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May 12, 2003
Research seen as next step - University leaders foresee a richer, more prestigious institution
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The University of South Alabama, as it blew out the candles on its 40th birthday cake Friday, set out toward a new goal - becoming a research university.

Administrators and faculty members are generally united behind the idea that more research is a natural step for the 12,000-student public university. Reaching that goal, however, will require more money to finance expensive programs, more focus on educating doctoral students, and the political skill needed to get permission for such programs.

"I think we have reached a stage in the university where it's important to move up," said Dr. Christian Abee, who heads USA's Primate Research Laboratory and is one of the school's most successful competitors for federal research dollars.

Research universities are richer and more prestigious places than today's USA. That doesn't mean USA is trying to become Harvard. Even moving within striking distance of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, far and away the top research institution in Alabama, would be a tremendous achievement.

President Gordon Moulton vows that USA will choose its spots, and not be overly ambitious.

"I think it's difficult for a state-supported comprehensive institution to be competitive in every area," Moulton said. "But you have the opportunity to choose areas where you can have an impact."

It's questionable, in a time of strained federal and state budgets, whether USA can find the money for a shot at its dreams. Some of the university's plans rest on the ability of Alabama's congressional delegation to hook large sums to jump-start programs. Though money from private companies, foundations and individuals might help, that money probably won't arrive until USA can show significant progress in research. Even if the university gets the money, it's not certain the investment will pay off.

"It's a tough process," said Roger Geiger, a professor at Penn State University who studies higher education. "It takes a long time." Other consequences There could also be other consequences. One way to help pay for doctoral programs would be to allow graduate students to teach more classes. But that goes against a longtime USA point of pride, that students learn from professors, not graduate teaching assistants.

"We will always want to have a strong focus on teaching and especially undergraduate teaching," Moulton said.

USA's natural strength is its medical school, and medical schools are the best entry point to the research field, especially in an era when funding for health research continues to outstrip other areas.

"The presence of a medical school on campus had an unmatched multiplier effect on university research capability," wrote Hugh Graham and Nancy Diamond in "The Rise of American Research Universities," a 1997 book which sought in part to analyze why and how some schools made large advances in the postwar period.

But resentment of perceived favoritism toward medicine and health sciences flourishes in USA's other academic departments. If biomedical research moves forward, but the rest of the university remains static, that intramural dislike could be inflamed.

"Our faculty are frequently concerned about issues like 'Does the president pay too much attention to the medical school or the hospitals?' or 'What about this research and technology park, is that really for us or is it just for other colleges?'" said David Johnson, recently appointed dean of USA's College of Arts and Sciences. He disagrees with the criticism.

The fledgling cancer research institute, which has been carefully stocked with a handful of internationally respected scientists, clearly headlines the university's increasing commitment to research. The cancer center could be the first of a number of medical school enterprises that would aim to develop innovative treatments, drawing patients, federal dollars, private companies and academics.

"We're starting to have programs now that larger, more-established institutions have had for a long time," said Dr. Sam Strada, the medical college's senior associate dean. Park under construction USA's research and technology park, under construction now, is another down payment on the dream, a lure to link private investment to university programs. Both private and federal dollars will be key to USA's achieving its goals. State funding appears increasingly chancy, not just in this year of budget crisis, but over the long term.

Those are largely top-down, administration-driven efforts. But the push for more serious academic and scientific inquiry is bubbling up from within as well, because of the changed nature of USA's faculty.

The first set of faculty members who came to USA were pioneers. Many devoted their careers to building up the university, and the thing that had to be built first was a teaching enterprise.

The Spartan conditions, overcrowding, heavy teaching loads and constant improvisation that characterized USA's early years are often forgotten. Classes, courses of study, departments and colleges had to be created where none existed before. 'Magic' university It was called the "magic" university, scraped out of the pines and red dirt with almost no money, and plans sometimes lagged behind the bulldozers. It was a place that ran on the willpower of its early employees, foremost among them founding President Frederick Whiddon. Whiddon and his disciples found their way out to what was Mobile's western horizon before there was a University Boulevard, even before May 9, 1963, when Gov. George Wallace signed the law creating a University of South Alabama.

The first generation made it up as they went along, early USA administrator James Caldwell wrote, exuding confidence throughout. It was a period of great expectations - a time when it seemed the university could become anything, surpass any rival. As Caldwell wrote in a memoir "Somebody once told President Whiddon he couldn't have instant ivy. 'Don't be so sure,' he said. 'I've just bought out a nursery business.'"

Many of those dreams were achieved. An independent university surpassed many other Alabama campuses in size and scope. A medical school, an engineering school and a large hospital system were born. Thousands of teachers, nurses and computer programmers were trained.

Those early faculty members, though well-educated and smart, sacrificed research, scholarship and publication, said James Boyles, a retired biology professor who was one of USA's first faculty members.

