A desire to regain some control over his scientific activities is one reason Eaton is leaving Iowa State in November to become head of Columbia University's Lamong-Doherty Geological Observatory. For biologist Evelyn E. Handler, who will step down next spring as president of Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., there was never any question of remaining an active scientist. As universities nationwide gear up for the start of another academic year, many faculty researchers are pondering the relative merits of pursuing an administrative path versus continuing on as laboratory investigators. In one celebrated instance last winter, cancer researcher Phillip A. Sharp turned down the presidency of the Massachusetts Institute of . Technology one week after accepting the job because he couldn't bear l to give up his work in the lab.
Some scientists try to juggle two careers.
But his attitude appears rare among those who lead the nation's major research institutions. Their administrative duties, they say, have forced them to put science on the back burner. Research is no longer as urgent a matter in my life as it used to be. Still, Zumberge and others find it hard to remove themselves completely from science. The eighth edition of the text, published by William C. Brown of Dubuque, Iowa, is now in press.