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Governance Minutes ArchiveOctober 24, 1990
Minutes COMMISSION ON RESEARCH October 24, 1990 206 Sandy Hall 3:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: D. M. Denbow, E. G. Henneke, G. R. Hooper, J. C. Lee, R. Lytton, P. Scanlon, H. H. Stoevener, E. R. Stout, W. L. Stutzman, V. Wall, J. Wightman, T. Wildman MEMBERS ABSENT: V. Bonomo, G. E. Bunce, W. L. Flowers, P. L. Knox, J. Randolph, M. G. Squires, L. A. Swiger INVITED GUESTS: H. W. Swink, S. Trulove 1. SUBSTITUTES TO COMMISSION ON RESEARCH. Dr. Stout stated that there is no written policy for sending substitutes to the Commission. It was decided that if a member cannot attend a Commission meeting that he or she could ask someone in the represented constituency to attend. 2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA. Dr. Stout added two items to the agenda. 1. The proposed revisions to the intellectual property policy. The Commission will discuss the revisions at their next meeting. 2. Report from the Committee on Interdisciplinary Research. The Commission will also discuss the report from the Committee on Interdisciplinary Research at the next meeting. Agenda was approved as presented. 3. MINUTES OF OCTOBER 10. Minutes were approved. 4. UNIVERSITY PLAN - FIRST DRAFT. Dr. Stout pointed out that the research part of the University Plan starts on page 9. Members of the Commission raised the following points. a. Dr. Wightman stated that undergraduate education appears to be well perceived by the state but that graduate education is not. The dollars for support aren't there. Dr. Wightman is concerned that we are going to lose what we have gained over the years. He also said that Virginia taxpayers do not seem to realize the importance of graduate education. Dr. Stout summarized Dr. Wightman's comments by saying that the general public, the legislature and many of the higher education officials in Richmond don't understand or appreciate research and graduate education and what it means to the state. b. Dr. Wall pointed out that on page 2-3, they keep talking about Virginia Tech being a dynamic institution, complex and comprehensive. In no place is it mentioned that Virginia Tech is this because of research and the graduate programs that have helped move it along. You do see this in terms of service and undergraduate programs. She stated that there are other places that this could be added rather than just in the individual sections. c. Dr. Scanlon stated that the document doesn't challenge anyone and doesn't give anyone a sense of ownership. He also stated that it was very bothersome that graduate education and research was not supported nor understood. Dr. Scanlon stated it was a document of bland statements and that it was not exciting to anyone. Dr. Stout stated that somewhere in the bullets the point ought to be made that we produce 40% of the Ph.D.s in the state of Virginia. Numerical data would help make the point that we are the largest research institution in the state of Virginia as measured by dollars. Dr. Scanlon pointed out that the average U.S. senator reads nothing but bullets and on the other hand bullets are very educational but that they are easy to take out of context. Dr. Scanlon stated that scholarship for its own is a very integral part of being able to teach and that you get criticized for teaching 6 or 8 hours a week. There's a lot of scholarship that goes into that 6 or 8 hours. That is the educational job we have and he is frustrated by how it should be done. He stated that maybe we should have some creative paragraph to get that point across. d. Dr. Henneke pointed out in the third bullet, page 4 in the second and third sentences that he did not like the choice of adjectives. He did not like the word "spartan". Dr. Henneke said that that word raised all kinds of bad connotations in his mind. He also did not like the word humanistic. He stated that the word "humanistic" means a lot of different things to a lot of different people within the university. Taken outside the university he felt that it has a very negative connotation in the minds of state people. With reference to the word spartan he stated that that word describes where we have been. He stated we don't want to denigrate where the university has been for many years of its lifetime and turned out a great number of alumni who have fond feelings for the university. He mentioned that the alumni might get upset with such terms. e. Dr. Wightman stated he didn't like "lowest ranking staff member" which is in the middle of the next bullet. f. Dr. Stutzman stated that he saw the document as giving more credit to administration and affirmative action than research. There doesn't seem to be a sense of balance. g. On page 6 Dr. Wightman thought there were 2 places that needed help. The partial sentence - even though operating budgets and personnel allocations have not been all we would like - just hangs out there. Dr. Wightman felt that operating budgets have been level for the last 10 years. Dr. Wightman also stated that indirect cost recoveries generated are being used to support activities that should be supported by the state. Dr. Stout agreed that since the budget reductions in 1981-82, operating budgets have been essentially flat. Dr. Denbow stated that research dollars are being used to fund basic necessities of the department, phones, copy machines, etc. He also felt that research money was being used to run the teaching missions of departments. We don't have the resources to run the basic departmental unit now. He felt that idea should be reflected in the document. h. Dr. Wightman questioned the lack of attention to classroom improvements. He stated he thought that there was a campus-wide effort to improve the inadequate teaching facilities. i. Dr. Wall stated that on page 9, fourth bullet under the objectives that it appears that creative expression and artistic performance are relegated to second class status. Those areas are important to a large number of faculty and are areas on our campus that we should promote. j. Dr. Scanlon stated we should articulate the