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Groups question Halliburton ties to new facility
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by Becky Vevea
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The University of Wisconsin’s controversial relationship with Halliburton Co. again raised eyebrows of UW students this week with the opening of a new research center on campus.
The Halliburton Geoscience Visualization Center in Weeks Hall opened last week with new equipment, including multi-dimensional analysis software developed by Landmark Graphics and funded by Halliburton.
Last fall, the Campus Antiwar Network protested the presence of Halliburton recruits on campus, accusing them of profiting from the war in Iraq.
Halliburton representatives have said the company has separated from its former subsidiary KBR and does not provide services to the U.S. military in Iraq war zones.
Zach Heise, CAN member, said they have no plans to protest the facility since most of the development was done with Landmark Graphics and not directly with Halliburton.
However, he added he sees this as an opportunity to bring UW’s connection to corporations like Halliburton to the forefront and “try to hold them accountable for their actions in the Middle East.”
“The University of Wisconsin is bedfellows with war profiteers, and that relationship is getting cozier and cozier as the state and federal government are funding public education less and less,” said Chris Dols, CAN member. “The priorities need to shift away from war and occupation to jobs and education.”
Jill Sakai of UW communications said the university understands there may be opposition from students regarding the new facility’s relation to Halliburton but said this was not a grant.
“Although the facility was provided by Halliburton, it was really just donated as a research and teaching facility,” Sakai said. “This didn’t come as a grant from Halliburton or anything where there was specific research projects or work tied to this facility.”
UW geology professor Harold Tobin, who had the idea for the lab and helped to build the facility, said he realized the alumni connection with Landmark’s CEO after he contacted the company and discussed details for the facility.
“They gave us a free, direct, no-strings-attached donation of a facility that’s going to be a fantastic tool for students and faculty and researchers here at the university to use,” Tobin said.
Tobin added UW will be doing research funded by National Science Foundation on plate tectonics, mechanical properties of rocks and minerals and impact structures.
“The software is made for typically businesses in the oil and gas world, but we really use it for basic research topics in geology,” he said, adding the new facility would “teach students how to see things in three dimensions and visualize the complex structures of the earth.”
Dols said he is still wary of UW maintaining working relationships with companies he does not feel can be trusted.
“Not every string is visible,” Dols said.
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 3:29am):
They make money on death. There is no justification for that. It's sad that our university is so closely tied with such evil.
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 7:06am):
Halliburton has absolutely nothing to do with the war in Iraq. Is CAN that desperate to get back into the news?
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 11:37am):
"They make money on death."
Git them funeral directors too, I say!
frank rojas (April 30, 2008 @ 3:09pm):
Dols needs to get a real job and then he can know who is pulling his strings. The more money UW can get from Halliburton the better. After all it is alum run.
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 4:58pm):
It is good to see that some of you UW students are informed...and quite sad to see that many are not. Halliburton is not, and never was in the war business. Maybe you should open a book (besides 'The Halliburton Agenda') and do a wee bit of research before you protest. Remember, even the founder of Greenpeace quit the group when he realized they were wrong.
Zach Heise (May 1, 2008 @ 7:33pm):
Did I really just read someone say that Halliburton was never involved in the war business? Have you never heard of their subsidiary (which means, "someone who works under a parent company," by the way, meaning Halliburton had the ability to say yes/no to every insane decision their underling made) - Kellogg, Brown, and Root? That handled such things like the Walter Reed hospital, the fecal material in soldiers' water supplies, the $25 for a case of Coca-Cola, the empty trucks being sent out into the desert just so that they could write down more milage to bill the US government for?
That's my money, and your money, being spent by this criminal organization. It doesn't matter that Halliburton severed its ties with KBR when this came out (how convenient, by the way!) and even more conveniently, they're moving their administration operations from Texas to Dubai, which has lax taxation laws, and even more conveniently, it's known as a haven for shady corporations! Doesn't this raise any red flags?
Why should the UW sully its good name by associating with a business like this? We're a well-known, well-reputed university, and we shouldn't be turning a blind eye to a company like that. To work with Halliburton, or any company like them, is an embarrassment to our students and staff.
My feelings on the new facility independent of this, Halliburton itself is a criminal, war-profiteering company that is now "leaving the scene of the crime", and anyone who says otherwise is ignorant of the facts.
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