BY SUZAN DIBELLA

ne day in 1991, UNLV biochemist Steve Carper was reviewing his weekly stack of a dozen or so journal articles when one on plant physiology caught his eye.

It focused on how plants react to stress.

Considering that he was researching breast cancer at the time, the article might have seemed unrelated. It also, Carper acknowledges, may have sounded a bit esoteric — perhaps even slightly ridiculous — to the casual observer. But the seemingly unrelated and somewhat specialized subject examined in the article inspired a whole new line of thought in CarperÕs mind, one that led him to discover what stops chemotherapy from killing certain types of breast cancer cells.

Carper enjoys telling that story, mostly because, he notes, it so effectively dismantles the arguments of those critical of so-called "obscure" research. It has the added benefit of clearly illustrating a lesson in open-mindedness that is generally understood and accepted in the academic environment: What may seem an obscure, even laughable, study to one person might prompt someone else to take a fresh look at a complex and previously unsolved research problem.

But his anecdote also speaks to a larger issue that is contemplated by many of us in academe — namely, how is research of all kinds valued by society? Do people understand its importance?

The subject of the value of research is not often addressed directly; rather, we at UNLV tend to speak of it in terms of concrete examples of the research being conducted. We discuss the numerous grants our faculty have received to conduct their work, the respected publications they have authored to describe it, or the practical benefits society has reaped from their ideas. At the foundation of this discussion is our fundamental belief that research is inherently important to our students, to our institution, and to society. But, as UNLV President Carol C. Harter puts it, our conviction that research is valuable is not enough; we canÕt assume that if we understand its value, then everyone else will as well.

So in this article we are addressing the subject of research directly and philosophically not only because we endorse it, but also because of at least two other compelling reasons: First, many people don't have a clear understanding of how and why research happens here, and, secondly, there are those who do not appreciate its relationship to the teaching mission of the university.

Regarding the first reason, it is widely held that the public considers research basically a positive and constructive act. After all, research has saved lives through medical breakthroughs and spawned better living through the invention of a variety of useful and incredible devices, from pop-top cans to computers. But we often know little of how many of these innovative breakthroughs and devices were discovered; we all recognize they are the result of complex scientific research conducted somewhere in some vague but evidently productive modern past. And, certainly, most of us are aware that many other types of research are ongoing. But, again, the specifics are, we must admit, a bit on the hazy side.

As to the second reason, there has been of late some debate as to whether UNLV should set its focus so deliberately on the promotion of research when the provision of teaching is so clearly a priority. It has been suggested that for a university at our stage of development, research and teaching are sometimes incompatible activities, that we should attempt to achieve excellence in only one or the other, and that the need for excellent teaching is the most immediate and pressing concern, as more than 20,000 students line up at our doors for classes each semester. The underpinning of these assertions is that conducting research in some way diminishes a faculty member's ability to teach well.

So, given the somewhat nebulous understanding of many about the nature of research and the suggestion that our commitment should be directed elsewhere, it seems an excellent time to provide a short explanation, if not a defense, of research. And frankly, many university faculty and administrators have been hoping weÕd ask; they are genuinely and deeply committed to the philosophy and practice of research, and they take seriously their roles as advocates of it. Here are some of their thoughts.

Some Explanations

To begin with, research is, simply put, the finding of new knowledge, according to UNLV Provost Douglas Ferraro.

"Research really represents methodology, and what that methodology seeks to do is to accumulate knowledge," says Ferraro, who conducted extensive research in the area of psychopharmacology in his pre-administration days. "And if one believes, as I do, that knowledge is accumulated progressively across time and builds upon itself, then the question is, 'How do we discover these new knowledges?' Research is the basis for doing that. So, the relationship between knowledge and research is a very close one."

Society has entrusted its universities with the responsibility of both finding new knowledge and training others to do the same, he adds.

"The question arises as to where should this research take place, how should it take place, and who should be doing this research," Ferraro adds. "Who should be the knowledge-finders in this world? The answer to that is the knowledge-finders have to be those people who understand the premises of research and scholarship, that is, those who are trained to find this knowledge. And while anybody can discover a truth — they can happen upon it in some serendipitous way — if we are talking about the systematic accumulation of knowledge, it's most likely to occur in the hands of those who have been trained to do it. Obviously, universities have been set up to play the role of training those who are going to go out and pursue new knowledge. So it is in the university setting that one learns how to be the researcher who can go out and find these new elements of knowledge that can add to the cumulative knowledge base of society — not exclusively so, but most efficiently so."

In practice, knowledge finding occurs in all academic disciplines through a variety of means and with many goals, says Stephen Rice, UNLV's associate provost for research.

