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Sigma Xi Presentation

Sigma Xi Presentation
Chem 132
Monday, June 29, 2009
2:00 p.m. -3:00 p.m.

Good afternoon.

I would like to thank Douglas Rhoads for today’s invitation, and I would like to thank you all for coming. I’ve said before that as chancellor you are asked to all kinds of events to speak on all kinds of subjects, often about things you know little about—and you do it anyway! I don’t say this to alarm faculty researchers in the room, but to acknowledge that I do not have a strong research background—as a researcher, that is. Now finding gifts and grants—I’ve been a little more successful, perhaps.

That is not to say I am uninformed—I have done my best to educate myself about every aspect of this university since returning here eleven years ago, and I will continue to do so, as there is still much to learn. I have also spent my entire career in higher education and understand the criticality of research to a university’s mission.

In the “Future of the American Public Research University,” the authors noted that public research universities like ours perform more than half of the basic research done in the US. As such, it is imperative that they “must not only lead the advancing frontiers of science, but also maintain connections with the utilization of that science.” So I will talk a little bit today about where I think we are in terms of accomplishing this, and where, broadly, I see us heading in the coming years. But first I would like to make a couple of general points.

The first that I increasingly favor the emerging view of research as “scholarship”—that it must be more broadly defined than, perhaps, the traditional view. Increasingly, we much view our faculty as individuals, some of whom have greater proclivity for basic and applied research and some for teaching. I do not believe that research and teaching are incompatible. Indeed, effective teaching, in my view, cannot take place without the searching mind that is sharpened and expanded by research, or more broadly defined as scholarly activity. Thus, I believe putting students first and conducting research go very much hand in hand.

Facilitating student research and scholarship is integral to the process by which we educate the next generation. They must be inculcated in the learning process. Faculty must teach students how to analyze, evaluate, interpret, and understand the information they access in books and libraries and on the internet. They must teach students how to organize, integrate, and present information. As such, I think we should be doing everything in our power to provide our students—across the spectrum of undergraduates and graduates—with meaningful research opportunities. And, by all measures, we are.

In fact, forty-one University of Arkansas students have received the Barry Goldwater Scholarship for outstanding performance—performance based on research in math, science, and engineering completed prior to the application. That makes us 9th in the country in the number of our students who have received that award in the last 10 years. That is very impressive and a testament to you.

During the same timeframe, 427 University of Arkansas students have received State Undergraduate Research Fellowships—or SURF grants, as they are called.

The Honors College also funds approximately 140 research grants a year, due in large part to the Walton Gift.

More than 100 University of Arkansas students have participated in NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates, travelling to campuses across the country to engage in research during the summer.And research is not limited to the sciences.

Each year approximately 80 students complete research projects in the humanities and the social sciences. These opportunities have enabled our undergraduates to do meaningful research that deepens their education and advances their ability to enjoy and pursue a life of inquiry. We will continue doing everything we can to encourage more students to pursue research, and to provide the resources they need to be successful. A second point I would like to make is that I don’t see this as a top-down process.

Faculty drive research.

It can be difficult to predict where our faculty’s passions and interests take them. We don’t tell them what books to write, what topics to research, or what grants to write. Mostly, we find out what our scholars and researchers are good at, and what direction they want to go, and we try to support them as much as we can, whether it is locating campus resources, identifying grants and donors, or promoting their efforts.

In my experience with philanthropy, the most successful proposals were the ones where a faculty member was deeply involved in the partnership. Faculty are the creative force. They are the driving force. They are indeed the inspiration. It is our responsibility to apprise our faculty of what support exists.

For instance, there will be some stimulus money available to us—how much we don’t know. I just saw a recent article in the Chronicle stating that the NIH has recently been hit with 21,000 grant applications for stimulus funds—they’re reeling from a tidal wave of requests. On this campus, some of the stimulus funding to the National Science Foundation will probably be used to fund additional grants already in the process of being reviewed.

The university is also preparing proposals for an NIH facilities competition and a Major Research Instrumentation Competition funded with stimulus money. There will also be some other opportunities for very specific projects. For the most part, though, our responsibility is to coordinate with our faculty and help them be successful in what they pursue. As administrators, we should not and cannot be perceived as barriers to productivity. Nevertheless, there are some larger initiatives and trends already underway that you may or may not have heard about, and I will highlight some of those today. There is a lot to cover, and I will in no way exhaust the topic, but I hope I can give you a good general overview.

