Making Research a Part of the Public Agenda
no. 104 - June 2000

Second Panel of Researchers

MAKING RESEARCH PART OF THE PUBLIC AGENDA: AN ENGAGED UNIVERSITY

Brady Deaton, Provost, University of Missouri at Columbia

Building a public agenda for the university must begin with undergraduate students. This is true for research as well as teaching and outreach. To invigorate the general education of undergraduates, the University of Missouri has pioneered the integration of teaching and research. The Hesburg Award received by the University in 1997 called particular attention to this strength.

A great deal of the literature regarding student affairs and undergraduate education continues to express concern about the quality of undergraduate education offered at the major research universities. For example, a 1993 report of the Wingspread Group sponsored by the Johnson Foundation focused on the quality of undergraduate education, but its general warning is also applicable to the research role of public universities. The following warnings emanated from the conference:

• A disturbing and dangerous mismatch exists between what American society needs of higher education and what it is receiving.

• The American imperative for the 21^st century is that society must hold higher education to much higher expectations or risk national decline.

In most of our states, our higher education coordinating bodies are promoting the concept of a "seamless web of public education." In doing so, the research role of our major public research universities becomes a singular responsibility of the institutions represented at this conference. In order to be successful, research must be made part of the public agenda. This can be achieved most effectively when we:

1. See research as part of an integrated educational whole. It begins with undergraduate students and, indeed, must incorporate K-12 linkages between the university and primary and secondary education.


2. Develop a culture of openness, sharing, listening, and willingness to be convinced by legislators, public agencies, and interest groups. That culture of openness must be maintained between and among campus administrators and research scientists, among scientists themselves, and with the public. The importance of sharing data on the university with key stakeholders, particularly legislators, cannot be over emphasized.

As we seek to make research part of the public agenda, it may be useful to recognize that we are now into a third generation approach for building research systems on most of our campuses. Within this context, the first generation consisted of hiring good scientists, the best scholars, and providing them with the best support and facilities possible, including a "creative" work setting, leaving them alone, and watching them prosper. We found that, indeed, this formula led to the prospering of many scientists, but with less benefit to society than expected.

A second generation approach incorporated a more systematic quantification of the relative costs of individual projects, monitoring progress against specified objectives, particularly in the private sector. We found that each project may have great merit under this scenario but the collective effort wasn't always that attractive. Perhaps the most important shortcoming of this kind of research was in the field of agriculture and natural resources wherein production-oriented research failed to capture the social and environmental externalities associated with agricultural practices. This has become particularly important today with our national and global concern about water quality and other environmental challenges.

A third generation approach characterizes much of what we are doing, or seeking to promote, at the University of Missouri and, I suspect, in many other universities. A major goal is to design a purposeful and strategic web of interlocking research activities, focusing on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches to key scientific issues. Our challenge is to design a process, which itself is exciting, and leads to innovative and invigorating research findings.

This third generation research model challenges traditional approaches and requires constant monitoring and adjustments to achieve scientific breakthroughs. The ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, said, "You cannot step twice into the same river; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you." Higher education and research incorporates processes of continual change. Our processes for faculty development must keep up with these changes and promote intellectual growth and creativity as well as instill new technical skills in our researchers.

Burton Clark identified five critical characteristics of an innovative university poised to address the challenges of the 21^st century. These characteristics include the following:

• An institutional sense of direction

• Entrepreneurship

• Reconciliation of administrative and professional values

• The integration of research, teaching, and extension/outreach

• Diversified institutional funding

As universities become more innovative, a number of assumptions and "sacred precepts" of the academy will be called into question. Among these are the following:

1. A changing concept of tenure and increasing diversity of types of appointments. Only 45% of faculty at the Harvard Business School are in tenure or tenure-track positions. A full 30% of the faculty on the University of Missouri campus are in non-regular (i.e. non-tenure track) positions. Public accountability and public perceptions continue to challenge the basic structure of higher education and require reassessment of faculty responsibilities. The question arises as to whether this will impede the quality of our faculty and the role of doctoral faculty on our campuses.

As research becomes increasingly important on the public agenda, the University's responsibilities will grow to ensure that the needs of the public are met. University administrators and researchers will also face public scrutiny to ensure that our responsibilities to society are effectively carried out. We all should welcome that challenge, and grow stronger as we respond.

References

Clark, Burton R. (1996). Case Studies of Innovative Universities: A Progress Report. Tertiary Education and Management, 2, 52-61.

Gappa, Judith M. (1996). Off the Tenure Track: Six Models for Full-Time Nontenurable Appointments. Inquiry #10 Working Paper Series, Forum on Faculty Roles & Rewards. American Association for Higher Education. Washington, D.C.

Wingspread Group on Higher Education (1993). An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for Higher Education. The Johnson Foundation, Inc.