This is the definitive place to discuss everything that makes life on & off campus so unique in Central Virginia.

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By cruzan_flame13
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#643556
It has been 6 years since Liberty became a R3 (doctoral university level) academic school from the Carnegie Foundation. If you'd like to read more about this, the link is below:

https://www.liberty.edu/news/2016/02/04 ... e-listing/

I think it is time for Liberty to take the next step into R2 and even begin taking a look for the R1 criterias for the future. I'm tired of hearing about success when we are not even putting as much money into research/academia. The slogan 'Rise With Us' should not only be about sports, but also towards academia and community/alumni engagement.
I'm not sure when we'll get new leadership, but Liberty could be so much better than where we're at right now. What made me bring up this topic was an article stating that Kennesaw State just became a R2 a fee months ago. That's not cool to me; we should've been in that position since about 2020. I understand that we were in lockdown, but now we need to get it together if we want to be taken seriously.
Baybird, LUOrange, ATrain and 1 others liked this
By tyndal23
Posts
#643557
Since we voluntarily moved to the back of the bus in Football, investing towards R1 as quickly as possible couldn’t hurt, still doesn’t change tv market or local fan base, but go for it.
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By Ill flame
Posts
#643559
From what I've read there are two criteria to become a R2:

1) A university must have at least $5 million of R&D expenditures, which can be a combination of external and internal funding sources

2) 20 research doctoral graduates in a year

I don't know if we have enough graduates but according to the source below (pdf) we spent roughly $1.5 million on research in 2021 which is down from $1.9 million in 2020. $5 million seems like a drop in a bucket nowadays. LU profited around $500 million last year with the endowment going up from $1.7 billion to $2.1 billion which is impressive considering the market.

I wonder if the foundation for research just isn't really there yet. Research money in general mostly seems to go to medical and engineering which are two departments that are very new and seem to be rapidly growing. The engineering department only has 30 post graduate students and had its first masters graduate this year. Maybe the school feels like it would be a waste of money until those departments have matured more.

I also remember when LU bought that facility they planned to use for engineering and research several years ago. Have they really done much with that since? It seems like they are more focused on quality of life projects more so than academics at the moment.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprof ... 7900220211
By rogers3
Registration Days Posts
#643562
Ill flame wrote: July 10th, 2022, 4:23 am



I also remember when LU bought that facility they planned to use for engineering and research several years ago. Have they really done much with that since? It seems like they are more focused on quality of life projects more so than academics at the moment.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprof ... 7900220211
I was in that building in March and they said that it doesn't really get used. So Liberty... The exterior is great but the inside is hollow. When it comes to their engineering and their business programs, the lack educational leadership and experience is glaring.
By stokesjokes
Registration Days Posts
#643563
We also don’t have the faculty for it yet. Most profs teach more than a full-time credit load each semester, so not a lot of space for research. We would need to significantly alter workloads and hire aggressively to make up for re-allocation of classroom time. Liberty’s focus on growing enrollment also makes this an uphill battle, as they have a hard enough time already staffing appropriately without drowning the profs in overload.

There have been positive changes on this end recently, as some sizable changes in pay scale should help retention and recruitment as well as an HR department addressing some culture-rot issues. A 3-fold increase in research spending is still gonna take a while.
By JK37
Registration Days Posts
#643564
rogers3 wrote: July 10th, 2022, 8:51 am
Ill flame wrote: July 10th, 2022, 4:23 am



I also remember when LU bought that facility they planned to use for engineering and research several years ago. Have they really done much with that since? It seems like they are more focused on quality of life projects more so than academics at the moment.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprof ... 7900220211
I was in that building in March and they said that it doesn't really get used. So Liberty... The exterior is great but the inside is hollow. When it comes to their engineering and their business programs, the lack educational leadership and experience is glaring.
An analogy for LU leadership en masse?
rtb72, ATrain liked this
By rtb72
Posts
#643589
Ill flame wrote: July 10th, 2022, 4:23 am From what I've read there are two criteria to become a R2:

1) A university must have at least $5 million of R&D expenditures, which can be a combination of external and internal funding sources

2) 20 research doctoral graduates in a year

I don't know if we have enough graduates but according to the source below (pdf) we spent roughly $1.5 million on research in 2021 which is down from $1.9 million in 2020. $5 million seems like a drop in a bucket nowadays. LU profited around $500 million last year with the endowment going up from $1.7 billion to $2.1 billion which is impressive considering the market.

