We don’t always write several days’ worth of editorials about one event, but when we do, it’s because we think the event was important. It may seem as if we were beating to death the horse that is the installation speech of Iowa State’s new president, Steven Leath.

We would be remiss if we chose to single out a few sound bites rather than unpacking the whole 27-page oration. Our goal is to consider as much of Leath’s address as we can, in service to our own understanding just as much as yours. The installation of a new administration is an inherently important event. Given the magnitude of what just happened, we all have an obligation to make as much sense of it as we can, even if that requires comment-by-comment analysis.

One of the things he said in his speech Friday was that government support of Iowa State is critical to its success. Speaking to Gov. Branstad and Lt. Gov. Reynolds, he said, “Your support is key to our ability to fulfill the mission of this great university.”

As a public university, a great deal of our funding comes from legislative appropriations. That money is necessary for our existence, and this year narrowly emerged from a recent period of great decline.

The tone of Leath’s speech was decidedly pro-business and pro-industry. Certainly, those things are important. Industrial development drives economic growth, of course, and business is a vital activity in today’s commercial world. Can you imagine trying to return to an economy in which almost everyone produces almost their household’s entire needs?

Implementing his vision of outreach by Iowa State to the public took the form of providing solutions to economic problems. “We need to create the most innovative, flexible and agile partnership model ever seen at an American university,” he said. The “framework” Leath wants should “address a number of challenges associated with Iowa’s ability to form new businesses, grow existing industry, support communities and transplant companies to the state.”

For the same purpose of economic development, the state of Iowa grants tax incentives for everything from the film industry (to the tune of $32 million by the time that tax credit ended in 2009) to fertilizer companies (for example, more than $50 million to Orascom Construction’s Iowa Fertilizer Co.). Universities, however, cannot be given those kind of incentives.

To the extent that it is profitable in a monetary way, education is profitable over time, not immediately. Short-term gains are few. Support for Iowa State from the state Legislature must come from actual appropriations of real money.