Creation, Application and Advancement of Knowledge
3.1. a Program Research Description (Description of the program’s research activities,
including policies, procedures and practices that support research and scholarly activities.)
The Department of Health Science at BYU seeks to promote a research agenda wherein faculty and students contribute to the knowledge base of public health, health promotion and other public health disciplines. Key scholarship goals pertain to publishing and
presenting scholarly work in peer-‐reviewed venues, integrating research findings into the classroom, establishing partnerships with public health agencies to address priority health problems and actively supporting student research. The university research/scholarship average is producing one to two peer-‐reviewed products per year. We also aim to integrate teaching, research and service so that students and community partners benefit from the scholarship produced.
As cited in the Scholarly Work at BYU Policy (see Resource File 3.1), “four principal reasons guide the direction for scholarly work at BYU: (1) scholarly work helps the faculty to remain current in their disciplines and ‘alive’ in teaching; (2) scholarly work contributes directly to the education of the students, both graduate and undergraduate; (3) scholarly work establishes the credibility of BYU and the reputation of the faculty in national academic/professional circles; and (4) scholarly work enables the university to recruit and retain the high quality of faculty it desires to have.” Furthermore, “scholarly work is a major and necessary component of graduate education. Ideally, each graduate student is mentored by a major professor who works in a one-‐on-‐one relationship with the student to teach principles and techniques of scholarly inquiry, to share in the discovery of new knowledge, and to guide the student to the successful conclusion of the scholarly effort.” BYU is not a Carnegie-‐designated research center.
Faculty coordinate research activities through the University Institutional Review Board (IRB) for Research with Human Subjects. The Human Research Protection Policy outlines the criteria for human research approval at BYU (see Resource File 3.1).
In addition to the financial support mentioned above, support for domestic travel (for example, to present research results at professional meetings) comes from the department’s budget. An additional source of funding is the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, a university-‐wide center that provides faculty with funding for research and conference travel. Given the mix of funding (department, college, university), faculty are funded for most travel expenses for presentation of research findings for at least one professional conference annually (either domestic or international).
The Department of Health Science policies, research aims and objectives are consistent with the broader BYU policies and procedures (see Resource File 3.1), which are summarized below.
Responsibility of Faculty Appointments. Faculty members are expected to perform high-‐
quality work in citizenship, teaching, and scholarship. The performance of faculty must be above acceptable minimum standards in all areas of responsibility. Most professorial faculty early in their careers should have a balance of teaching and scholarship, with lighter committee and other administrative assignments. The allocation of time in these three areas may vary among faculty or over a faculty member's career, depending on changes in assignments due to legitimate university and department needs.
Annual Performance Reviews and Interviews. These continuing performance interviews
become the basis for retention, tenure and promotion decisions, and are carried out annually for all faculty members. “The department chair, dean or designee, conducts an annual performance review of, and an annual stewardship interview with, each faculty member in the department, including faculty with continuing faculty status. These interviews are the primary vehicle for tracking and encouraging continuing faculty
development, and through which the performance of faculty with continuing faculty status is monitored, and through which performance expectations are communicated. All faculty members are expected to engage in continuous development and improvement in
scholarship and teaching. A written summary of the department chair's evaluations is given to the faculty member and a copy placed in his or her department personnel file.”
Noncompliance for three years will result in termination from the university. Faculty support to obtain compliance is provided upon request, and as appropriate, through the department chair. Appeals for dismissal are available.
Scholarship Standards. Scholarship in the public health program is characterized as: • consistent with disciplinary norms and department mission;
• contributing to a faculty member's overall effectiveness as a teacher and student mentor;
• being of high quality and containing some element of originality that adds knowledge to the discipline whether quantitative or qualitative in nature;
• being subject to peer review by those competent to judge it;
• published in nationally and internationally recognized peer-‐reviewed presses and journals in the discipline;
• counting accepted articles towards the rank and status (tenure) process.
• electronic formats sharing the same criteria that applies in paper formats (quality, peer review, publisher's reputation and selectivity, etc.);
one to two peer-‐reviewed scholarly products per year with preference for value as follows: (1) refereed scholarly publications (books, articles, refereed conference proceedings), (2) other scholarly publications (textbooks, monographs, book chapters, abstracts) that contribute to a body of knowledge or reflect significant scholarly activity and expertise, (3) refereed scholarly presentations, and (4) grants for research or creative work, especially when resulting from a competitive process of peer review.
Faculty Admission. As per the Expectations of Faculty Appointment policy (see Resource
and effort to the appropriate mix of teaching, scholarship and citizenship. Faculty members have a primary role in their own development and are expected to work continually
toward becoming better and more effective teachers. It is also their responsibility to make effective scholarship an integral part of their professional lives and to strive for excellence through the scrutiny of exacting and refining peer review. No less important, it is the responsibility of faculty to sustain the university in its purpose and unceasingly contribute to its intellectual and spiritual growth. Faculty are expected to enlarge their experience, increase their understanding, and develop their academic and teaching skills by constantly reading, studying, writing, and learning. A natural outgrowth of this effort is the
advancement of individual scholarly agendas that lead to publication or presentation; that is, to participation in the larger community of scholars across the university and the world.”
