Dear Colleagues:
Below is a link for the recently completed Research Capacity Assessment Taskforce Report. This report is the product of 26 faculty who served on various study teams during the spring and summer of 2013. In addition, almost 400 faculty provided input via survey. The 57% response rate indicates the importance of the issues and the clear desire of faculty to move forward in strategic, timely and effective fashion. I would like to thank all those involved in an exceptional report, and in particular, the leadership of Dr. Andy Meyers and Dr. Henry Kurtz, along with the Study Team chairs Drs. Dasgupta, Skalli, and Ward. The report offers four key recommendations revolving around more effective institutional support, interdisciplinary research efforts, clarity of expectations regarding sponsored research, and limitations in our current research infrastructure. The report offers a full discussion of each domain, along with verbatim survey feedback.
In response to these recommendations, I’m asking Dr. Meyers to work with study team members and the Faculty Senate research committee to form implementation teams. Under the leadership of Dr. Meyers, these teams will help shape implementation strategies for each of the recommendations, along with identifying needed resources and projecting an appropriate timeline for each. The hope is to offer specific strategies to help move research forward, both for our target of $100 million in research expenditures, along with the full scope of scholarly and artistic endeavors. The work of the implementation teams will be shared with the deans of each college and targeted strategies will be executed. I look forward to working with each of you to advance our research mission.
As our mission statement reflects, “The University of Memphis is a learner-centered metropolitan research university providing high quality educational experiences while pursuing new knowledge through research, artistic expression, and interdisciplinary and engaged scholarship” (http://www.memphis.edu/stratplan/). I look forward to advancing this mission in definitive fashion. Go Tigers!
Link to report: http://www.memphis.edu/researchsupport/pdfs/researchcapacity_assessment.pdf
Best Regards, David