Reaching for the Pie

Early one morning last week, Lyle Nelson, Stanford's director of university relations, flew into Washington's Na tional Airport, and immediately conferred with his friend Charles Forbes, a lawyer who represents California's asso ciation of independent colleges and universities. Together, they went up to Capitol Hill for a quiet chat with one of California Senator Thomas Kuchel's aides. Later Nelson talked by telephone with one of the state's Congressmen, J. Arthur Younger. After lunching with a well-connected Stanford alumnus in Washington, Nelson boarded another plane and flew off to a meeting of university publicists in Boston.

In the course of a year, Nelson may make half a dozen or more similar whirlwind trips to Washington. So do hundreds of other university executives, whose job titles--usually vice president for educational development--barely disguise the fact that they are at least part-time, informal lobbyists for their schools. With the Federal Government now spending billions of dollars annually on research, many U.S. schools have decided that it makes sense to have men who specialize in developing good Washington contacts. At least 20 universities consider the job of keeping watch on how the pie is divided important enough to have or share a full-time representative in the capital.

Sheer Frustration. Unlike the affluent and aggressive contact men maintained in Washington by business and labor, the discreet university lobbyists are less concerned with shaping new legislation than with helping their schools take advantage of laws already on the books. Typical of these college representatives is Mark Ferber, 36, a Ph. D. in political science from U.C.L.A., who represents the nine campuses of the University of California. Ferber defines his job as mainly "just reading bills and advising the university on what effect they will have." Rowan Wakefield, who represents the State University of New York and its 58 branches, also advises campus officials back home on Washington trends, and speaks of "the sheer frustration of trying to keep informed on the huge federal programs in education."

Schools unable to maintain their own capital representatives can now turn instead to a growing number of Washington firms that call themselves "educational consultants." One such com pany was formed recently by Edgar B. Cale, former vice chancellor for the University of Pittsburgh. "We don't contemplate pressuring Congressmen at present," he says. "We'll take what's on the books and that's plenty." Still another educational consultant is Leo S. Tonkin Associates, which recently hired as associate director a young man with a promising future in Washington circles--Luci's fiance Pat Nugent.

Not Evil, Inept. Many major institutions, such as Harvard and Chicago, assume that the prestige of their faculties is sufficient to get a normal share of federal research grants. Academic lobbyists, sniffs Charles Daly, Chicago's vice president for public affairs, "are like all lobbyists, appallingly bad--not bad in the sense of being evil, just inept." Inept or not, many a smaller college has apparently decided that the Washington consultant may be the only way to attract the Government's attention when the money is being passed around.

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