Why engage in research and grant writing?
Grants provide variety and excitement for faculty and create opportunities for student learning. The PhD is a research degree and this is an expression of that training. Doing research can energize you for the classroom and students get excited about the discipline. Engaging students in research, either applied or basic, is one of the purest forms of teaching and impacts critical thinking. Faculty life shouldn’t be teaching vs research but rather each enhances the other. The challenge is in time allocation. Department heads do have the flexibility to determine how particular persons will allocate their time to accomplish the goals of the department but everyone must do at least some teaching, because credit hours have to be sufficient to fund the faculty. And, of course, not being a Research I university means we have to be more creative.