"Once you go to a new university, the research opportunities are really lacking," Boyles said. "You spend most of your time trying to start the teaching program."

When the immediate strains of USA's birth began to ease, a new breed of professor began to trickle in.

Their expectations were different. They weren't the teachers committed to an infant college's mission of economic and cultural uplift through education. Instead, they had their eyes on a more conventional research career at a sizable university, like the places where most earned their doctoral degrees.

"The faculty have matured," said Johnson "It was changing even when I came in '84. "

"There's been a definite shift to a greater emphasis on doing research," said Elise Labbe, a psychology professor. "To get tenure here, your really have to do your publications." Students' roles But the most intensive research can't be done alone. In the American university system, it requires help, usually doctoral students, or postdoctoral researchers. Those are the researchers, who in conjunction with their professors, spent time in labs repeating experiments with minute variations - the way new knowledge is created in most scientific fields.

"You need someone to do what is in some ways grunt work, but grunt work that can't be done by a grunt" said Robert Galbraith, who oversees USA's efforts to bring in grants as associate vice president for sponsored programs. "You need someone who understands the science."

But USA doesn't grant that many Ph.D. degrees. Its doctoral offerings are pretty thin outside the medical school's roughly 60 annual MD degrees. And that could hamper the school's plans.

"Most institutions that have strong research have strong doctoral programs," Strada said.

USA has only four Ph.D. programs: basic medical sciences, marine sciences, communications disorders and educational instructional systems. Until 1996-1997, USA had never presented more than 10 Ph.D.s in a year. The most ever was 21 in 1997. The school also grants a doctorate in audiology, which is counted differently in most figures. Master's programs

The university has far more graduate students studying for master's degrees. Those students, though, are often working adults studying part-time. In most recent years, USA has awarded a few more than 500 master's degrees. Of those, about 40 percent go to education students and about 20 percent go to nursing students. Those who win education degrees are usually teachers hoping to improve their pay and professional standing. Nurses frequently need master's degrees to advance to specialized positions.

The push is on for more doctoral programs. The university is seeking approval in May from the Alabama Commission on Higher Education for a doctorate in physical therapy, mainly because of national mandates that a master's in physical therapy is no longer sufficient for practitioners. ACHE must approve all new degree offerings in the state, and can cut off programs which attract few students.

Rising standards could force higher-level degree offerings in other fields, as well. Galbraith predicted that USA's small engineering graduate programs could grow because of a movement toward requiring master's degrees for entry level engineers. That new threshold could also make Ph.D. programs more attractive.

Plans for other doctoral programs are also percolating. Labbe's department is pushing for a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, saying the demand for practicing psychologists on the Gulf Coast is not being filled, and that students with a master's in psychology from USA are forced to go far afield to earn doctorates. Competition for funds

A doctorate in clinical psychology could be hamstrung by ACHE's mandate to prevent duplication, which some view as a waste of taxpayer dollars. In some ways the history of USA has been about fighting for the right to duplicate, first a university and then a medical school, arguing that programs in places like Tuscaloosa or Birmingham were too far away for Gulf Coast residents.

But a new focus on graduate education could reopen those struggles. For example, USA is studying the feasibility of offering a master's degree in chemistry, something Strada said would bolster research efforts in the medical school and feed students to the Ph.D. program in basic medical sciences. But many other Alabama colleges offer master's programs in chemistry which are under fire for not drawing enough students, and ACHE could be skeptical.

So maybe it doesn't need to be a master's of chemistry degree, exactly. "Maybe we need to have a master's in chemical biology," said Strada. That's one way around potential ACHE roadblocks, to tailor programs to meet particular needs, to put a twist on traditional degrees.

"This institution is going to have more specialized programs, more interdisciplinary programs," said Al Yeager, the assistant vice president of institutional research and planning.

Yeager, for example, cites USA's developing plan to add a master's in environmental toxicology, as a natural boost to the strength the marine sciences programs have built up in environmental studies.

USA may also look to partner with other universities. The school is working on a plan to develop a Ph.D. in electrical engineering with the University of Alabama in Huntsville, which would bolster what is now its engineering department most successful at winning outside grants for research.

In the more formative stages, Johnson hopes to push a plan for a Ph.D. in social science research, maybe jointly with the University of Alabama. The doctorate would train students in the research methods of psychology, sociology and political science, funneling graduates into fields such as mental health or educational research.

Having to fight past ACHE and other universities puts USA at a disadvantage to public research universities that other states have chosen to nurture in protected environments. 'Flagship' designation

Authors Graham and Diamond argued in their book on research universities that the schools that have improved their quality the most were helped along by state decisions to designate them as "flagships," even when they were the second or third flagship. A flagship is typically a university designated to offer a comprehensive range of programs, especially at the graduate level, and to specialize in research. They cite university systems in California and New York where formerly unknown public campuses have rapidly improved by the authors' measures. The authors wrote that building research universities doesn't have to be a "zero-sum game" that takes away from established leaders. But that argument may find little acceptance here, where some USA partisans argue the University of Alabama system is still smarting that its former extension center in Mobile escaped to become USA and then snagged a medical school.

