Why Did a Medical Dean Fund New Guinea Birds?

Jared Diamond says the longest serving medical school dean in the United States gave him five thousand dollars every year to keep studying New Guinea birds after offering him a physiology job at UCLA. Diamond says most medical school deans would have told him to get out. The dean tolerated the work and made it possible.

The dean was offering Diamond the job. Diamond said he was interested in New Guinea birds, had spent three months every summer for the last several years working on them, and wanted to continue. He asked whether the dean would still tolerate the bird work if he accepted. The dean told him UCLA Medical School was interested in New Guinea birds and would give him five thousand dollars every year to spend studying them. Diamond calls himself fortunate to have had a dean who permitted it.