"When people think about research, they usually think of scientists wearing white lab coats," he says. "Actually, research is something that is done in virtually every academic field, though the process can vary greatly by discipline. We have faculty in 10 colleges and 50 or so departments who are seeking to expand the knowledge base of their fields in some way."

A short lesson in terminology helps to explain the distinctions between some of the different research orientations, says Barbara Cloud, associate provost for academic affairs and editor of the scholarly journal Journalism History.

She points to the terms "pure research" and "applied research" as indicators of two different approaches.

"Intellectual curiosity generally propels 'pure research,' whereas a problem to be solved forms the basis for 'applied research,'" she says. "The pure researcher seeks answers to a question, while the applied researcher wants to solve a problem. Applied research is sometimes thought of as more 'useful,' but most applied research has as its foundation a great deal of pure research done by people who didnÕt worry about usefulness."

Understanding the term "scholarship" — as distinguished from research — is also helpful, she adds.

"Research should not be confused with scholarship, although the two are often used interchangeably," she notes. "A university researcher is likely to be a scholar, but a scholar is not necessarily a researcher who adds new knowledge to his or her field. Someone who reads widely and deeply and understands the discoveries of others will be a learned person — a scholar — and may be very good at transmitting knowledge to others. But most scholars find that they have questions that are not answered in others' work, so they pursue the answers themselves through research."

The term "creative activity" is also used frequently in academe, she adds.

"There are many ways to discover knowledge. Not everyone dons a lab coat, runs statistics on a computer, spends hours among dusty library files, or otherwise engages in the kinds of activities we usually associate with research," she explains. "The contributions of the poet, the playwright, the sculptor, the painter, the dancer, the musician, the actor, and other creative people also help us discover new knowledge through their creations or their interpretations of others' creations. In the university community, research and creative activity are both respected."

Though Rice calls the range of activities faculty employ in their pursuit of knowledge "staggering," he notes that there are some commonalities in procedure among most of the disciplines. Many, but certainly not all, of these endeavors take the following path.

The first step occurs, Rice notes, when a faculty member decides to pursue a novel or interesting idea in his or her field, usually asking a question that has not been asked before. At that point, some preliminary information gathering is required to determine what aspects of the given subject have already been examined. This typically involves an extensive review of publications written by other scientists, scholars, or artists.

"Perhaps as part of this phase of the process, the faculty member talks to students about his or her idea," Rice says. "The faculty member's interest and enthusiasm begin to creep into classroom discussions or maybe into a preliminary lab experiment. So students are recruited to be a part of the research or creative activity."

If the project requires significant resources, the faculty member pursues financial support in the form of grants from governmental agencies, nonprofit organizations, or foundations or seeks private donations from the community. If a major federal agency grant is sought, Rice notes, the faculty member must complete quite formal and time-consuming procedures for developing a written grant proposal.

Usually by this point, the actual research gets under way. A plan for exploring the given new idea is adopted and is used to collect information in some form; the faculty member then analyzes the new knowledge and draws some inferences.

He or she then begins sharing the research with the rest of the world through what is called the "peer review process," Rice notes. Peer review simply means that a faculty member presents his or her research in a public forum to colleagues or "peers" from across the country (in some cases from around the world) for their review. That forum may be a conference or meeting, a scholarly journal, or a proposal for grant funding.

"Research is essential in a university's effort to gain a    reputation for academic quality." Ted Jelen, political science professor

"As the work progresses, presentations are made to colleagues and peers in meetings and conferences where the latest developments in the discipline are discussed and debated," says Rice, whose primary research focus is tribology, the study of surface phenomena such as friction, lubrication, and wear of materials. "This is where reputations are made or broken. This is where feedback is received and new ideas are hatched."

Cloud offers additional explanation as to why peer review is so important.

"A scholar may explore a subject for personal intellectual enjoyment — a legitimate activity certainly — but the researcher has special obligations beyond his or her own satisfaction," she says. "With some limitations governed by copyright and patent laws, the researcher must share discoveries with the world. The purpose is two-fold: one purpose is to allow other bright minds to consider the work; this may reveal errors in method or thinking about the discovery and prevent serious mistakes from being perpetuated. The other purpose is to fulfill the imperative that says knowledge must be shared if civilization is to advance. Thanks to publication and peer review expectations, we are not constantly re-inventing the wheel."

Raymond Alden, dean of the UNLV College of Sciences, concurs and adds, "The entire peer review process of sharing results with colleagues provides an open, critical forum to permit quality control and alternate interpretations of the data."

