Dr. Phyllis Bolin, associate professor of mathematics, gets excited when she talks about ACU’s Quality Enhancement Plan.

The plan, which centers around “research literacy,” aims not only to fulfill university recertification requirements but to enhance students’ learning experience, Bolin said.

But Bolin, chairman of the QEP Development Team, also recognizes some professors are more concerned about the QEP’s potential challenges than enthusiastic about its possible benefits. She described the frustration of a professor who approached her after she presented the QEP to faculty.

“You don’t really expect us to do this with all of our students?” Bolin recounted the professor asking.

As demanding as it may sound, Bolin said the QEP must affect every student to meet the standards of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The organization recently added this requirement for its continued reevaluation of all Southern higher education institutions.

The QEP is intended to increase all students’ understanding of the research procedures and discoveries in their field of study during the next five years, Bolin said. It will also help more undergraduate and graduate students become involved in primary research.

“Understanding, evaluating, and conducting scholarly work while at ACU will help to make students’ transition to graduate school or to professional life easier and more successful,” she said.

The breadth and scope of ACU’s first QEP gives it great potential to benefit the entire campus, Bolin said. But Dr. Scott Perkins, professor of psychology, cautioned that the upgrade could be costly.

“One of the costs is that it could take some of the best faculty out of the classroom for a little while,” Perkins said. “And that’s a real cost.”

Perkins said this focus on research will magnify three professorial responsibilities that already compete with professors’ time in the classroom: writing grant applications, increasing professor research and mentoring student research.

Mentoring Student Research

The gift of mentoring is of immense value, said Stephanie Martinez, sophomore organismal biology major from Abilene. Martinez began advocating professor-mentoring after investigating graduate school preparation and selection. Not only is she currently being mentored in research, but her highest prerequisite for graduate schools is quality mentors, she said.

“The most important thing is the professor,” Martinez said. “You need to find someone who’s doing research in your interests.”

But mentoring students requires a commitment, Perkins said. With the teaching load ACU places on its faculty, some professors may be hard-pressed to find the hours to spend one-on-one with every student.

ACU professors teach an average number of credit hours per semester for a school of ACU’s size, Perkins said. But that number is as much as double the hours professors teach at state universities or research-heavy institutions.

Perkins offered a solution to this problem: Cut the number of classes full professors teach each semester. However, ACU has been known historically as a primarily undergraduate university, and Perkins said it is resistant to changes that may compromise that reputation.

“Obviously we don’t want to let go of having highly qualified teachers in undergraduate classes,” Perkins said. “It might be a goal for us to say we want all our faculty to teach nine hours instead of 12 and produce this much research. But this would take 20-30 faculty hires, and that’s too much money at any given year.”

Professor Research and Writing Grants

Another difference between ACU and research-centered institutions is the publication and grant-writing activity of faculty, Perkins said.

All ACU professors are expected to do research, and every department is deeply involved in contributing to the pool of knowledge in its field, Perkins said. However, while most ACU professors make peer-reviewed presentations of their research on an annual basis, faculty at research institutions usually present two or three times a year.

Perkins pointed out ACU faculty do not necessarily have access to the resources that state university faculty have at their disposal.

“Most of our research is done because our faculty members have interesting questions, and they want to pursue them and do so without the money,” Perkins said. “We don’t foot the bill for most of the research that’s done here.”

This is an issue Perkins and Bolin want to address. Bolin said providing training and stipends for mentoring and performing research is a priority for the QEP, and Perkins has experience in both those areas.

In addition to teaching, Perkins is the Director of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs. This office awards professors research grants from ACU’s own resources, while also providing training and support for professors applying for external funds.

Perkins said ACU will have to devote more of its funds to research if research is to increase. But the easiest way for ACU to free up money for new research, he said, is for experienced professors to seek funding from external sources.

“We’re private, which means without significant external funds, we can’t create the research support structure you’d see at a larger research institution,” Perkins said.

ACU misses many opportunities for state and federal dollars because no one writes the application, Perkins said. He suggested two ways to remedy that problem.

The first is to hire a full-time staff member whose responsibilities would be to assist professors in writing grant applications and to write applications himself. The second is to raise ACU’s current professor tenure requirements to include applying for external grants. This is a common policy among research-intensive institutions, Perkins said.

Bolin said she understands how challenging the QEP may appear to professors. The QEP Development Team will be inviting all faculty, staff and students to voice their insights and suggestions in the fall when it presents the plan’s first draft, she said.

But her confidence in the QEP’s goals is illustrated in her response to the overwhelmed professor’s doubts that fostering student research at every level was possible.

“‘I don’t know,’ I said.” Bolin said. “This is our dream. The question now is how do we make this dream reality.”