I wonder if the foundation for research just isn't really there yet. Research money in general mostly seems to go to medical and engineering which are two departments that are very new and seem to be rapidly growing. The engineering department only has 30 post graduate students and had its first masters graduate this year. Maybe the school feels like it would be a waste of money until those departments have matured more.

I also remember when LU bought that facility they planned to use for engineering and research several years ago. Have they really done much with that since? It seems like they are more focused on quality of life projects more so than academics at the moment.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprof ... 7900220211
This is just sad IMHO. LU has the resources and capacity to do better in R&D. I would concur this reflects on our present leadership and frankly.....demonstrates "they" have no vision.
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By Ill flame
Posts
#646471
I was recently thinking about this topic again and decided to take a look at our progress toward R2 since 2016 when we were designated as an R3. The following is our research expenditures since then. It doesnt include external sources of funding that is also counted toward the carnegie classification. The years are when the fiscal year ends.

2016- $329,000
2017- $758,000
2018- $1.33 million
2019- $1.48 million
2020- $1.9 million
2021- $1.5 million

I'm hoping covid is to blame for the drop in research during the 20-21 school year. I guess we'll find out when the irs releases last year's numbers. Before that we were on pace to reach that $5 million goal by 2030 for sure without including outside research money.

I was asking about the engineering research center awhile back and this article addresses it by saying that it "is overflowing now." It also mentions that the first class of engineering graduate students started in 2019 and the program is already up to 30 PhD students and about 65 masters students which is more than double last years enrollment. Things seem to be moving in the right direction, just not as quickly as we would all like.

https://www.liberty.edu/news/2022/07/19 ... professor/
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By cruzan_flame13
Posts
#646474
Ill flame wrote: October 31st, 2022, 10:38 pm I was recently thinking about this topic again and decided to take a look at our progress toward R2 since 2016 when we were designated as an R3. The following is our research expenditures since then. It doesnt include external sources of funding that is also counted toward the carnegie classification. The years are when the fiscal year ends.

2016- $329,000
2017- $758,000
2018- $1.33 million
2019- $1.48 million
2020- $1.9 million
2021- $1.5 million

I'm hoping covid is to blame for the drop in research during the 20-21 school year. I guess we'll find out when the irs releases last year's numbers. Before that we were on pace to reach that $5 million goal by 2030 for sure without including outside research money.

I was asking about the engineering research center awhile back and this article addresses it by saying that it "is overflowing now." It also mentions that the first class of engineering graduate students started in 2019 and the program is already up to 30 PhD students and about 65 masters students which is more than double last years enrollment. Things seem to be moving in the right direction, just not as quickly as we would all like.

