I started out to be a research scientist. I spent over two years exclusively doing research during my post-doctoral fellowship and continued doing basic science research during my initial academic appointments. However, I followed my interests and avenues of greatest success and one day realized I was no longer a researcher. The grants I had received, and the successes I had achieved, led me into the life of an administrator. However, I still greatly value research and scholarship, and particularly favor the teacher-scholar model. While conducting the interviews for my TV show on Innovations in Education, I found that the best teachers were those who inspired interest in their students. One of the major ways they achieved this was by being connected to their discipline through active research in which they often involved students.

As an administrator I am still actively involved in basic research and scholarship as I review and have to approve all grants submitted by faculty. The Office of Scholarship and Sponsored Projects at both Radford and FHSU reported to me. During my time as Provost, the number of grants submitted, and funds received, consistently increased at both institutions. To increase grant submissions I implemented a summer funding program to provide stipends to faculty working on grant applications. I have also provided funding for course release time to encourage faculty to engage undergraduate students in research, and established a Provostial committee on Undergraduate Research to promote student and faculty participation, and advise me on this activity.

I am a supporter of Boyer’s model of scholarship which advocates for four categories of scholarship; discovery, integration, application, and teaching and learning. I have initiated cross disciplinary studies of pedagogy and assessment that involved numerous faculty in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL), and have assisted many faculty with grant applications. I value research, not only for its own sake, but also because it results in a faculty with strong subject matter expertise and dedication to the field.

I have personally applied for numerous grants from foundations, NIH, NSF and raised funding from private donors and investors. I have been directly responsible for $4.3 million in institutional grants and over a quarter of a million in private funding.