Second Assessment of the Science, Engineering, and Math Infrastructure at Three Universities in Kansas: Response to Barriers to Research

In September, 1992, the state of Kansas became the 17th state to be included in NSF's EPSCoR program (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research). NSF awarded 4.44 million USD over three years to strengthen Kansas' competitiveness for federal R&D dollars. The state has budgeted 4.5 million USD in matching funds for the three-year period of the grant. In Kansas, the federal R&D dollars mainly concern the three universities: Kansas State University (KSU), University of Kansas (KU), and The Wichita State University (WSU). As part of the planning and development of the NSF EPSCoR grant proposal, an assessment of the barriers to research at these three institutions was undertaken. The results of the assessment were published in a 1992 report. The report identified several issues as crucial to enlarging the science, engineering, and mathematics (SEM) research enterprise and increasing the state's external funding. This second report is a continuation of the assessment. Sections 2 and 3 of the report focus upon understanding the SEM faculty and key university administrators' perceptions of barriers to research and the infrastructure supporting research at KSU, KU, and WSU. Faculty perceptions were assessed using a written questionnaire and administrators were interviewed. The report also provides data base information (Section 1) regarding the status of SEM faculty salaries (compared to peer institutions), faculty demographics (rank, age, number of women and minorities), graduate enrollment and degrees awarded, grant activities and dollars awarded (compared to other Big Eight institutions), and grant awards by source and discipline area. Results of the faculty survey suggest that, while EPSCoR funds have obviously helped a number of faculty, changes made to remove barriers either have not been in place long enough to have an effect or are too small in scope to be noticed by a large number of faculty