In terms of our overall research efforts, I would say we are in moderately good shape. We have grown enormously over the last twenty years, and we are the premier, broad-scope public research institution in the state of Arkansas. It is true that we are not the only institution in Arkansas involved in research opportunities, but let no one forget that we are the most prolific! Those efforts have an enormous economic, social, and cultural impact on our state.

To continue serving the needs of the state—and its needs are considerable—we need to continue growing, but at a rate we can sustain without negatively affecting the quality of our academic programs. An outside team was brought in last fall to conduct a review of the Research Support and Sponsored Programs office to help us better plan for future growth and adapt to previous growth. This review provided a number of recommendations and suggestions for enhancing and improving the university’s administrative structure as it relates to the research enterprise. I am in agreement with many of their findings.

One of the things the team mentioned is that after a period of rapid growth, the University of Arkansas is in the process of moving from a pioneer to a settler structure. Their words, not mine. As we have established a much broader research foundation, we need to rethink how we organize, support, and plan our research activities. One thing the report emphasized, and I wholeheartedly endorse, is that the administration must be “service oriented and faculty focused.”

The review stated, “The culture of service needs to be pervasive throughout the research cycle from the investigator’s initiation of the research idea all the way through the close of the award.”

The review team recommended the development of a strategic plan for research goals that is inclusive and ongoing. This plan would identify all available and needed space as well as target areas of excellence where more research can be grown.

It also recommended a new administrative research structure. One suggestion we are considering is splitting the duties of the Chief Research Officer from the Dean of the Graduate Studies. As you know, Collis Geren has been fulfilling both functions, but he has recently announced his retirement.

Collis, we have been extremely fortunate to have you on campus, advancing the academic mission of the graduate school and research and sponsored programs. You have done an extraordinary job. Would you please stand? Thank you for all that you do for the university and to promote research. We are currently reviewing and digesting all of the recommendations of this review.

Ultimately, the report stated: “The entire team was left with a very positive impression of the University of Arkansas and concluded that the institution has the capacity to significantly escalate its research standing.”

So good news there, and many valuable suggestions. If you have not seen the report, I would encourage you to review it. A few weeks ago, we released a draft document on our website “Providing Transparency and Accountability to the People of Arkansas.”You can find it at this web address—http://chancellor.uark.edu/06-04_TAP.pdf. This document outlines the Leadership Principles, Goals, and Accountability Measures we will use to guide us through 2021—the university’s sesquicentennial.

Today, I would like to call your attention to page 25, which describes our research funding and economic development efforts over a range of years, as well as our future goals.

You can see our research awards over the last few years, and where we think we should be in the years 2015 and 2021. You can also see our Research Expenditures and our federal research expenditures. Obviously, a good or bad economy will determine in large part whether we can reasonably grow at this rate, as well as our ability to modify our administrative structure to accommodate more growth. The other projections concern our efforts to commercialize our research and grow it into viable industry.

Some of you may be aware that a new company named Duralor recently celebrated its ribbon cutting, with Governor Beebe in attendance. Duralor is expected to employ about a hundred people in the next few years. This company specializes in coatings used for cutting tools, and it is based off technology developed at the university by Professor Ajay Malshe. Duralor’s parent company, NanoMech, is located at the Arkansas Research and Technology Park.

There are currently about 31 companies that call the ARTP home, like NanoMech, and they are poised to have a considerable economic impact on the region. They currently provide about 250 jobs in direct support of research and development, and provide average salaries in excess of $60,000. Additionally, between 2005 and 2007, they secured more than $22 million in Small Business Innovation Research Awards.

These so-called SBIR awards are a strong measure of a state’s entrepreneurial activity. For 2008, the awards to the university or the Technology Park represent approximately 95 percent of the awards given to the state of Arkansas. This adds up to 33 awards averaging about a quarter of million dollars each. For 1999-2008, we represent approximately 85 percent of the awards given, totaling more than $43 million dollars.

What these numbers suggest is that we are the prime mover in this state at stimulating this activity. We’re the economic engine of development. As such, it is imperative that we significantly increase the number of companies and jobs associated with the Arkansas Research and Technology Park in the coming years. If we want to keep our best minds in state, then we need to have jobs for them, and this is one of the vehicles by which we will create them. As you may know, the park will be expanding.

