,” Koonin wrote.
“This decidedly unsettled state highlights what should be obvious: Understanding climate, at the level of detail relevant to human influences, is a very, very difficult problem,” he continued.
These controversial claims drew a response from Raymond Pierrehumbert, a geophysical sciences professor at the University of Chicago. Pierrehumbert wrote an article in Slate titled “Climate Science Is Settled Enough.”
“What [Koonin] fails to note is that this uncertainty provides an argument for more rather than less action on emissions control, since it means that no scientifically credible argument advanced in the past several decades has been able to rule out the risk that climate sensitivity is at the high end of the range,” Pierrehumbert countered in the article.
Easterbrook suggested that this incident will have a negative impact on the involvement of other U of T faculty members on the CUSP project. “I suspect many others around campus will also now want nothing to do with this program,” Easterbrook said.
Four professors who resarch urban issues were contacted for this story, but said that they have no direct involvement with CUSP, or that they have had limited involvement.
According to Easterbrook, a CUSP steering committee that he served on was struck in 2012 by the university’s previous provost, Cheryl Misak. In April 2013, the committee was disbanded with no reason given.
“I understand that a number of faculty positions in various departments were created with the intent of supporting U of T’s collaboration with NYU… But I’ve heard nothing more about the program in the last 12 months,” Easterbrook said of U of T’s involvement and provisions for the project.
U of T’s website provides little information on the project’s progress.
Althea Blackburn-Evans, U of T director of media relations, said that the university is still working on sending students to study at CUSP. “The University of Toronto continues to be committed to the Center for Urban Science and Progress,” she said.
“We have world-class researchers engaging in workshops, faculty members exploring funding possibilities for projects associated with the CUSP, and we are continuing to work on opportunities for student exchange,” Blackburn-Evans added.
Blackburn-Evans also stated that U of T provost Cheryl Regehr visited New York in May 2014 to continue discussions about furthering U of T’s involvement in the CUSP and that Meric Gertler, U of T president, has also been involved in recent discussions about the initiative.
Gertler, an urban theorist and expert on culture, creativity, and innovation as drivers of a city’s economy, has often talked about enhancing the university’s relationship with the Greater Toronto Area.
Blackburn-Evans said that projects of this nature often take time to come to fruition. “It takes time and a great deal of consultation to fully realize the benefits of initiatives of this scale, and the university remains excited about the possibilities and potential impact of this partnership,” she said.
