Support for Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity

The committee discussed two broadly framed issues affecting the support for research scholarship and creative activities within the UNM community.  The first addressed the internal and external perceptions of such activities and the second dealt with the mechanisms and procedures at UNM supporting and encouraging such activity.  However, both have similar origins; As UNM has matured into a preeminent research institution, the leadership and administrative apparatus guiding research, scholarship and creative activities has failed to keep pace.  Speaking strategically, UNMs’ leadership of scholarly activity and vision for research must also evolve and mature.
In the estimation of many committee members, there is a lack of conviction pervading UNM regarding the role of research, scholarship and creative activity within the university’s educational missions.  This lack of conviction is manifest in several ways.  While scholarly activity has greatly expanded during the past two decades, interim or short-term people have filled key positions such as the associate provost for research.  As a result, only short-term problems were addressed and establishment of long-term policies and plans suffered (more on this below).  However, the most commonly voiced example of this lack of conviction occurs when scholarly and creative activity confront the need for undergraduate student credit hour production.  While the importance of student credit hour (SCH) production in UNM’s funding formula is obvious, the single-minded focus on this number is shortsighted and in a real way undermines faculty morale.  It places UNM on par with every other institution in the state whereas it is precisely the ongoing scholarly activity at UNM that distinguishes it from other state institutions.  The intense one-on-one mentoring of a (graduate or undergraduate) student participating in this scholarly activity is rarely equaled in the classroom and poorly captured by a funding formula (while the formula does includes extra compensation for graduate student credit hours, the committee feels this ignores the additional effort outside the classroom essential for educating graduate students).  Yet such students significantly enrich the quality of life in New Mexico whether by giving cutting edge theater performances, creating new art or literature, publishing scientific articles, or by establishing their own businesses and becoming employers.  UNM clearly leads all other state institutions in such activity, but emphasis on the SCH formula ignores this fact.
Secondly, the emphasis on student credit hour production ignores the essential fact that an institutions’ academic reputation ultimately rests on the strength of its research and scholarly activities, not on how many undergraduates it educates.  As measured in several ways, UNM has made tremendous strides in the ranking of its scholarly activities over the past ten years.  The committee feels that UNM has failed to adequately explain or to take advantage of these strides in presenting ourselves to the citizens of New Mexico.
Finally, by diverting faculty attention solely to SCH, the creation of future scholarly works is mortgaged.  Heavy class loads drastically reduce the time and energy available for scholarly activity, while benefiting few undergraduates with close interactions.  If we believe the numbers and the rankings showing that UNM faculty are among the nation’s best in many fields, our convictions should allow SCH to vary without diversion from the ultimate goals of continued improvement.  Later we will suggest ways for seeking efficiencies and economies in encouraging research scholarship and creative activities.
There are several benefits of a more consistent and explicit encouragement of scholarly activity at UNM.  From the undergraduates’ vantagepoint, new contributions to contemporary problems appear in the classroom or appear as new classes almost immediately.  While lectures from standard textbooks might be the students’ expectation, most readily recognize the value of incorporating the latest insight from scholarly activity into the classroom setting.  Good scholars bring excitement to the classroom, thus enhancing the quality of the undergraduate experience and eventually, enrollment.  Additionally, as the academic reputation improves, UNM becomes more attractive to the regional undergraduate, ultimately boosting both student credit hours and the quality of the student body.  While academic institutions traditionally demarcate faculty responsibilities into teaching, scholarly activity and service, these categories are by no means mutually exclusive.  At a university such as UNM, teaching duties do not exist independently of a faculty’s involvement in creative activity.  Mentoring of students in a faculty’s creative activity is an example of a situation combining both teaching and creative activity outside of the classroom.  Teaching and scholarly activity are simply different facets of the same duty at any influential modern university.
Other factors beside student credit hour production also contribute to this failure of conviction.  UNM is too often reticent to trumpet the intellectual achievements of its faculty.  Most New Mexicans realize that the University is much more than the Lobos and take pride in all achievements of the university.  UNM faculty (can and should) provide almost daily comment in the local media on issues of local, state, national and international concern.  A Pulitzer Prize winner or a national academy member should be ultimately as valuable to the University’s public image as a conference championship.  This reticence cuts two ways.  Not only does the rest of the state get a narrow view of the University, but internally, the rest of the University community sees the research, scholarship and creative activity subtly but consistently undervalued.  Again, morale suffers and the most talented become susceptible to offers from institution more secure in their intellectual foundations.
The public affairs office unevenly represents the broad range of intellectual achievements at UNM (perhaps because it is so broad).  Continued frustration over our inability to “Get our message out” or the inability to frame the discussion in terms of the value of creative activity to the educational mission instead of SCH production suggest that new approaches to the public affairs function are a partial solution.  The administration and that office should investigate ways of strengthening UNMs’ image, perhaps by contracting with a commercial firm experienced in these matters.
