On April 1, Bill Hardgrave began his tenure as the 13th president of the University of Memphis, taking the reins from M. David Rudd. The former Auburn provost has made an array of commitments as the institution’s next leader, and one is to continue its research push.
Fortunately for Hardgrave, this is an area where he won’t have to start from scratch.
In FY 2021, U of M eclipsed $50 million in research awards; and in mid-December, it gained R1 status from the Carnegie Classifications of Institutions of Higher Education — a highly coveted designation that local leaders say can be an economic boon not just for the school but the entire city.
The school’s faculty hasn’t grown complacent since then, either, and professors have continued to churn out significant research awards.
For example, the U of M School of Public Health recently scored two years of funding, totaling $927,479, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to a press release, the money will be used to identify motivators and barriers to COVID-19 immunization among local vulnerable populations that have low vaccination rates — and therefore face higher risks for poor health outcomes.
The School of Public Health is partnering with the Shelby County Health Department, LeMoyne-Owen College, and Leadership Memphis; and the work is part of the CDC’s national initiative to address COVID-19 health disparities among high risk and underserved populations. U of M professor Dr. Marian Levy is principal investigator for the project.
Another significant award for U of M is the one that’s been received by Dr. William Hunter, an associate professor in the College of Education Instruction and Curriculum Leadership. Hunter received a five-year, $700,000 grant from the Tennessee Department of Education and Vanderbilt University, which is centered around helping K-12 students. In collaboration with faculty at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and Vanderbilt, he’ll provide technical assistance and training to school districts in West Tennessee, as they develop and implement a Response to Intervention (RTI) plan, within a multi-tiered system of support.
The plan will be designed to improve behavior and academic outcomes among K-12 students with behavior and learning needs; and Hunter and his project partners hope that, by the grant’s end, they’ll have prepared leaders in the region to more effectively support these students.
These aren’t the only grants U of M professors have earned recently. Below are examples of other awards given to U of M in March:
- Dr. Mitchell Withers was awarded $702,675 from the U.S. Geological Survey.
- Dr. Tracy Collins was awarded $678,170 from the Health Resources and Services Administration.
- Dr. Thomas Goebel was awarded $619,996 from the National Science Foundation, and $30,000 from the Southern California Earthquake Center with the National Science Foundation.
Grants like these will be important for U of M if it wants to keep its status as an R1 institution.
Once you get it, you must re-earn it every three years, when Carnegie releases the new ranking, and research expenditures are a key part of gaining and retaining the distinction.
It isn’t unheard of for schools to lose R1 status, either. According to The Washington Post, Dartmouth College, Mississippi State University, the University of Alabama at Huntsville, and five others lost R1 status in 2015. While Mississippi State and Dartmouth have since regained it, University of Alabama at Huntsville remains an R2 school.
“There are so many universities that have made this their mission now,” Jasbir Dhaliwal, U of M’s EVP of Research and Innovation, said in December. “The economic benefits of being R1 are tremendous."
