Faculty Senate approves 'Research II' recommendations

June 18, 1998

KALAMAZOO -- Recognizing the Western Michigan University's huge strides in external support for research, the Faculty Senate June 11 approved a series of recommendations from its Research Policies Council to accelerate progress toward Research II status.

"We have made outstanding progress in our research efforts in recent years, under the leadership of President Haenicke," said Karim Essani, biological sciences, who is a member of the council. "But there is more we can do to strengthen the research program at WMU."

The senate has endorsed a goal that WMU move up one level in the national higher education classification system developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. WMU is currently the state's only public Doctoral I university.

Essani pointed out that grants and contracts totaled more than $25 million last year, the third consecutive year for which awards exceeded $20 million and a record-breaking total for the 12th consecutive year.

"This achievement is all the more notable when compared to the University's $3.9 million in external funds for research in 1984-85, upon which President Haenicke based his 1986 challenge to the University to become a more research-intensive institution," Essani said.

Since 1987-88, he continued, the number of proposals submitted for external support has more than doubled to 674 and the number of awards increased by more than half to 289. At the same time, the number of principal investigators moved from 94 a decade ago to 143 last year.

Here are the 10 Research Policy Council recommendations that the senate approved, which are to be forwarded to the administration for consideration. WMU should:

• Adopt a model of indirect cost recovery that includes financial returns to principal investigators. It was suggested that these proceeds go directly to a professional development account in the principal investigator's department.
• Institute an incentive/investment program for external, competitive proposal development. These funds would provide resources, travel and personnel to individuals and teams.
• Initiate a three-tiered effort to improve the artistic and research productivity of faculty members who are currently not active in externally funded research activities. It was recommended that faculty members be admitted to on-campus seminars and workshops at no cost to them to update their knowledge base and research skills. The same recommendation also called for the funding of one annual trip to the primary disciplinary conference or clearly relevant interdisciplinary conference for faculty members to explore advances in their fields. It also called for the establishment of a research reactivation award for senior faculty members.
• Improve the current research support "start-up" package for new faculty members, including a reduced first-year teaching load to one comparable to other recently classified Research II institutions.
• Review the role of the associate dean for research positions in the colleges. It was noted that currently incumbents in these positions often have other duties that can impinge on the time available for research support activities.
• Establish a formal and regular review process for the initiation and continuation of centers and institutes throughout the University.
• Request that the senate's executive board charge the senate library committee to deliver by December 1998, if possible, an inventory of journals based on a determination by principal investigators that they are necessary to support the principal investigators' externally funded research.
• Improve the acquisition and support of core research equipment.
• Amend the faculty travel policy to designate five separate travel zones with realistic reimbursement ceilings.
• Modify the existing Faculty Research and Creative Activities Support Fund program into a two-tier program of awards with the addition of formal required links to external grant submission for the first tier.

"Our recommendations are modest, given the scope of research and creative activity at the University and the latent capacity of the faculty to engage in additional research and creative endeavors," Essani said. "We believe the initiatives recommended are necessary, appropriate and central to the role of the faculty in helping to achieve and sustain a progressive research enterprise at WMU."

Media contact: Mike Matthews, 616 387-8400, michael.matthews@wmich.edu

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