The second general issue arising from the research, scholarship and creative activity at UNM is the failure of the leadership apparatus to keep pace.  The relatively recent rise of UNM as a research university has overtaken the ability of decentralized administrative functions to provide the leadership necessary to further advance UNM.  When the central administration does act, it is often to take advantage of an entrepreneurial opportunity rather than to directly advance scholarly activity at UNM.  This approach inverts the university’s role of first creating new knowledge and then exploiting it and is a poor basis for improving UNMs’ academic standing.  The only legitimate criteria for decisions affecting scholarly activity at a university are “Will this decision result in high quality scholarly activity of (potentially) national impact that will enhance the academic standing of the university?”
Being fully aware of the economic and political environment within any university must exist, we cannot stress this point enough.  Almost every decision, whether meeting some perceived need or taking advantage of some opportunity, should be evaluated first and foremost for academic quality, not for potential revenue.  Taking care of the academic quality first will ensure, over the long run, taking care of the revenue.  There is just not any other model extant for operating a modern university.
Choosing otherwise affects the campus environment in ways that vary from department to department.  It takes the form of missed opportunities or at best, opportunities supported at sub-critical levels.  Conversely, it also takes the form of perpetually marginal programs draining resources with no mechanism for termination or correction.  Good administration must be willing to make the decision to cut under-performing programs.  Otherwise, this not only deprives UNM of opportunities to excel but threatens UNM’s future by driving away the most innovative people.  Salaries may appear to dominate discussion of faculty compensation, but establishing an atmosphere supportive of both innovative and traditional creative activity may ultimately be more cost-effective toward retention and recruitment of the best people.  Recognition and reward do not need to be resource-intensive processes.
In a real sense, this issue can be described as developing the appropriate leadership style in research, scholarship and creative activity for the next phase in UNM’s history.  Several factors lead to our optimism upon addressing this issue.  First and foremost is that talented, committed, and dedicated faculty have succeeded in the recent past in establishing national reputations for their scholarly activity.  Their paths to success have been varied, but this core of faculty provides an experience-base the university needs to draw upon.  Secondly, these faculty have helped establish the seeds of a culture of excellence on campus that is the single most reliable approach to enhancing the reputation of the university.  Finally, with the promotion of the associate provost for research’s office to vice provost level and with the strategic planning process itself, the timing and the increased visibility offer the opportunity for implementing such suggestions.
Granting our assumptions, our conclusions follow.  Furthering scholarly activity must become quality-driven, not money-driven as it appears to many faculty.  When resources are sought for a new program, center, or activity, the questions that must be answered are “Does this activity possess the factors necessary to make an impact at the national level (sometimes, the regional or even local level might be appropriate)?” and “Does it thereby enhance the reputation (and hence the educational mission) of UNM?”  If the answers are yes, support in the form of the appropriate resources should be forthcoming.  Unfortunately, a combination of missing leadership and limited resources has combined to make money, not quality, the primary decision-making criteria.
These two simple criteria, excellence on a national (or regional) level and enhancement of UNM’s academic reputation, are easy to understand, to disseminate and are transparent to all involved.  At the same time, making it clear that all activities will be continually reassessed and reevaluated will ensure some dynamism and evolution are built in to the process.  Many examples of how these criteria may be applied can be found.  Consider the following.
A particularly insidious situation occurs when the opportunity to bring a large amount of money to UNM arises.  While any faculty is welcome to pursue whatever opportunities they wish, committing university resources including office space, IDC allotments, faculty positions, matching funds, and ultimately, the University’s good name, must not be done without the counsel of faculty active, successful and experienced in scholarly activity at UNM.  Again, the questions “Will this make an impact on a national scale?” and “Will it enhance the reputation of UNM?” should be thoroughly explored.  Often, the implementation, the management plan or the people involved are insufficient to ensure success and resources should not be directed at the “opportunity.”  Similarly, if the opportunity is so poorly connected to the rest of campus that it’s chances of enhancing the reputation of the University is minimal, it also should not be rewarded with resources.  It takes effective, well-informed, and courageous administrators to make the necessary decisions.
In a similar vein, consider the role of intellectual property (IP) at UNM.  Again, decisions made here should primarily concentrate on ensuring the creation of high quality intellectual property, not exploiting existing intellectual property.  It is a mistake to view IP as an resource needing only the right investment to become a profit center for the university.  What’s more likely to benefit UNM is a faculty-initiated start-up that licenses their own IP from UNM.  Financial success is more likely to follow from the existence of high quality, motivated faculty at UNM than from the existence of a separate organization such as STC.
Finally, the success or failure of some programs will not be obvious.  It is therefore The essential to perform an outcomes assessment where some body is charged with deciding whether the progress, impact and reputation of these activities is meeting the expectations of the University as a whole.  Therefore, biennial or otherwise periodic reviews should be instituted to assess all programs, centers, and similar activities.  Again, if national impact and UNM’s reputation are not well served, any allocation of resources should be reduced.
