Each academic unit must also be committed to steadily improving its success in scholarship and research. Chairs and senior faculty must be strongly supportive of research, and must accept more responsibility for building an academic environment that is supportive of scholarship. Although the needs of junior faculty require particular attention, resources and programs to support the career development of all faculty members are needed. To accomplish these and other programmatic goals, funds must become available for investment in the UVM research enterprise. The University fund-raising agenda should explicitly include goals directly tied to our research and scholarship efforts undergraduate research, facilities, faculty development, startup funds, and seed money.
Faculty require discretionary funds to develop and maintain their scholarly programs.
Indirect cost reimbursement and distribution needs to change in such a way that we are investing more in our research programs and in the infrastructure that directly supports research. Progress towards these goals could be substantially improved though the development and implementation of a plan through which indirect cost reimbursements become separated from the UVM General Fund. This is certain to be difficult because these funds amount to 10 million dollars annually. Enhancement of the University's research efforts has an important and direct linkage to our goals of improving the learning environment and increasing rigor in the undergraduate student experience. In addition, a focus on undergraduate research would closely integrate with existing and evolving undergraduate honors programs.