3.0 Faculty Development and Scholarship
3.1 Faculty recruitment
Albany has a rich learning and research
environment, whose major asset is a fine faculty. Maintaining and enhancing
this faculty is critical for sustaining Albany’s mission and objectives and is
a major priority of the University.
Albany is concerned that its competitive position with respect to the
recruitment of faculty has eroded as other States have moved aggressively to
provide the necessary resources to attract and retain top faculty. Indeed, NRC and other national rankings are
shown to be directly related to the size and quality of an institution’s
faculty.
·
Albany will also need to add faculty to move the current
student:faculty ratio closer to the level appropriate to a premier research
institution. The University is also committed to recruit and retain a diverse
faculty and staff.
·
Albany will also need to add faculty to advance its research
mission and national research rankings and will make major investments in
building its faculty in the areas of Applied Physics/Advanced Materials and
Life Sciences/Biotechnology (including functional genomics and bio-informatics).
Other likely areas for faculty investment would include, but not be limited to,
public health, business, education, and information science while maintaining
the investments necessary to keep Albany’s national and international stature
in areas such as criminal justice, atmospheric sciences, demography and
population studies, sociology, clinical psychology, counseling psychology,
social welfare, literacy, and public administration and policy.
3.2 Faculty review,
promotion, & tenure
As befits an excellent research
university, the University at Albany’s promotion and tenure procedures are
characterized by high standards and rigorous external reviews of faculty
qualifications and scholarship. System Administration applauds Albany for
adhering to high standards meant to ensure academic excellence. Adhering also
to a system of periodic reviews of departments and programs will help maintain
academic standards, test the quality of internal planning, and identify
vulnerabilities and possible directions for enhancement.
·
Albany will also continue to
use student evaluations of teaching effectiveness in its review of faculty for
promotion and tenure.
3.3 Quality and quantity of
scholarship
Albany’s overall goal is to attain
Research I status within five years. In 1998, Albany’s total research and
development dollars exceeded $50 million. On a per capita basis, Albany
attracted $92,277 of external funding per full-time faculty member in 1997-98,[2] reflecting an 80% gain over its per capita level in 1991-92. In 1998, Albany
faculty expended more than $46 million in sponsored funding through the
Research Foundation and over $63 million
through affiliated Health Research, Inc., the fiscal agent for the New York
State Department of Health. Further, a growing number of faculty are involved
in significant research enterprises—for example, in advanced thin film
technology, atmospheric (environmental) sciences, and in biotechnology—that
hold tremendous potential for contributing to the economic development and
vitality of the region and State. The research and scholarly achievements of
faculty members, postdoctoral associates, graduate students, and undergraduate
students are also recognized through major national awards, prizes, and
prestigious fellowships.
[2] Source: SUNY System Administration Document #98–656/2 (Campus Profiles).
Albany’s historical research
strengths, particularly in the social and environmental sciences are well
developed and broadly recognized. One
recent study showed that Albany ranked 17th among public research
universities in research productivity (Graham & Diamond, The Rise of American Research Universities,
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).
In addition, Albany has in the last five years developed impressive
programs and facilities in areas that will be at the foundation of NY State’s
21st Century economy—microelectronics, materials science,
information systems and technologies, genomics and related topics. To build
upon both these programs and traditional strengths, Albany must obtain
additional State investment to ensure the university’s competitiveness in attracting
federal research funding and in broadening its research base. In addition, as the only public institution
of higher education in the State with a School of Public Health, there is an
opportunity for both the campus and the System to develop a world-class
research and educational effort to confront the challenges in public health
that the State faces, while in addition making broad strides in increasing the
size of the University’s research portfolio.
Finally, as a key complement to
Albany, the campus envisions/will need to have an effective locus for research
and outreach to public policy professionals and organizations. In gauging the success of its
efforts to strengthen the quality and raise the stature of its research
enterprise, Albany will seek: ·
Continued growth of 7% a year
in externally-funded research, with five-year benchmarks of:
$70.1 million total research
and development expenditures in 2005 added through the SUNY Research
Foundation; and
$52.0 million federal
expenditures through the SUNY Research Foundation in 2005. ·
Continued success in national
competitions for large, federally-supported research centers; ·
Increases in the number of
disclosures and patents; ·
Rising rankings and other
indices of recognition for its graduate programs (see §5.2 below); ·
An increase in the number of
funded investigators (growing from 151 in 1998-99 to 240 by 2005), by adding
soft-money lines, by focused, strategic efforts to hire faculty in such areas
as the sciences and public health, by developing incentives for all present
faculty to pursue research funding, and by increasing the public profile of the
Albany research enterprise; ·
Programs in the humanities
and the arts and some areas within the social sciences with limited sources for
external funding will continue to increase their research productivity, as
measured by publications, citations, and prestigious prizes and lectureships;
and ·
Increases in the number of
prestigious awards that recognize faculty scholarship and research (Guggenheim
Fellowships, Fulbright Fellowships, etc.) As of 1998, Albany’s total
R&D expenditures relative to current and aspirational peers is:[3]
Institution Rank Total
R&D Expenditures ($ in thousands) Federal Expenditures ($ in thousands) University
at Buffalo University
at Stony Brook University of
California-Santa Barbara Arizona State
University University of
Massachusetts-Amherst University of Delaware University at Albany University of Rhode
Island University of Oregon 55 61 88 95 97 114 129 144 151 151,650 141,766 96,034 92,019 89,970 69,896 50,568 37,940 33,315 76,037 91,531 68,408 41,359 43,196 33,688 33,894 33,308 27,041 Sustained increased investment by
SUNY and the State will be essential in providing the necessary financial base
for leveraging competitive federal and industry support. It will be critically important for Albany to
increase its faculty in the sciences and public health if it is to achieve its
ambitious research productivity goals.
Indeed, further growth of Albany’s research funding is predicated on
growth of its faculty in selected strategic programs.
[3] Source: National Science
Foundation/SRS, Survey of Research and Development Expenditures at Universities
and Colleges, Fiscal Year 1998. Albany notes that these must be interpreted in
light of the fact that National Science Foundation data are selective (focusing
on the sciences) and incomplete (excluding a number of federal funding
agencies). This is especially important for Albany, since NSF data exclude
programs that have attracted substantial and important federal funding
(e.g. the Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center, the National Center on
English Learning and Achievement, the Center for Technology in Government).
3.4 Comparisons
with selected benchmark institutions
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