RESEARCH COORDINATING COUNCIL

Memorandum 136 - Revised

September 20, 2001

Members Present: Curtis Anderson, Sean Anderson, John Bennion, Alok Bhushan,

Steve Byers, Deb Easterly, Nancy Griffin for Kay Flowers, Larry

Ford, Dianne Horrocks, Edwin House (presiding), Jeanne Lancaster

for Skip Lohse, Subbaram Naidu, Pamela Park, Rosemary Smith,

Beth Stamm, Dennis Stowe, Jane Strickland, Dan Wolfley

Members Absent/Excused: Phil Blick, Jonathan Blotter Graduate Student representative,

Frank Harmon, Health Professions representative, Richard

Inouye, Keith Weber, Doug Wells,Paul Zelus

Dr. Edwin House declared a quorum was present. He introduced himself and had the other Council

introduce themselves. He gave the members a brief history of the Council. It was created about 18

years ago when the Faculty Research Committee was the only campus committee that dealt with research.

Because of the diversity of issues—reporting to Faculty Senate regarding policy recommendations,

whether or not to fund master’s and dissertation research, funding of equipment of moderate cost which

was in excess of the limits in place at the time, there was a reorganization approved by Faculty Senate.

As a consequence, the Research Coordinating Council was formed and became the research policy-making

body. This is its primary function, although it does have others. All of the other university-wide research

committees report to the Research Coordinating Council. Some members of the Council have that

membership because they are chairs of one of these research committees. These are: 1) University Research

Committee, 2) Faculty Research Committee, 3) Humanities/Social Sciences Research Committee, 4)

Graduate Student Research and Scholarship Committee, 5) Undergraduate Research Committee. These

committees report to the Research Coordinating Council. The Faculty Research Committee has an

expanded function of review and selection of the outstanding researchers and the distinguished researcher

each year. The Graduate Student Research and Scholarship Committee was originally just a research

committee but now also makes recommendations to ASISU for graduate student scholarships. The

Undergraduate Research Committee sponsors the Undergraduate Research Symposium, Undergraduate

Research Day, students attending regional and national meetings as well as funding research proposals. The

Humanities/Social Sciences Research Committee has a $90,000 annual budget for research proposals

and $10,000 travel budget for faculty to further their research and scholarly activities. The University

Research Committee awards research proposals and when a faculty member receives an award from this

committee, there is an expectation that external funds will be pursued. The Research Coordinating

Council, in addition to recommending policy, also recommends funding in a program that Dr.

Lawson started. These recommendations are for awards for Release Time for External Funding and awards

release time funds to faculty for the purpose of writing extramural grants.

I. It was MSC (10y,0n) to approve Memorandum #135

II. REPORTS

A. Faculty Research Committee – John Bennion reported that the committee had not met yet

this semester. Not all members have yet been replaced but he should have the names of

the new members by the end of the week. The call for proposals will be going out shortly

with a November 5, 2001 deadline.

B. Graduate Student Research and Scholarship Committee – Dr. House reported that this

committee met last Friday and elected the Chair, Vice Chair and representative to the

Graduate Council. The election of a representative to the Research Coordinating Council was

deferred until the next meeting. The call for proposals will be going out fairly soon and this

committee will be dealing with the ASISU scholarship applications in the next month or so.

C. Undergraduate Research Committee – Curtis Anderson reported that the committee will meet

next Tuesday. The Research Symposium is scheduled for April 4, 2002 in the ballroom. There

are a few bylaw changes which the committee will deal with at the next meeting.

D. Humanities/Social Sciences Research Committee – Dr. House reported that he is the Chair for

this committee and Rudy Kovacs was elected as the Vice Chair. The call for proposals was

sent out last May and a reminder will be going out this month with a deadline of November 1,

2001. The committee will meet in late November or early December to make decisions on those

2002. proposals.

E. University Research Committee – Dr. House reported that this committee met last spring and

allocated its $80,000 budget. This committee will not meet again until next spring after the

deadline for the call for proposals.

F. Federal Initiatives – ISU submitted proposed projects totaling about $24 million for 9 projects.

Dr. House anticipates receiving about $5-7 million for these projects if federal allocations are similar

to last year. Dr. House and Dr. Ford will be getting a call out to the university campus for requests

for the next funding period. Cassidy and Associates will come here for a visit and listen to presentations.

Dr. House has asked all deans to think about projects that would make sense for this process. This is

a process by which we ask Congress for line item appropriations. Many of the federal initiative

projects are research center oriented but some are strictly project oriented. Cassidy has stated that

requests need to be $1 million or more. Success to date are: 1) $1.7 million for a two-year project

in Telehealth- Beth Stamm; PI 2) $1.4 million for information assurance-Dr. Corey Schou; PI and 3)

$500,000 in GIS-Keith Weber, PI.

G. NEH Summer Stipend – Deb Easterly reported that the National Endowment for the Humanities

makes an annual award of $5,000 to one junior and one senior faculty member. This year’s nominees

are Dr. Mei Zhong, Music Department, junior faculty and Dr. Jennifer Attebury, English, senior faculty.

