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New Mexico State University URC Minutes - October 27, 2000

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Present: Tim Pettibone, Jim Strickland, Kristine Derer, Naida Zucker, Dave Rocks, Shaun McQuitty, Karl Wood, Bill Gould, Margaret Jacobs, Stephen Horan, Elizabeth Titus, Becky Keele-Smith, William Ogden, Vicente Garcia, Rudi Schoenmackers, Stephen Bernhardt, Ida Baca (Harold Matteson), Tracy Sterling. Guest: Dr. Rich Hills.

1. Introductions:

Introductions: Acting Chair Tracy Sterling introduced Dr. Rich Hills, Associate Dean and Director of the Engineering Research Center who presented an overview of the Engineering College and Engineering Research Center.

2. Announcements:

Dr. Hills noted that the College of Engineering spent $15.3 million in research last year. Based on a recent survey by ISI, the College of Engineering is ranked #2 nationwide in impact of publications. Electrical Engineering has one of the premiere programs in the country in analog VLSI. Strong programs in each department were highlighted. In addition to the academic departments, Engineering also has several research & development centers. The Engineering College has set up a council (ERC) comprised of department heads and faculty whose focus is to recommend policies and procedures. The Center currently returns 30% of overhead to departments and 10% directly to PIs. The emphasis is changing from Dean-centered to faculty-centered research, working toward more collaboration with other colleges. He briefly commented on the recent CORC retreat where some very broad collaborative research areas were defined. Future plans include seeking faculty input.

Dr. Hills mentioned that the Equipment Committee was formed from the 3 major equipment-intensive colleges (A&S, Agriculture, Engineering). Focus is to look at some of the strategic needs and equipment for the campus, address issues associated with maintenance and technical support, and develop a web page data base of costly equipment on campus so that researchers can be aware of equipment available for their use. Equipment Committee has concerns about CAS issues because they have to pay for equipment repairs but NMSUs CAS policy does not allow maintenance agreements as a direct cost. Dr. Sterling commented that NMSUs CAS guidelines are more stringent than federal regulations.

3. September 29, 2000 Minutes: A motion was made by Dr. Strickland to approve the minutes as presented. It was seconded and all were in favor.

4. 1999-2000 Subcommittee reports:

Role of URC Subcommittee: (Purpose -- to determine how URC can better serve the university.) Dr. Bernhardt distributed the committees memo regarding the consolidation of faculty-identified issues from an informal survey conducted in each college last year and also reviewed procedures for the survey. Dean Titus moved that the report be accepted so that action can be taken on it in the future. The motion was seconded and passed. Discussion was held concerning the lack of respect for humanities research at NMSU. The URC will look at these points more closely at subsequent meetings and decide which ones should be reviewed further by the URC, Research directors or President Gogue.

Vicente Garcia described a manual written at PSL to bring recognition to employees which he is willing to share with URC to aid in structuring research awards at NMSU. He also will write a draft of the role and scope of URC and present it at the November 17 meeting. After the draft is edited and reviewed by URC and Dr. Cunningham, it can be presented to CORC as a year long study of activities with indications of where URC members would be willing to help.

URC Interdisciplinary Research Fair Subcommittee: Drs. Strickland, Horan and Keele-Smith have not met, but will do so before the next meeting.

5. Other Business:

CORC Retreat -- Members worked on a strategic plan and came up with six major areas of focus -- Space, Border Issues, Arid Environments, Information Sciences, Infrastructure Security and Biological Technologies. Collaborative strengths on campus are noted in these issues and faculty input will be needed. EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research), which is a joint effort among the 3 NM research universities, has a state board to help define focus areas and help with co-funding to valid, peer-reviewed proposals where non-sufficient funds have been allocated. Dean Dasenbrock and V.P. Cunningham are involved with this group. Faculty should have input on important areas.

Website -- V.P Research Check out the site at: http://www.nmsu.edu/Research/test/ Suggestions of what else should be included are welcome.

URC Award for Exceptional Achievements in Creative Scholarly Activity -- Dr. Cunningham has located money for the awards which will be ready for next fall. Discussion followed regarding presentation of a personal or professional award because a personal award will be taxed. The URC agreed that the monetary award should go to the awardee without strings and the awardee can then decide how to spend the money. Clarification of A&S nominations for awards will be forwarded to Dr. Cunningham by Tracy.

6. Adjourn

The next meeting will be held on November 17, 2000 in the Zuhl Library Associates Room, 2nd floor at 3:30 p.m.

The meeting adjourned shortly after 5:00 p.m.

Minutes by Betty Lindsey