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The 2005 Assessment of Research, Creative and Scholarly Activity at USM In late January, Provost Joe Wood invited the USM faculty and staff to join him in a series of town meetings to discuss research conducted within the University community. The informal gatherings were held to help launch a yearlong, six-phase study of research, scholarship and creative activity at USM. This month marks the kick-off of Phase 2 of the project designed to help USM chart a direction for strengthening such endeavors in the future. The formal review of USM's institutional capacity for research, scholarship and creative activity began in January with the announcement that USM has engaged the services of external consultants to assist with the information-gathering, assessment, and recommendation process. The members of the core consulting team are: EJ Lovett and Claire Collins of Lovett Collins Associates, a Portland-based consulting firm to research-oriented clients, and Ed Derrick of the Research Competitiveness Group of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general scientific society. According to Wood, the core team will help USM chart a course to strengthen USM's current research enterprise and better achieve national recognition for regional excellence. Toward this end, the team will review all things research-related, from USM's current operating environment to compliance with state and federal research standards—even funding opportunities, both internal and external to the institution. Wood notes that most faculty members already are funded to some degree, insofar as USM pays a portion of their salary for scholarly productivity and creative activity. “This is really an ancillary lever of 'Transforming USM' to help us focus on what we choose to invest in and what programs we develop,” says Wood. “It reflects the vision of the 2001 USM Plan, and the Southern Maine Imperative is the driver for it.” The assessment process is not about altering USM's current culture as characterized by the teacher-scholar model of faculty, he says. Rather, it's about ensuring that notion of teacher-scholar, articulated in the 2001 USM Plan, is upheld. To assist the assessment process, the core consulting team has enlisted the input of several advisory committees. Members of the Internal Advisory Panel, representing research, scholarship and creative activity across all three campuses and all eight schools and colleges, will provide input on the micro level—representing not only their programs and disciplines, but also the broader institutional view. An External Advisory Panel, comprised of regional, state and national figures, will provide feedback by keeping the “big picture” in mind. The AAAS Assessment Team, whose members include vice presidents for research or provosts from other universities, will be charged with figuring out how recommendations can be assimilated into USM's culture. A complete listing of the teams' members is available at www.usm.maine.edu/prov. Already underway, the entire review process will take roughly a year and includes six phases: Phase I began in December 2004 with early planning and later introduction of the assessment program. Phase 2, which began this month, calls for the assessment of USM's research enterprise and operating environment. Following a series of on-site interviews on all three campuses, the committee will provide feedback on issues ranging from barriers to research and opportunities for national and regional collaboration to the effectiveness of USM's current organizational structure and guidelines for next steps. In April, during Phase 3 of the process, the team hopes to begin creating a vision for research at USM. This process will include the collection of inputs from planning documents, interviews and team assessment, and the development of a number of outputs, including short- and long-term priorities, a commitment to resources, and an outline for next steps. Phase 4, May through July, will involve the implementation of options models and planning developed and selected from observations and recommendations. By August, the team hopes to simultaneously begin implementation and ongoing assessment and realignment, or Phase 5 and Phase 6, respectively. Once completed, Wood says the desired outcome is not to create a separate R&D agenda, to focus narrowly on funded research activity, or to bring an externally prescribed view of what research, scholarship, and creative activity at USM should be. Rather, it is to create the appropriate infrastructure and internal funding opportunities to sustain a comprehensive research enterprise that supports scholarship and creative activity across the faculty and staff. “We are not transforming USM into something that is not its mission,” says Wood,” but to something that best achieves its mission.” For information about the teams' progress or to communicate with the consultants, please visit www.usm.maine.edu/provost.
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