They will be breaking ground on the Enterprise Center, a 65,000 square foot multi-tenant building. This space will be available to tenants of the park and other clients who wish to take advantage of research interests and technology common with the University of Arkansas.

A vital component of scholarly support is library expenditures. The latest scholarship is increasingly accessible in a wide array of formats needed to support cutting-edge research, teaching, and service. To maintain our quality, we need to keep up to date on resources, information technologies, and distance access.

Here you can see a sampling of our library expenditures from recent years (page 26-28 of TAP). Thirteen million sounds like a lot, but it actually lags far behind many of our SEC peers. We are currently one of three institutions in the SEC that is not a member of the Association of Research Libraries. This is a not-for-profit association of the largest North American research universities. The Association operates as a forum for exchanging ideas and working collectively. When benchmarked against our SEC peers that are members, you get a clearer picture of where we are, and where we need to be.

As you can see, we are near the bottom of the SEC in library expenditures. To reach ARL status, we estimate we would need to be spending about $20 million a year on total library expenditures. This isn’t going to happen overnight, and it will more than likely involve a concerted fundraising effort and additional budgeted university funds. We have set the following targets for these years, and this should give you a sense of the pace at which we need to grow in order to reach ARL status.

Again, if you would like to learn more about our research goals and library expenditure goals, as well as all of our other institutional goals, you can find this document at http://chancellor.uark.edu/06-04_TAP.pdf.

I know that research space is a problem and we are laying the groundwork to support our future research efforts. At the moment, we are prepping the site for the Arkansas Institute for Nanoscale Material Science and Engineering.

Among other things, this new building will house all of our User Nanoscale Analytical Tools that are now spread across the entire campus. This facility will bring together tools that allow structural imaging and electrical and optical characterization at the atomic scale. These tools will be available to a wide range of faculty, not just the Institute’s full-time residents. The Institute will also be the home of an interdisciplinary team of chemists, physicists, biologists, and engineers investigating a broad range of theoretical and experimental advances in nanoscience and engineering.

In fact, we are currently the nation’s number one university in terms of supplying nanoscale materials to more of the world’s research institutions than any other university. In addition, of the ten institute researchers currently on the faculty, four already have established small businesses with more than 40 employees among them. The new building will be the home of the MicroEP Graduate Education Program, with 65 students currently in this interdisciplinary Ph.D./M.S. program. The new building will also contain space that will function as an applied classroom and a student laboratory designed to “practice innovation.” This provides a new approach to preparing our undergraduate and graduate students to lead innovation in nanoscience and engineering.

Early on, they need to be thinking about how they will support their research over the course of their careers. Based on the current support for research and education in the nanoscale arena, this building will position the university to be the regional leader in nanoscale materials, devices, and products brought to market. As much as new materials have always inspired innovation, the Institute has the potential to be the regional “Idea Center” for nanotechnology for a long time ahead. We also expect the Institute to become a hub of interdisciplinary activity that provides a unified state-wide collaborative effort between this campus, UALR, UAMS, UAPB, and ASU on nanoscale science and products targeting energy, medicine, and the environment.

Currently, we have approval from the Board of Trustees to build a facility with an estimated cost of $28 million. Governor Beebe recently agreed to add another $1.5 million to the $20 million we have already secured, leaving us with another $6.5 million to raise, whether through private or public sources. We are currently submitting a proposal to National Institute of Science and Technology in an effort to add $10M to our total. For all of the above reasons, it’s seems clear that nanoscale research and education will figure prominently in this university’s future as this center secures resources and expands its reputation.

Another initiative that we are trying to move forward is the Arkansas Research Alliance. This initiative is modeled after the Georgia Research Alliance, a business, educational, and government alliance growing technology-based industries in the state of Georgia. It has been extraordinarily successful at creating start-up companies and attracting federal research dollars. Currently, the Alliance has a board of trustees composed of ten CEOs and the five chancellors of the research universities, including myself. Several things are happening right now.

An independent company, Battelle, has conducted a base-line study of university-based research efforts. The focus of this study was to identify strategic focus areas with the highest potential for economic impact.

It identified nine possible areas of strategic focus where the universities have demonstrated core competencies. They are:

• Enterprise Systems Computing
• Distributed Energy Network Systems
• Optics and Photonics
• Nano-Related Materials and Applications
• Sustainable Agriculture and Bioenergy Management
• Food Processing and Safety
• Personalized Health Research Science
• Behavioral Research for Chronic Disease Management
• Obesity and Nutrition.