Faculty with successful programs in scholarly activities can also play an important role in guiding this process.  They offer much in the way of experience and lessons-learned about how to ensure the success of the opportunity at UNM.  It is essential that this experience be drawn upon and shared with the rest of campus as a means of furthering the goals of excellence at UNM.  A reluctance of faculty to judge other faculty must be tempered by the need for UNM to make the best strategic decisions.  The reluctance of any program, unit or department to relinquish control to administrators must be tempered by trust and faith in administrators and colleagues making decisions in the best interest of UNM.  Under all circumstances the motivation must be to encourage the highest quality scholarly activity, not to redress past grievances.
To offer other examples, consider the issue of an allotment, tied to indirect costs (IDC) generated by externally funded activities, assigned to schools, colleges and departments and centers.  In departments where funded research generates IDC, these general criteria we’ve been discussing can help clarify contentious issues.  The needs for departments to offer start-up funds for new faculty, matching funds for contracts and grants and funds for equipment and infrastructure renewal has become an essential part of their operation.  We strongly endorse “return” of resources to enable matching funds, startup funds and infrastructure and equipment support within many departments.  In addition, such resources are often used to reward the principal investigators with overhead accounts that may be used to further other scholarly activities of the principal investigator.  To some extent, the return of a portion of the IDC to the generating faculty makes up for the lack of adequate institutional support for these activities.  This is a relatively painless way for the UNM administration to show support of its successful faculty.  However, at the level of the department or center, accountability should be established.  Instead of becoming an entitlement, deans, directors, and chairs should be able to explain how their allotments are effective in furthering the desired goals of the University.
In this light, any young faculty receiving a prestigious award such as an NSF Career grant has already provided clear evidence of national impact and enhances the academic reputation of the University.  Assigning matching funds in these situations signals, both internally and externally, a clear endorsement by the administration of such high quality scholarly activity.
Another situation arises when an existing department or program has an opportunity to expand.  Often this will require both faculty positions as well as other resources and the decision involves more than just the VPR’s office.  Such an opportunity should be judged by the same criteria:  Does it have national impact and does it add to the academic reputation of UNM?  If so, the scholarly activity portion should receive the support of the faculty and administration.  If these departments have little or externally funded research, the committee was unanimous in endorsing the expenditure of resources generated in departments with externally-funded research in support of these opportunities.  For instance, the research allocation committee (RAC) is one of very few institutions on campus directly supporting scholarly activity.  A planned, modest increase in resources coupled with increased attention to award announcements could significantly improve the careers of junior faculty.  While these suggestions may cost some resources, small amounts can make big differences in many disciplines.
University policies can also be amended to help in such situations.  Such departments often have heavy undergraduate teaching loads.  Sabbaticals are too infrequent to support consistent creative activity.  The leadership and guidance from the administration must be consistent and clear and embody these same criteria; High quality scholarly activity is the way to improve the academic reputation of UNM.  Therefore, some intermediate steps, such as a “research semester,” need to be enacted, encouraged or expanded.  This not only provides creative faculty the time needed to create, but sends a consistent message to all faculty that such activity is a valued and crucial contribution to UNM.
To cite other issues, the importance of interdisciplinary programs continues to grow nationwide, with numerous opportunities such as computers in art, biomedical engineering and multicultural studies requiring explicit coordination across school, college and departmental lines.  Interdisciplinary programs, for example those involving the hiring of a faculty in biomedical engineering could require the coordination of several departments in the school of engineering with the school of medicine.  There is no venue on campus where such interdisciplinary decisions can be discussed.  In addition, for the interdisciplinary centers that already exist, there is no forum to discuss their relationship with traditional academic departments.  It is critical to establish such a forum.
Therefore, the committee is advocating establishing an integrated process whereby strategic opportunities in research, scholarship and creative activities are assessed.  Key to evaluating such opportunities is a group of faculty from many disciplines all with ongoing, successful scholarly programs.  In conjunction with the Vice Provost for Research’s office, such a committee could help identify the most promising opportunities, offer guidance to ensure success, catalyze interdisciplinary activities and set priorities.  If successful, such a committee could also monitor the progress of programs and ultimately, make recommendations regarding resources such as faculty positions, IDC expenditures and moderate infrastructure expenditures.  Centralizing decision making to take advantage of opportunities throughout the university does raises concerns.  The principal instruction should be to “first, do no harm” to existing, successful programs.  Secondly, the operations should be as transparent as possible so criteria and decisions are apparent and can be discussed by the wider community.  Furthermore, it is essential to place some sort of constraint on new programs by introducing review and evaluation points into the programs’ timeline.
As the citizens of New Mexico are this state’s most valuable resource, so too the faculty are the University’s most valuable resource.  Using other, very limited resources, this faculty has built world-class programs in fields of study from performing and studio arts to medical research.  Solidifying and furthering these accomplishments will require the consistent and far-sighted leadership of research, scholarship and creative activity as the essential part of UNMs’ educational mission.  The challenge facing UNM today is to implement a long-term vision of the importance of scholarly activity and to provide the leadership necessary to take advantage of ever-expanding new opportunities.
 
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