Team building, among department chairs as well as among department faculty, is an ongoing and important challenge. In many ways, the College of the Sciences stands at a crossroads. In no other area is this more evident than in the research efforts of faculty and students in the college. Research experience is essential to make our graduates competitive as they search for jobs or graduate educational experiences. Research is an integral part of our own graduate programs in the sciences.
Research is an essential part of the ongoing professional activities of the faculty.
We need to engage in dialog to determine the limits of effort in each one of these categories in COTS, as well as to solve practical problems related to research such as reassignment of faculty time, and the acquisition of resources to support these efforts. There are many opportunities open to us that we have not been able to seize due to the lack of adequate resources. Not only must we become more effective in obtaining state support for growth and innovation in our programs, but also we must find other means of facilitating program vitality outside of state funding. In some cases, this is essential, because failure in the growth and adaptability of a program may be its inevitable demise. If the state does not recognize the need for growth or the strengthening of a program through infusion of added resources, we must find ways of obtaining alternative sources of funds to make this happen.