https://www.liberty.edu/news/2022/07/19 ... professor/
Still wondering if that is referencing the students, projects, training or all of the above. I wonder if they'll still build the CRE as a campus yet still having a school of engineering [for under grad] on campus later on? I do hope we increase the research expenditures though. I understand that we are increasing salaries for coaches across athletes, but we need to increase money on academics for more interest from students for undergrad and graduate (residential especially). If the school receive that $2 million dollars grant to research more on the helmets for the military. That would be huge. On the other side, I guess that possible contract with NASA and BWX(I'm guessing on that, could've been some other company) didn't go through.
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By Purple Haize
Registration Days Posts
#646478
Increase money for academics? Like Professor salary? Staff allocation? Faculty expansion? Sir, what do you think this is? A University?
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By Ill flame
Posts
#650393
I think this article is overthinking these classifications. It's meant as a way to group schools based on research expenditures and nothing else. All I know is P5 schools are overwhelmingly R1 and that's what we should aspire to be. It's something attainable we can achieve without compromising our values.
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By Purple Haize
Registration Days Posts
#650398
JK37 wrote: January 1st, 2023, 12:05 pm What would it take?
A complete paradigm shift in how LU approaches how it does things. It’s a huge leap to go from a Teaching Institution with a Business Model mindset to a Research Institution
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By Ill flame
Posts
#650400
JK37 wrote: January 1st, 2023, 12:05 pm What would it take?
R2 would be pretty easy for us in the short term. R1 would take exactly what purple haize described. At the moment our teachers aren't expected to do research although it's encouraged. At R1 institutions there is an expectation that nearly everyone is engaging in research at some level. I imagine this would be a tough sell to faculty that's been there for decades and only wants to focus on teaching. It's definitely not an easy thing to achieve quickly without ruffling a lot of feathers along the way and won't be accomplished without an ambitious outside hire for president.
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By cruzan_flame13
Posts
#650404
Ill flame wrote: January 1st, 2023, 11:17 am I think this article is overthinking these classifications. It's meant as a way to group schools based on research expenditures and nothing else. All I know is P5 schools are overwhelmingly R1 and that's what we should aspire to be. It's something attainable we can achieve without compromising our values.
That may be true or it may also be slightly true.
User avatar
By Ill flame
Posts
#651952
Ill flame wrote: October 31st, 2022, 10:38 pm 2016- $329,000
2017- $758,000
2018- $1.33 million
2019- $1.48 million
2020- $1.9 million
2021- $1.5 million
2022- $1.66 million
Update to this post. LU spent $1.66 million on research during the 2021-2022 school year. At this rate it's going to be a long time until we reach the $5 million standard for R2 unless we start getting a lot more federal research grants. That doesn't seem very likely considering we received around $300k in research grants during that time. Whoever it is, I really hope the new president has something that resembles ambition because Prevo definitely doesn't.
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By cruzan_flame13
Posts
#653927
Ill flame wrote: February 22nd, 2023, 5:27 pm
Ill flame wrote: October 31st, 2022, 10:38 pm 2016- $329,000
2017- $758,000
2018- $1.33 million
2019- $1.48 million
2020- $1.9 million
2021- $1.5 million
2022- $1.66 million
Update to this post. LU spent $1.66 million on research during the 2021-2022 school year. At this rate it's going to be a long time until we reach the $5 million standard for R2 unless we start getting a lot more federal research grants. That doesn't seem very likely considering we received around $300k in research grants during that time. Whoever it is, I really hope the new president has something that resembles ambition because Prevo definitely doesn't.
This reminded me of a paper written by John Ioannidis called "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" in 2005. This guy is a professor at Stanford plus the most cited researcher and he even admits that the greater the financial interest in a given field, the less likely the research findings are to be true. So I go back to my original message and wonder if these classifications and academic rankings are even truly valuable for society or only for the corporations/special interest groups who fund them. Clearly as a society, we value things based on what is highly promoted repetitively. I have come to this conclusion; I rather have LU benefit as an academic institution who encourages the students to think critically/biblically rather than just prepping them in a "forced compliance" way just to be accepted in this world.
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By Ill flame
Posts
#653930
Selfishly I only want R2 or better status so we would be more likely to get into a better conference. However I'm not really sure how LU getting involved in research is forced compliance, especially when almost all of the research is self funded by the school. It seems like one of the best ways to encourage students to think critically. If we want to bring Blooms taxonomy into the conversation, research is the only way I'm aware of to reach the "create" portion at the top of the educational pyramid. I also like the idea of LU being the go to place for the top evangelical researchers in an industry where atheism is the religion of choice.
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By cruzan_flame13
Posts
#654100
Ill flame wrote: May 28th, 2023, 7:08 pm Selfishly I only want R2 or better status so we would be more likely to get into a better conference. However I'm not really sure how LU getting involved in research is forced compliance, especially when almost all of the research is self funded by the school. It seems like one of the best ways to encourage students to think critically. If we want to bring Blooms taxonomy into the conversation, research is the only way I'm aware of to reach the "create" portion at the top of the educational pyramid. I also like the idea of LU being the go to place for the top evangelical researchers in an industry where atheism is the religion of choice.
"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality."
-H. L. Mencken
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