Critics quoted in a Contra Costa Times watchdog column attacked “UC Berkeley’s best-kept secret,” on Sunday, and perhaps for valid reasons. In light of budget cuts, how can our fair university afford to keep a research station in the South Pacific?

You can argue that UC Berkeley affiliates travel to the Richard B. Gump Research Station on the island of Moorea for the love of science. Unfortunately, what may start out as a legitimate research destination always ends up abused by cheap, wanderlusting yuppie students who like nice university subsidies on their globe-trotting lifestyles.

Case in point: This 2002 Daily Cal column by Marie Matheson (which is, incidentally, about having someone else pay for the next notch on your international travel belt). According to Matheson, all you really need to obtain access to island life on Moorea is a passport and some damn good bullshitting skills to write up the required project proposal.

Moorea is one hour by boat from Tahiti, and while you can take a biology course for credit there, you don’t need to be a biology student to go. If you have a project that warrants research in French Polynesia, you can go. I have heard of historical research and environmental science projects, but why not do a project on the literature of French Polynesia?

The Clog totally recognizes that people actually do significant amounts of scientific research there, so it sucks that the state may pull funding from a potentially important station. Still, we suggest Moorea folks step it up. Saying the island is “important to the fight against global warming” just ain’t gonna cut it anymore. The island needs to give us Darwin-esque answers to life’s mysteries–like the space-time continuum, where we go after we die or who the heck Jacob is in LOST.

Maybe then, we’d have a little more sympathy for their cause.

Image Source: *Mickey* under Creative Commons
Travelogue: Let Someone Else Pay [Daily Cal]
Researchers in Paradise [Berkeley Science Review]
Richard B. Gump South Pacific Research Station [Website]
UC’s research ‘paradise’ draws ire of lawmakers [Contra Costa Times]

Posted in: News
Tags:Moorea, Richard B. Gump South Pacific Research Station, Tahiti, travel snobs, wanderlust
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