It is their opinion that these are our state’s current strengths. In the coming months, the Arkansas Research Alliance will be considering on which of these areas to focus.

From there, the Arkansas Research Alliance will examine the leading scholars in the designated fields as a part of the Eminent Scholars Program.

The goal of this program will be to identify leadership in strategic focus areas, and scholars who satisfy stringent criteria and meet approval by the ARA board.

Areas that will determine a candidate’s qualifications are:

• academic research leadership;
• entrepreneurial record;
• proven collaboration history;
• strong networking history;
• and scientific relevance.

This last legislative session, the state appropriated approximately $5.4 million for the Eminent Scholars program for the next two years. The challenge, though, is that the money is in the Governor’s General Improvement Funds, and ARA funding is part of the larger Accelerate Arkansas program—so it can be a negotiated process to access them. In general, I am optimistic that we will be able to secure some of these funds. Quite frankly, the University of Arkansas was really ahead of the curve on these ideas when it received the $300 million grant from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation during the billion-dollar Campaign for the 21st Century. A large portion of that gift has been used to hire and retain top-flight faculty that create research opportunities and bring applied research and economic development to Arkansas.

However, the Alliance should give us better leverage in pursuing federal funds since the five universities working together will give us more breadth and depth than institutions working individually. It has made a huge impact in Georgia, and if correctly adapted to Arkansas, can make a similar impact. That said, you should know that this is a marathon, not a sprint. It will take time to develop, fund, and execute these programs.

I think it also bears mentioning that nearly every campus in the country is talking about sustainability. We are no different, and it seem unlikely that there will be a college on this campus that is not in some way doing research on sustainability, whether is it studying more sustainable business practices, incorporating the concept of sustainability in the curriculum, or researching alternative fuels and energies.

The question we will be asking ourselves is what unique opportunities does our region offer us?--with our abundance of rivers, trees, and mountains; our access to multi-national corporations with similar commitments; and with the Green Valley Network currently housed at the Arkansas Research and Technology Park. The future is green, and I expect this to become an increasingly fertile area of research.

Finally, I would like to mention high performance computing, which is the ability to run massively parallel programs to solve some of our most complex problems. Many of our research endeavors will require this capability because the questions they are asking are too difficult to perform experimentally. They can only be solved through parallel modeling. A vast range of disciplines, from agronomy to the geosciences, from healthcare to civil engineering, have questions that require high performance computing to answer.

It will be increasingly important that we have the cyberinfrastructure to support this growing demand. This means we need high performance computers like the Star of Arkansas, high-speed networks like the Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network, or ARE- N, mass storage capacity, and high-end visualization software. We also need to invest in people. We need to invest in their education, their training, and the operational support for current and future activities. By increasing the number and knowledge level of staff, we will be better able to support our researchers. In fact, we are anticipating a major announcement in this area, so please stay tuned. This will definitely enhance our research capabilities.

In the coming years, I anticipate us greatly expanding our high performance computing capacity, as measured by our investment in both technology and people. By doing so, we will be able to meet the expanding and increasingly complex needs of our researchers, make life better for the citizens of the state of Arkansas, and contribute to the general welfare of our nation.

I have talked a long time, and I hope I have helped sketch out where I see the University of Arkansas heading in the next few years. Ultimately, we are anticipating growing our research capacity at a brisk but, we hope, sustainable rate, as measured by several key indicators. We are also anticipating making some corresponding changes to our administrative structure to support ongoing and future growth, as well as making additional investments in campus infrastructure and staff for the same reason.

The present economic situation notwithstanding, I believe the future is very bright for this university. We are only going to get better and stronger in our research capacity. And it will likely be a result of the work many of you here today are doing. So thank you for all you have done, and will do, to advance the academic mission of this university. Let me conclude with the following thoughts. We are a very good university that is destined to be a great university.

Greatness happens one faculty member at a time. I can preach the word all day long, but you good people really are the key to our ultimate success. I pledge to you to work as long and as hard as I can, along with our new provost, Dr. Sharon Gaber, to provide the resources for our research and teaching mission, which must include augmentation of salaries and program support. I believe we can and will be successful, even in these most difficult economic times. I would be happy to take some questions, if you have any.

Thank you for having me today, and please enjoy the rest of your summer.