"If there's any research money for the state of Alabama, UAB always gets fed," USA alumnus and state Rep. Jim Barton, R-Mobile, said in February.

That's bad news for USA, which appears unlikely to fight its way past Alabama, Auburn and UAB to some sort of favored position. But there may be other ways. Geiger says coordinating boards like ACHE usually prove to be weak and can't prevent a university, over the long term, from getting a shot at its goals.

"And it's a good thing, because you want to give institutions the freedoms to take advantage of opportunities," Geiger said.

Especially in the medical school, taking advantage of opportunities means building cross-departmental research centers. USA has had a sickle cell center since 1988. Now, it has been joined by the cancer center and a lung biology center funded in 2001 by a five-year, $6.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Those centers have appeared in part because medical faculty are being pushed to seek bigger grants, which can help finance work by other researchers besides themselves.

"We have a level of expectation that's much higher now," Strada said.

Taking a center approach allows scientists to work together across traditional boundaries. It also helps small institutions to "assemble a critical mass of investigators," medical school head Dr. Robert Kreisberg has written, "which ultimately leads to more creative and imaginative research and enhanced scientific productivity." Building programs

Beyond the challenge of assembling researchers and generating new knowledge, is how USA will pay for its ambitions. The medical school has managed to finance its sickle cell and lung biology centers through internal funds and traditional federal grants that it won in competition with others.

As Strada points out, private funds and grants handed out in academic competitions are most easily won by full-grown scholarly centers. "If you don't have an established program, you can't compete," he said. "How are you going to get that until you get some support?"

USA's marine sciences program was built in part using funds from the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, a federal plan to spread out academic excellence to traditionally non-competitive states. But USA's ambitions are probably too grand to rely on the $10 million dollars or less that EPSCoR funnels to Alabama's seven Ph.D. granting universities each year.

Some programs could be partly pulled up by the bootstraps using existing resources. Marine sciences was elevated to a doctoral program by appointing just a few faculty members. Most of the program's faculty are actually staffers at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, paid through other funds.

Another way to build programs with existing resources is to take advantage of doctoral student labor. Having graduate students teach classes, even discussion sections, is a touchy matter at USA, given the historic pride in avoiding the practice. But the barrier has been broken. Some master's students lead English composition and public speaking sections. Johnson said he believes some of the historical abuses of graduate teaching assistants can be avoided through careful training.

It seems unlikely that USA will choose to raise tuition to finance its academic ambitions. USA faculty salaries are competitive with many Southeastern universities, they clearly lag behind major research institutions. While faculty pay raises were cited as one justification of last June's 5.5 percent undergraduate tuition increase, Moulton said spiraling tuition would violate USA's mission to educate students of modest means.

"We really have to guard against public higher education becoming an elitist sort of arrangement," he said.

USA, because of its weak political position and the state's struggle to raise enough money to prevent large budget cuts next year, isn't counting on much help. Yeager and other administrators have long contended that USA is systematically shorted in funding compared to Alabama universities with longer histories or stronger political constituencies. The state's share of USA's non-hospital revenues has declined steadily in the last 20 years. Non-traditional sources

Many university leaders might consider tapping the $226 million endowment held by the USA Foundation, a much larger sum than most comparable schools possess. But the Moulton administration has made little progress in persuading the independent foundation board to release endowment money. In the near term, Moulton believes the foundation, because of its investments in timber, is too cash-poor to provide much more help than it already does.

That leaves the school looking to non-traditional sources to pay for growth. The big increase over the last five years has been in direct appropriations from Congress, derided by critics as "academic pork." USA garnered $63 million in such money, including $13.5 million this year alone. Not all of it aids the research enterprise, but federal money directed to USA by Alabama congressmen and senators is being eyed as the seed capital for the cancer institute and other areas.

"The only way to quickly jump-start some of these programs is to get a fast infusion of capital in there," Strada said.

Academics scorn money earmarked by politicians because it flows to programs regardless of merit. "If the money's used well, there's nothing wrong with it," said Geiger, the Penn State professor. "But a lot of the stuff is just irrelevant, or used very badly."

Despite those drawbacks Geiger said it's almost always positive when universities decide to try to move up in the world. "It raises the visibility and prestige of the place and will attract private money," he said. PHOTO USA AT 40: CREATING A NEW GOAL Photos by BILL STARLING /Staff Photographer University of South Alabama student Thomas Wixon uses a calculator while taking the final exam in his principles of accounting class Thursday. USA officials say focusing on research will help the 12,000-student campus grow and create more opportunities for post-graduate education. USA's SouthFlite crew and nursing staff take a patient into the school's Medical Center on Thursday. USA's medical college would be a natural entry point in a transformation into a research university.