The awards will be made in April so that the faculty members have them for summer work. The

deadline for the upcoming year was October 1 and ISU had four applicants.

H. Release Time for External Funding – Dr. Lawson approved funding of the two faculty proposals

(submitted by Dr. J. B. Owens and Dr. William Woodhouse) that were recommended by this Council.

I. Center for Science and Technology Building – There are four partners who have a stake in this

building—Idaho State University, University of Idaho, Inland Northwest Research Alliance and the

Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. Dr. Larry Ford (Research), Dr.

Dave Rodgers (Geology), Dr. Richard Inouye (Biological Sciences) and Darren Dehle (Physical

Plant) went to several meetings over the summer and did a fine job in securing our share of the

space and assuring that the construction would accommodate our needs. There will be offices for

research faculty, rooms for graduate students, and there will also be a major facility called the

geocentrifuge that will be put in this building. The underlying principle behind the building

was that it be collaborative—that is that it would facilitate faculty and researchers working together

from the other universities, as well as researchers from INEEL and visiting researchers. The

design is such that we can do that. Dr. House reported that this should open up many

opportunities in the future. This building is strictly for research; teaching will be done in other

buildings. ISU will have ten research faculty in this building and has already hired four—Nancy

Glenn, Terence McGonigle, Peter Sheridan, and Malcomb Shields. Part of this funding is from

the state and part from INEEL.

J. Research Coordinating Council (RCC) Annual Report to President – This is an annual report

to the University President about the Council’s activities. It reflects the work of the various research

committees that report to the Research Coordinating Council and also some policy issues. One is

the recommended Guidelines for Evaluation Procedures for Research Faculty which is still being

reviewed by Faculty Senate. Another is the recommended policy for indirect cost funds. RCC

also approves the title of “center” for Level I and Level II research centers. Level I allows the

use of the term “center” where research is one of its functions, and having the term center in a

title is helpful in securing external funds. However, the University is not obligated to allocate

funds to a Level I center. Last year, the Natural Heritage Center was approved at Level I. For a

Level II, there is an expectation that the University will put resources into that center. The Family

Medicine Clinical Research Center was approved at Level II. This center already has

significant institutional support.

K. Other – No other business to report.

III. COUNCIL BUSINESS

A. Evaluation Guidelines and Procedures for Research Faculty – Dr. House

reviewed the changes recommended by the Faculty Senate. In the first paragraph, the

insertion of “no more than” was in agreement with this Council and with the original intent.

This sentence was revised to read as follows: Research Faculty who are being

paid 9 or more months salary by Idaho State University will typically be expected

to teach no more than one upper division/graduate level course (3-4 credits) and

no more than one upper division/graduate level seminar course (1-2 credits) per

year. The amount of public service required of research faculty has been the issue

of contention. Faculty Senate recommended the following changes: Service contributions

can include serving on Department, College, or University committees, reviewing

manuscripts for journals, reviewing grant proposals or serving on review panels

for funding agencies, and serving on review panels or advisory boards for

public or private agencies (e.g. management agencies, governmental panels).

Public service will be evaluated by the Department in which the Research

faculty member is located, using a standard that is acceptable for that Department.

No more than 10% of the Research Faculty member=s time will be committed to

public service.

Some departments have very different philosophies regarding these issues. Rosemary

Smith said she believed the view of Faculty Senate was that the research faculty

could say “no” to participating on some committees because this commitment could

become excessive and actually reduce the amount of time spent on research which

is what they were hired for. Dr. House clarified that this did not mean that research faculty

could not be a member of a graduate student’s committee or a research committee.

He believed the 10% was to address time spent on university-wide committees and

was not related to supervising postdoctoral fellows and others involved in a research

project. The consensus of the Council was that the paragraph regarding public

service needed to be rewritten, public service needed to be defined, research should

be placed at the top of the page so that research was addressed first, teaching

second, and public service third. Larry Ford, Deb Easterly, Jane Streubel, Dan

Wolfley and Beth Stamm will work on this.

B. Intellectual Property - Dr. House reported what had transpired in the statewide Intellectual

Property Committee last year. A document has been prepared that would take away

significant rights and freedoms. Academic Vice Presidents’ of all schools objected. Boise

State University’s provost recommended that an outside consultant be hired. This was done

and is now in the stage of data collection from universities throughout the country. When

this process is complete, the consultant will come forward with a recommendation for a policy.

The consultant should have his/her recommendation by December.

We will be expected to write a new policy to match the State Board of Education’s policy

terms. Copyright is an area of difficulty. The Patent Policy is very similar so that should

not be an issue. Intellectual Property issues can often be solved with a Memorandum of

Agreement. Council members received a copy of the SBOE Intellectual Property Benchmarks.

C. Dr. House asked Council members to review the memorandum submitted by Dr. Will Hamlin,

last year’s Faculty Research Committee Chair. It was MSC (10y, 0n) to increase the

maximum award by the Faculty Research Committee (FRC) from $4,000 to $5,000. Dr.

House stated that the guidelines for proposals will need to be changed as well as the guidelines for

the University Research Committee and the Humanities/Social Sciences Research Committee

because the minimum award from those committees is $4,000 based on the FRC maximum.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:25 p.m.