Research Council Meeting

Friday March 25, 2016

Attendance – Ed Gillan, Bob Kirby, Barbara Eckstein, Faryle Nothwehr, Carolyn Colvin, Lance Heady, John Nelson, Johna Leddy, Kevin Kelly, Clare Sponsler, Paul Soderdahl, Elizabeth Constantine, Gary Gussin, Kate O’Brien, George Hospodarsky, Kaikobad Irani

Others – Dan Reed, Rich Hichwa, Cheryl Reardon, Ann Ricketts, Jennifer Lassner, Bruce Harreld

Item 1:  Welcome (Ed Gillan)

Item 2:  Approval of February 26, 2016 Meeting Minutes

• Send any corrections/additions to Mike

Item 3:  Research Council Discussion with President Bruce Harreld

• Ed introduced and gave a brief background of the committee providing examples of several types of issues dealt with and citing several examples from the last two years
• Bob Kirby spoke about undergraduate research, specifically that it is mostly unfunded despite 25% of students participating before graduation.  ICRU would like to raise the number but the funding landscape prevents the hiring/funding of faculty to oversee undergraduate research
• President Harreld talked about broad trends and perceptions in higher education, focusing on the perceived value of traditional four-year institutions versus community colleges.  President Harreld noted that the added value of a four-year institution frequently goes unnoticed in those comparisons.  President Harreld cited data showing that tenured faculty are teaching less now than they were in 2010 and that despite the perception to the contrary, University funding continues to rise.  His position is that we need to do a better job dictating how the funding we receive is spent and that more choices about spending should be made further down the line (departmental level)
• Discussion continued, touching on the importance of faculty mentoring and finding a way to credit senior faculty who mentor; the use of researcher time, i.e. researchers are spending more time writing many more, less-often funded proposals; multidisciplinary seed grants funded by the institution; faculty organization, i.e. University governance becoming more hierarchical rather than important decisions being made at the ground level; and University budgeting process, changes both short and long term.
• President Harreld excused himself and the group discussed next steps and what ideas it can bring back to President Harreld.  Barbara Eckstein suggested a Research Council retreat.

Item 4:  Updates from the OVPER&ED (Dan Reed)

• Spring Undergraduate Research Festival scheduled for April 20^th
• Plans for a proposal development center will be rolled out in April
• Large NSF solicitation; INCLUDES group has been meeting to put together a proposal
• Celebrating Excellence Awards will take place on April 13^th
• VP Reed attended AAU & APLU meetings
  • Lots of feedback and comments about Common Rule
  • SROs wrote about data access and management
• Mobile Museum will roll out with new exhibits in April