Faculty Start Up. The College of Life Sciences helps to support new faculty in launching
their research agenda by providing faculty start up dollars. Faculty are asked to submit a proposal to the college outlining their research agenda and how they intend to use the dollars. New faculty can receive up to $20,000 a year for three years.
Professional Development Leave (Sabbatical). As per the Faculty Leaves Policy (see
Resource File 3.1), “a Professional Development Leave for one semester is funded by the university at full salary. Professional Development Leaves for two semesters normally are funded at half salary. Leaves may extend over spring and summer terms and may be compensated if approved by the department chair and if the normal teaching
responsibilities for spring and summer terms can be met by the department. Short-‐term Professional Development Leaves, including leaves during spring and/or summer term, which do not take faculty members away from campus, may be approved by the
department chair and dean…”
Travel Support. Faculty members are allocated funding, per department policy, for one
paid professional meeting of $1,500 per year. Conference registration fees are also paid. Additional resources may be available when faculty members present scholarly works at professional meetings, especially tenure-‐track faculty members. The department chair approves faculty travel. Most faculty members use these resources and perform
professional work at conferences such as the American Public Health Association and the Society for Public Health Education.
Funding Faculty-‐Student Mentorship. The primary motivator to faculty and student
scholarship is the university’s interest in faculty-‐mentored research. However, unlike most schools of public health and other publicly funded institutions, BYU does not encourage salary supplementation for its faculty, although external funding is rewarded modestly in the form or spring or summer-‐term course-‐buy-‐out options. BYU’s position is unique among many universities because the sponsoring institution desires that faculty spend more time with students and less time writing grant proposals. If external funding is needed for a faculty member to complete their research agenda, external is certainly encouraged.
As a result, external dollars are important internally for research funding and student-‐ mentoring purposes and less needed for benchmarking comparisons with other private or publicly funded institutions. For example, the highest expenditure at BYU for both external and internal research dollars is for student research services (research assistance provided by students). According to the 2015 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), 36% of BYU seniors were involved with mentored research while at BYU. Additionally nearly half of BYU alumni report working regularly with a faculty member outside of the
classroom (see Alumni Survey in Resource File 2.7). Generous funding from the sponsoring institution is deliberate and critical at BYU because of its unique and distinguished priority for funding faculty-‐mentored research for its students (see Criterion 2.7). Thus, BYU is both a teaching university and a research university where these two worlds are merged
through student-‐focused learning and scholarship. By these measures, BYU has been successful at involving students in the research process and helping faculty productivity.
“While government, business, and privately sponsored research is vital to advancing academic experiences for faculty and students, BYU does not intend to become dependent upon external research funding. [Rather], BYU’s research funding is obtained through a balanced approach [involving] governmental agency funding, business and industry as well as other private research sponsors” (BYU accreditation document, 2005, pg. 7.3). Thus, benchmarking federal funding as a primary aspiration for the BYU public health program may create a diversion from the university’s primary interest in external and internal research dollars – student-‐mentored research.
One inherent weakness with this funding strategy is that large-‐scale research projects and expensive faculty expenditures are limited. Nonetheless, BYU’s desire for recognition is not based on the external funds procured. Rather, its primary interest is involving students directly in research scholarship with its faculty. BYU’s interest in funding for student mentoring is reflected in acquiring gifts through LDS Philanthropies. For example, many generous donors have helped establish endowments to fund faculty mentorship activities and student research projects including but not limited to Marin Poole Meyer Endowed Fund, the Childs Caring Endowment, and the Douglas C. Heiner Endowed Public Health Scholarship Fund (see Resource File 3.1).
Formal Contracts or Agreements. The program has an on-‐going research agreement with
the Utah County Health Department (UCHD) for the Family and Community Health
Research Institute and is listed as a part of the UCHD organization chart (see Criterion 1.4 and Resource File 1.4). Additional formal agreements and contracts to conduct
community-‐based research have been made through grants from government and nonprofit organizations as indicated in the Table 3.1.b.
Department Research Facility. The Health Research and Technology Lab (HRTL) is available for
faculty and students in the College of Life Sciences and is located in 2037 Life Sciences Building.
Statistical Support. Support for statistical analysis is available through the university-‐wide
Center for Statistical Consultation and Collaborative Research. The department also utilizes the expertise of its own faculty (e.g., Dr. Ray Merrill, Dr. Brianna Magnusson, and Dr. Evan Thacker) are trained epidemiologists and statisticians) for research consultation.
Computational Health Science Research Group. This group involves several faculty in the
Department of Health Science (Dr. Michael Barnes, Dr. Carl Hanson, Dr. Brad Neiger, Dr. Rosemary Thackeray, and Dr. Josh West) and represents a cross-‐disciplinary collaboration between public health, sociology, computer science and psychology (see http://dml.cs.byu.edu/chs/index.php). Numerous research projects have originated from this group and have resulted in publications and presentations.