After receiving feedback at a conference or meeting, the faculty member typically begins the companion process of writing up his or her findings, most often for publication in a scholarly journal, which provides a researcher with yet another opportunity to gain input from colleagues. These colleagues review the article submitted for publication, offer feedback, and influence the journal's decision whether to publish it. Each discipline typically has numerous journals dedicated to publishing results of this type; some are more prestigious than others.

"The more highly regarded the journal, the more important the contribution not only to the discipline and to society in general, but also to the faculty memberÕs career," adds Rice.

Depending upon the field, the time required for articles to be published can be months or years. Though publication usually punctuates the process for any given research project, each study often yields new ideas for future exploration.

"It should be noted that there is no end to this process," Rice says in closing. "A good researcher always has several ideas brewing, a few grant proposals being considered, a few articles submitted for publication. And students are being recruited and trained and are assisting in the process all along the way."

Benefits to Students

In most programs, students typically spend the lionÕs share of their undergraduate years building a foundation of knowledge by studying the work of other scholars, scientists, or artists, says Anthony Ferri, a noted researcher in the field of mass communication.

"Entrance to graduate school usually marks the beginning of a student's academic search for completely new knowledge, though more and more undergraduates are being included in the research process," Ferri says.

Graduate students often pursue their own research interest areas with the guidance of faculty members or join in on projects already being pursued by faculty. These students are frequently asked to help make conference presentations and assist in writing up the results of the research project for publication, he says.

Participation in this process can be very enlightening for students, adds biological sciences professor Penny Amy.

"Participation in research is a tremendous benefit for students in all areas of academic endeavor," she adds. "Students in some departments, particularly in the sciences, take courses in undergraduate research and learn the process of critical thinking and analysis as juniors and seniors. This experience often molds their future interests in professional programs, such as medical school, or inspires them to continue in graduate programs. Nearly all graduate students are required to complete a thesis, professional paper, or project, or take an extensive examination. In each case, original research, library research, or creative activity is required.

"Just reading scholarly publications written by others takes practice and requires interpretative ability," Amy adds. "These are skills students learn by participating in research projects with their mentors. Doctoral programs require original research and/or creative activity. Students in these programs develop their own reputations, improve those of the faculty involved, and bring the university to national prominence."

But even if they are not directly involved in a given project, students in the classroom often hear about the research ideas that are germinating in the minds of their professors. The exchanges between students and professors about these ideas are mutually beneficial, according to history professor Tom Wright, a respected Latin America scholar who acknowledges in one of his books his indebtedness to past students who have listened to and critiqued his ideas.

And while students may learn a great deal from hearing about the specific findings of a faculty member's research, they also gain insights from active researchers about the process of acquiring new knowledge, says political science professor Ted Jelen.

"Faculty who engage in research are much better at conveying to students the methods by which knowledge is created in different fields, since such faculty are involved in the process itself," says Jelen, whose research focuses on the areas of religion and politics. "The specific knowledge we convey to our students is all too quickly obsolete; the more important skill we impart is the ability to generate knowledge or to evaluate critically the knowledge created by others. Also, participation in a research enterprise forces faculty to keep up to date in their fields; itÕs very easy to lose touch with the cutting edge if one is not professionally active."

Educational psychology professor Alice Corkill concurs.

"Research has an impact on the quality of course content at the institution," says Corkill, who has done extensive research on cognitive abilities and how they affect learning. "Faculty who are engaged in cutting-edge research are also faculty who are up to date in terms of their fields of study. They are aware of and familiar with the current state of their disciplines. Therefore, when these faculty teach, they provide current information to students in their classes. As a result, the quality of course content is enhanced."

She adds that the reputation and increased visibility that high-quality research brings a university also benefits students.

"Research has an effect on the value of the degree conferred on graduates of the institution," she says. "The reputation of the institution is affected by the quality of research conducted at and disseminated from the institution. Graduates benefit from earning their degrees from an institution with a good reputation."

And in academe, reputation is the name of the game, Jelen adds.

"Research is essential in a university's effort to gain a reputation for academic quality," he says. "Precisely because the product we offer — education — is so intangible and difficult to assess, reputation is a vital component for any institution of higher learning. Reputation tends to attract more philanthropic dollars, to enhance the institution's ability to compete for grants, and to enable us to attract more high-quality students. Institutional prestige is an important 'shorthand,' since consumers of our services have limited resources to devote to investigating our qualifications in detail."

Alden agrees, adding, "If you read the list of top research universities in the country, they represent the kinds of institutions that most people recognize and want to attend or have their children attend. Thus, high-quality research builds infrastructure, reputations, and the human resources that promote high-quality educational opportunities."

