It encourages peer recognition of its faculty and student body by promoting membership and leadership on local, state, national, and international review groups, panels, and professional societies, by encouraging editing and writing for professional journals and textbooks, by consulting with various government and industrial groups, and by facilitating visiting professorships and lectureships. Many of the policies in the Handbook of Operating Procedures relate to the research effort. The administrative hierarchy for administering research programs follows the organizational chart from the president, to the executive vice president for research and academic affairs, to the deans of the schools, to the department chairs and division directors, to faculty and research staff. In all schools, department chairs share responsibility for research administration with faculty and principal investigators.
Some research is administered by directors of centers and institutes.
At the institutional level, the various support structures most directly related to the research mission are the executive vice president for research and academic affairs, the assistant vice president for research administration, the executive vice president for administration and finance, and the Research Council. The executive vice president for research and academic affairs oversees various efforts that are aimed at promoting the research enterprise. The Office of Research Services disseminates information on research contract and grant opportunities, interprets research proposal and application procedures, and maintains a researcher data base to facilitate distribution of timely information and promote networking among researchers with shared interests. The committees are generally appointed by the president upon recommendations by the deans.