Planning for the Research Mission of Public Universities in the Twenty-first Century
no. 101 - June 1997

Introduction

Mabel L. Rice, University Distinguished Professor
Director, Merrill Advanced Studies Center

This collection of papers documents the contributions of participants at a retreat sponsored by the Merrill Advanced Studies Center, on the topic of Planning for the Research Mission of Public Universities in the 21st Century, held June 11-13, 1997. The participants were drawn from four research universities in the immediate region, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. The intent was to bring together administrators and researcher-scientists for the purpose of informal discussions that would lead to the identification of pressing issues, different perspectives, and particular plans for the enhancement of research productivity.

The following document begin with an Executive Summary of the highlights of the individual presentations, followed by the full text of the invited presenters. This compilation of papers represents an unprecedented collection of the current thoughts, perspectives, and plans regarding the research mission of public universities, from the academic leadership of four important public research universities in our region, combined with thoughtful and provocative presentations by four senior researcher/scholars. One cannot help but come away with a sense of urgency about the need to plan for a robust research agenda, and the need for open communication on the topic. This document certainly will contribute to the development of a dialog among differing perspectives.

The impetus for the conference came from the following observations, which are passed along here in the way of general background information.

This is a time of intense pressure on the research mission of higher education. The pressure comes from multiple sources. First, in a time of reduced fiscal resources, there is a need for externally-generated funding in order to support an ongoing research enterprise. At the same time, these resources are also more scarce, more competitive, and under heavy competition from prestigious research centers/academic units. This situation in turn creates university-wide pressures on academic administrators and researchers.

Concurrent with these developments are increased demands for high-visibility commitment to undergraduate education and the teaching mission of the university, which requires faculty scientists to divide their already oversubscribed time between escalating demands for research and teaching. Faculty scientists routinely teach at the graduate level, where future researchers are being prepared, and at the undergraduate level, where a more didactic approach is appropriate. This results in a wide array of teaching demands. Graduate teaching is crucial because, for many disciplines, participation of graduate students in a research lab is essential for carrying out funded projects, where a symbiotic relationship develops between research preparation and research participation. At the graduate level, Graduate Research Assistants can be responsible for tuition costs that are waived for Graduate Teaching Assistants, thereby adding to the financial burdens of the RAs and their mentors.

Other challenges appear in the fact that contemporary research advances are happening in the intersections of traditional disciplines, thereby requiring flexible cross-disciplinary configurations of enterprise. At the same time, the traditional academic departments follow the more conventional disciplinary boundaries and are inherently conservative in maintaining traditional boundaries. If research growth is to be achieved at the boundaries of the disciplines, it brings a world view often at odds with departmental priorities.

At least in part as a response to the previously listed pressures, centers of research endeavors have sprung up with the mission of supporting a flexible array of research configurations loosely organized around particular content areas. These centers often operate outside the mainstream of academic arrangements, in order to achieve their desired outcomes.

Another observation is that the highly technical substantive and financial realities of today's externally-funded research programs have exceeded the public's understanding of the enterprise, and indeed have surpassed the comprehension of many of the non-participating regular faculty of the university.

Finally, pressures, and potential misunderstandings, seem likely to increase in the future as computer-driven advances in electronic communication and information technology accelerate the transition to an information society and bring increasing and persistent demands on the universities.

There is presently a sense of frustration evident on the part of researchers, administrators and lay persons alike as to the conduct of research and, more broadly, scholarship in the life of the university. This is perhaps especially evident in public universities where the mission is broadly based, financial pressures are extreme, and accountability to the citizenry is rather direct. Because their current work loads are very demanding and time is scarce, administrators and researchers can go their separate directions and have little opportunity to carry out informal dialogs that help define key issues, clarify different points of view, and suggest workable solutions to resolve some of the frustration, and, most importantly, identify plans for the maintenance and growth of the research base of the University. In the process, the relationship between the needs of graduate students, research activities, and faculty members can be overlooked.

Because of its dedication to the support of research and inquiry, the Merrill Advanced Studies Center sponsored the workshop detailed here. In addition to the invited presentations reported below, a number of participants served as discussants. Although the discussants' remarks are not individually documented below, their participation was an essential ingredient in the general discussions that ensued, and in the preparation of the final papers.