Teaching vs. Research

Perhaps the most, if not the only, compelling argument against research is the assertion that conducting it steals time from faculty who are preparing to teach. In an ideal scenario, research and teaching topics would be so closely aligned that faculty would be killing the proverbial two birds with one stone by pursuing new knowledge that would be shared with all students. But in practice, so the argument goes, the focus of faculty research is quite often set on a narrowly defined area; the content of that research may not be applicable to certain classroom discussions, particularly those in undergraduate courses that offer broad coverage of a given topic. Thus, some research has a limited direct impact in the classroom.

"There's a kind of interaction among scholars that is, I think,    necessary to fuel the energy, interest, and creativity that go    along with good teaching." UNLV President Carol C. Harter

History professor Wright acknowledges that argument.

"At a university of our size," says Wright, "one's teaching field is normally much broader than one's research field. Only at large, well-endowed universities do faculty teach only their narrow research specialties, which are usually graduate courses, leaving teaching assistants and part-time faculty to teach the survey and upper-division undergraduate courses. At such institutions, research and teaching are separate tracks, each done by specialists through division of labor."

At UNLV faculty must often strike a balance between pursuing narrowly defined research topics and preparing for classes that range from introductory survey courses to upper-division and graduate-level seminars. Successfully balancing the two pursuits can be challenging for many faculty.

Wright counts himself fortunate to have selected an interest area that he could both teach and research.

"Rather than experiencing research and teaching as competitive or incompatible activities, I believe I have become a better teacher through research and a better researcher through teaching," says Wright. "My research and teaching activities reinforce each other rather than compete for my time. In one instance, teaching a course over a period of some 15 years led to a book; later, research for another book led to a course."

The opportunities for more faculty to explore the connection between specialized research and teaching continue to grow at UNLV as the number of more sophisticated programs increase. Honors College courses, as well as graduate courses, often concentrate on specialized areas that reflect the research expertise of the faculty members teaching them, according to Len Zane, dean of the Honors College. Also, he says, the part of the Honors College course of study that is consistently rated by students as the most valuable is the senior thesis, which, by no coincidence, involves research.

In the long run, most academicians maintain that whatever the focus of a research project, the process keeps faculty sharp and up to date on the latest findings in their fields. As a result, they believe, conducting research brings a vitality to teaching that is absolutely necessary at a university. Top-level administrators at UNLV share that view.

"At any university, those who are training the next generation of knowledge-finders have to know what the latest accumulation of knowledge is, and the best way to do that is to be active in research," Provost Ferraro asserts. "In other words, there is an intimate, undeniable, integrated linkage between the role of discovering new knowledge and professing new knowledge, that is between research and teaching. For an institution to be able even to profess in any adequate way, it has to have consistent knowledge-finders. We have to have research at a university."

President Harter agrees, adding that it takes clear dedication to pursue both activities enthusiastically and competently, but that the payoff is indisputable.

"I think the very best teachers are people who are absolutely up to date in their fields," she says. "They're reading all the time; they're writing or thinking about new discoveries in their areas or new ways of looking at new discoveries in their areas. And I honestly believe — based on my own personal experience both as a student and then as a teacher — that these two things go hand in hand. I don't know how a person remains a truly first-class teacher who isn't current in his or her field. And to stay current, you need to be reading voraciously in your field and to be really thoughtfully able to articulate new critical problems; you should be also writing in one way or another, or doing the kinds of laboratory experiments that can be shared with other people who can critique you.

"There's a kind of interaction among scholars that is, I think, necessary to fuel the energy, interest, and creativity that go along with good teaching," she adds. "So I really believe that they are interrelated in the most inextricable way. The very best people are those who are active all the way around in their disciplines. I don't think you can even become a great teaching institution without doing really good research work as well."

And helping UNLV become a great institution is, of course, of paramount concern to Harter.

"If we are going to be the kind of major public university that I think we need to be, can be, and should be in terms of the future of Nevada and of Las Vegas, then research is very much a part of that," she says.

But even beyond its value to our institution, Harter and Ferraro agree, there is an intrinsic and undeniable value to research that serves to reinforce our commitment to it.

"Some knowledge is simply emergent — it just seems to happen," Ferraro says. "But by and large, knowledge is accrued through the research process. And so, there is the importance of research; it is important for all of humanity because of the importance of knowledge for all of humanity. And all of that is dramatic sounding, but it is in fact true. It is simply important for all of humanity."

Harter concurs, adding that once research is defined in that context, its value is so immediately apparent that to describe it is also to endorse it.

"The development of human brain power and discovery of new knowledge are in and of themselves valuable," says Harter, a respected American literature scholar. "I believe that, and itÕs exciting to me personally and always has been. Whatever we discover and communicate that advances our understanding of any area just means greater and greater human progress."