The disadvantage of having good people in key positions is that everyone else wants to hire them. Thus, Art Vailas’ tenure as vice president for research is ending, as he heads off to become president of Idaho State University.  His leaving, however, has stimulated a lot of conversation in the Faculty Senate and elsewhere about his position and the kind of person that would best advance the interests of UH.

Because of some of these conversations, Faculty Senate passed a resolution outlining three key features a vice president for research should have. The person should be interested in facilitating research across campus and in attracting other good researchers and significant research resources to UH.

The first key characteristic is that irrespective of what may have been true in the past, it is now true that research pervades virtually all departments. As such, the vice president for research should have the resources and interests to stimulate research across campus.  Over the past several years, the efforts to facilitate research through internal grants have broadened.  Nonetheless, the main internal grant program for established faculty — Grants to Enhance and Advance Research (GEAR) program — is supposed to result in an external grant proposal. Yet, external funding is not appropriate for all fields, which effectively precludes internal resources for some of our productive faculty.  Further, there are significant unmet research needs that are not solved traditionally by external grants, such as travel funds and book subventions.  Thus, it appears that the recent efforts to broaden GEAR and the small grant program need to continue.

A second key attribute is to provide start-up funds to attract new faculty. On our campus, this historically has meant building labs for new scientists. Recent years, however, have again seen a considerable broadening in the definition of research support; although, it is not yet as prevalent as is required to build a balanced university. For example, faculty in many disciplines receive summer salary support as a start-up bonus package. Providing more such funds would allow better faculty to be recruited. Similarly, travel and other supplemental support can attract new faculty that would improve our average quality.  In many fields, the required funds are significantly less than are required for start-up lab packages that have been the traditional area of vice presidential support, which may indicate that a broadening of the definition of start-up funds may have a disproportionate impact on attracting a wide range of new scholars, consistent with the strategic initiatives at UH. While no more important than the first two attributes, it is also nonetheless true that the vice president for research needs to be of sufficient stature to assist in attracting grant funds to UH. 

As the quality of UH improves, and as we are more able to assess students charges consistent with the quality improvements, then it is fully appropriate for general university funds to be directed in part toward the vice president for research area.  These funds would support all three of the activities discussed here.

A final point is that because research is not confined to a few select fields, but pervades the entire campus, a legitimate question is whether the vice president for research should instead be a vice provost.  The counter argument is that research is clearly the number one goal of our campus, and so requires a vice president to promote research to both internal and external constituencies.  Irrespective of the title, however, the person needs to work closely with the provost.  Thus, the final point of the Faculty Senate resolution is that as the research function is more fully integrated into the university’s everyday activities, the closely intertwined functioning of the provost and the vice president for research are essential for the continued health and growth of UH. 

Steven G. Craig
President
Faculty Senate