By Ken Cyree, Dean of the School of Business Administration
The University of Mississippi’s success depends in large part on the faculty support from our donors for named positions such as endowed chairs or professorships. These add prestige and funding that help us attract and retain the best professors.
Having an outstanding faculty is critical to providing the incredible educational opportunities we offer our students. The formal part of education is performed by the faculty and the extent to which we can attract and retain world-class faculty greatly determines our future as a university.
“Having an outstanding faculty is critical to providing the incredible educational opportunities we offer our students. The formal part of education is performed by the faculty and the extent to which we can attract and retain world-class faculty greatly determines our future as a university.” — Ken Cyree
As students graduate, thoughts often turn to wonderful times with friends and the unique experiences that college life offers. These memories last a lifetime because they impact us so deeply. However, the knowledge gained and the search for foundational principles that encourage lifelong learning and continuous striving to improve our skills and abilities matters greatly in our professional and personal lives.
It is the mission of Ole Miss to be a “preeminent public international research university and a leading force for innovation and opportunity in Mississippi, the United States and the world.”
Central to our mission is what happens in the classrooms, labs and academic spaces. Our faculty inspire students to work diligently to make discoveries that will help them succeed throughout their lives.
Our goal is to provide foundational knowledge that can be applied to problems that exist now and will occur in the future. Faculty members, with their years or even decades of accumulated knowledge, are the subject-matter experts who can most appropriately engage students at thought-provoking levels.
Using our resources to hire outstanding faculty impacts hundreds of students per semester. These experts in their subject areas can provide a foundational and experiential context to the classroom that is informed by both theory and current practices in their fields. Often, faculty are consultants and expert witnesses whose research penetrates a topic to discover whether the latest theory or conventional wisdom is supported by data and evidence.
Research-active faculty at a university with a Carnegie Classification rating of “very high research activity” (R1), as is UM, embrace difficult, competitive and time-consuming work. Conducting research improves our academic reputation and therefore the value of our degrees while allowing for new discoveries that benefit society through the topics being investigated —business, psychology, engineering, biology, political science, art or any discipline in which we have active scholars.
Many donors express unfounded concerns about faculty: that they only teach a couple of classes; that they do not understand the Ole Miss culture; or that they are cranky, lazy or out of touch. Instances of these types of behavior are possible, as in any industry or field, but to be a successful academic requires hard work and dedication.
In many fields, there is an expectation or requirement to publish several articles to receive tenure. If faculty fail to earn tenure, they are essentially fired. Tenure is controversial for some, but it allows research into unpopular and controversial topics, such as economic policy, health care, social issues and even the hard sciences. Tenure is also a valuable tool to retain top faculty.
The rejection rate at the highest-quality academic journals illustrates the difficulty of publishing work required to be successful. For example, the average acceptance rate for journal articles published by Elsevier, a multidisciplinary publisher, was 32% in 2017 (i.e., a 68% rejection rate). However, the top journals in each field often have acceptance rates in the single digits, ranging from a 1.1 to 5%.
In some fields, there is an expectation to obtain grant-funded research. UM had $64.5 million in sponsored research programs in FY22. Millions of dollars support research in a wide breadth of activities, ranging from teacher education to biochemistry, child nutrition, physics or civil engineering. Grants or other sponsored funding help researchers make discoveries and develop insights that would not be possible otherwise. Often, undergraduate students involved in these experiments or studies gain valuable experience and insight into their chosen field of study.
Research provides a “continuing education” for faculty. The best faculty – those who are intellectually curious — bring that research into the classroom and pique students’ interest in a topic through engaging questions and dialogue. Such outstanding faculty members have a positive impact on the students they teach — evidence that a symbiotic relationship exists between teaching and research.
Research-equipped faculty are our students’ best bet for success in the classroom and beyond.