Nobody ever went into academic circles tomake a fast fortune. Professors, especially those in medical-andtechnology-related fields, typically earn a fraction of what their colleaguesin industry do. But suddenly, big money is starting to flow into the ivorytower, as university administrators make up to the commercial potential ofacademic research. And the institutions are wrestling with a whole new set ofissues. The profits are impressive: the Association of University TechnologyManagers surveyed 132 universities and found that they earned a combined $576million from patent royalties in 1998, a number that promises to keep risingdramatically. Schools like Columbia University in New York have aggressivelymarketed their inventions to corporations, particularly pharmaceutical andhigh-tech companies. Now Columbia is going retail—on the Web. It plansto go beyond the typical “dot. edu” model, free sites listing courses and professors’ researchinterests. Instead, it will offer the expertise of its faculty on a newfor-profit site which will be spun off as an independent company. The site willprovide free access to educational and research content, say administrators, aswell as advanced features that are already available to Columbia students, suchas a simulation of the construction and architecture of a French cathedral andinteractive 3-D models of organic chemicals. Free pages will feed intoprofit-generating areas, such as online courses and seminars, and related booksand tapes. Columbia executive vice president Michael Crow imagines “millions ofvisitors” to the new site, including retirees and students willing to pay totap into this educational resource. “We can offer the best of what’s thoughtand written and researched,” says Ann Kirschner, who heads the project.Columbia also is anxious not be beaten by some of the other for-profit “knowledgesites,” such as About.com and Hungry Minds. “If they capture thisspace,” says Crow, “they’ll begin to cherry-pick our best faculty.” Profits from thesale of patents typically have been divided between the researcher, thedepartment and the university, and Web profits would work the same way, so manyfaculty members are delighted. But others find the trend worrisome: is aprofessor who stands to profit from his or her research as credible as one whodoesn’t? Will universities provide more support to researchers working inprofitable fields than to scholars toiling in more musty areas? 　　“If there’s theperception that we might be money from our efforts, the authority of theuniversity could be diminished,” worries Herve Varenne, a cultural anthropologyprofessor at Columbia’s education school. Says Kirschner: “we would nevercompromise the integrity of the university.” Whether the new site can add tothe growing profits from patents remains to be seen, but one thing is clear.It’s going to take the best minds on camps to find a new balance between profitand purity. Which of the following will those worrying about the trend support?