Recruiting the best faculty and staff. Nothing we do is more important than bringing in people who will make us think and work harder. This includes considerations such as hiring a diverse group of employees, finding positions for spouses and creating a campus environment that makes people want to take jobs here. Even though Iowa's population is not very diverse, we have to make sure ethnic individuals have every opportunity to succeed here. Richmond acknowledged there may be a small group of faculty at Iowa State who believe that scholarship in preparation for a lecture is enough, and that excelling at classroom teaching should be satisfactory for promotion.
Scholarship is all about finding new relationships and moving the field forward.
They need to help the rest of us, just as a geneticist who writes a paper helps other people around the country. Like most issues that are important to a society, it's one that needs to be continually discussed.