value of research and graduate education and to articulate the role of graduate assistants in the attainment of the research mission. He said that those are two of the things that are lacking in state policy right now. People seem to not realize that the graduate students are the work force in the research lab. k. Dr. Scanlon and Dr. Wall stated that an introduction to each item be added. Dr. Wall stated that all we have are general items saying who contributed and how it developed, nothing explaining it. Dr. Stout agreed saying that a short paragraph fitting the context of the goal and objective would make a lot of sense. l. Dr. Scanlon stated that we were moving from being a state-supported university to being a state-assisted university. Dr. Hooper stated that there is some sentiment that research is somehow disconnected from the university and therefore both he and Dr. Stout have constantly to remind individuals that it is not. We shouldn't expect our grant sponsors to fund everything. Dr. Hooper said that those in leadership positions in the state don't have an understanding. He stated that some sentiment reflecting the Commission's view on this should be stated strongly. The Graduate Commission will probably have the same response. m. Dr. Stoevener mentioned that perhaps you could argue that society has decided that universities have a separate mission in research. Society is willing to lay out money for research. He stated that society has valued research more highly and that is why we have more money in research to be able to subsidize our other operations. He said that his unit is supporting three secretaries now that were previously state-supported. Research is growing much more rapidly than any other aspect of the university. He said that that is not reflected in the plan. n. Dr. Scanlon stated that part of the worry is that we are becoming very uncompetitive in key components of our research ability specifically related to graduate students. He said that he would like to see something to reverse this trend. He stated that every time stipends go up, fees go up which makes it harder to be competitive in the research work place. o. Dr. Stoevener mentioned that on page 9 on the fourth bullet that he felt something in the structure of a sponsored program that comes out most pronounced in the international area and that relates to the uncertainties which individual researchers and departments have about salary savings being returned when people put their own time into international projects. He stated that perhaps something should be put in the plan about providing proper incentives to individual faculty and departments to exploit fully the opportunities that exist through sponsored programs. Dr. Stout asked if that should come under the research section or under the international programs section. Dr. Stoevener responded that he felt it should go under the research section. Dr. Stoevener said that we feel reluctant to justify the participation of our faculty in international projects unless there is a return of resources to the department to hire behind a faculty who is on an international project. Dr. Scanlon stated that the lack of salary savings back to the department hampers individual faculty in some types of research. If you pay yourself on a project, you essentially penalize your colleagues by you getting free time and the released salary not going back to the department. It may change the scope of what some people might aspire to do in some circumstances. Dr. Stout stated that in small departments which already have heavy teaching loads where a faculty member wanted to join in an international effort, there was no assurance that the department was going to receive any of the salary savings back. They could not cover the teaching load without him. p. Dr. Stout stated that one minor point is the second objective under research which refers to non-funded research. He stated that it is departmentally funded research and not non-funded research. The funding comes from somewhere. 5. MISSION STATEMENT. Dr. Stout gave an overview of the Mission statement. We do have a mission defined in the statutes of Virginia as quoted in the first paragraph. The next four paragraphs describe how we attempt to fulfill that legislative mission. The mission and goals of the Research Division will be future agenda items. 6. REPORT FROM THE INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH COMMITTEE. Dr. Stout distributed the document entitled Policies and Procedures for Interdisciplinary Research Centers. The Interdisciplinary Committee consists of Warren Stutzman, Ed Henneke, Herb Stoevener and Jim Wightman. Dr. Stout said that they approached the idea to bring a little bit of order out of the process of creating interdisciplinary research centers, governance and review. We did not want the bureaucracy to get in the way of innovative ideas. The document is basically drafted in the form of questions or points to be addressed without saying how they should be addressed. There should be some rationale of why a center should be created, who is involved, and what the opportunities are. Dr. Stout stated that they were addressing only those centers who have traditionally been known as university centers - those centers that cross college lines and are interdisciplinary. He stated he had met with the college deans and the Provost at the deans retreat. The deans emphasized the need for some mechanism to review on a regular basis the activities of center directors. Colleges and departments may want to use the same kind of format for College and Department Centers. At the next meeting he stated he wants to have an open discussion about any and all parts of it and that the committee will take those questions or concerns back to review. Dr. Wightman informed the Commission of the U.S. News and World Report's article on Virginia Tech's ranking in the top quarter of the other universities - The Best of the Rest. He stated that it was an alphabetical listing and that we were not last. 7. ADJOURNMENT. Meeting adjourned at 4:30PM. ERS/php
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