Editor’s Note: In Chancellor Kent Syverud’s inauguration address in April 2014, he listed four goals to improve Syracuse University. This series looks at the status of those four goals, two years after the speech.

Crammed into a room with 30 other scientists, Samantha Usman listened intently to the voices coming over the conference call.

On the other end of the call, hundreds of other Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) researchers were also waiting expectantly in their respective corners of the world. They were about to “open the box” and find out if they had finally detected gravitational waves — proving Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Usman had dedicated three years of her life to the project after Syracuse University professor and LIGO researcher Duncan Brown hired her as an undergraduate researcher on his team. Now, as a senior at SU, her analysis of the data was the topic of discussion.

After months of testing — and 50 years of SU’s investment — the heads of the program announced that Usman’s analysis had indeed detected a gravitational wave.

“This was incredible,” Usman, a physics and math double major, said. “I was so excited, jumping around like a small child with 30 other collaborators in the room, and nobody cared because it was awesome.”

Research-based learning experience for undergraduates — such as Usman’s work with LIGO — is one of the facets of research at SU that Chancellor Kent Syverud has championed in his two years at the helm of the university.

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Syverud has made it clear that empowering research excellence is one of his top priorities. During his inauguration speech — his first public address as SU’s chancellor — he made a point to address research and has since worked to hire research-focused administrators, make key partnerships and develop a culture of appreciation and collaboration in the research sector on campus.

“I care about teaching, but my experience is that a university is more than great teaching, and great teaching requires that a lot of the people in the university be engaged in the discovery of ideas that they’re teaching about,” Syverud said in a recent interview with The Daily Orange.

New provost

One of the chancellor’s most recent — and possibly his most important — steps toward research excellence was hiring Michele Wheatly as SU’s next vice chancellor and provost.

Wheatly has a background in physiology and has done extensive research. She has received continuous funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) over the last 30 years that has totaled $25 million, according to an SU News release.

This background in research will allow Wheatly to more easily understand the needs of researchers in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields and what it is like to deal with institutions like the NSF, said Laura Lautz, an associate professor and researcher at SU.

Lautz is another success story for the research sector at SU. While her focus is in hydrogeology, she and a team of faculty brought in a $3 million grant from NSF in 2015 to implement a graduate student-training program.

The program, called EMPOWER, or “Educational Model Program on Water-Energy Research,” helps train graduates to enter into careers outside of academics. The team at SU won the award during its first year, beating out 252 other proposals to be among the eight funded.

Lautz said Eric Spina, the former vice chancellor and provost, was instrumental in securing this funding. She went to him to explain why the administration’s support of the program was needed and how a financial supplement from the university would allow the program to reach its full potential. Spina was immediately supportive, Lautz said, which gave a significant boost to their proposal.

“The provost’s office is really essential for shaping the research mission of the university,” Lautz said. “And we’ve had an interim provost for a really long time.”

Having an interim vice chancellor and provost has made it difficult to move forward with long-term plans, Lautz said. But she said she is now excited to see what direction Wheatly takes the university and what fields she will prioritize.

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Wheatly said in an interview with The Daily Orange that her next steps are to work with the vice president for research and SU’s academic deans to identify strengths and areas with potential “that are good for Syracuse University across the board.” This is also something Syverud mentioned in his inauguration speech two years ago.

“I think it’s going to be very important at Syracuse to identify which priority areas become differentiators for us because the higher education space is very crowded these days,” Wheatly said.

Partnerships

To overcome the limitations of being one person with many goals, Syverud strengthens his outreach by forming partnerships and alliances, said Karin Ruhlandt, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

“I know he’s very keen on improving the undergraduate experience,” Ruhlandt said. “I know he’s very keen on raising the research profile at the university. And I have exactly the same goals.”

Syverud has overseen the hiring of three major players in research during his time at SU: Wheatly, Ruhlandt and Teresa Dahlberg, dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science. The search for a new vice president for research to replace Peter Vanable, the interim, is underway.

“It’s really exciting,” Vanable said of the new hires. “It generates a lot of enthusiasm on campus and sets the stage for what happens at the department level.”

Syverud has also formed partnerships by reaching out to other institutions.

In January, SU created a $1.5 million equipment proposal for NSF, for which the university had to match 30 percent, Ruhlandt said. To disperse this financial burden of almost $500,000, Syverud helped make connections on and off campus.

While the proposal originated in the College of Arts and Sciences, before long the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry and the State University of New York Upstate Medical University all supported it.

Ruhlandt said Syverud was critical in making these partnerships, which also improved the proposal’s chance of acceptance because it increased the number of people who would benefit from the investment.

“By creating partnerships like that, you strategically enhance the research infrastructure on campus, which benefits the students and the faculty,” Ruhlandt said.

Culture

By putting research high on his agenda, Syverud has also increased its prominence in campus culture, which officials said is important in attracting and keeping high-quality faculty.

Vanable is currently helping to conduct interviews for the associate dean of research in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, and he said officials are talking to high-caliber candidates who are telling them they are excited to come to SU because of the university’s commitment to research.

The chancellor has also worked at recognizing faculty for their achievements, which helps maintain a positive environment for researchers, officials said.

For example, Syverud sent an email to the university community commending the award Lautz’s team received, which she said was “really validating.”

Undergraduate research has also been important part of the research culture under Syverud.

Early on in his tenure, the chancellor helped raise $1 million for the Science Equipment Excellence Fund, which paid for new, state-of-the-art lab equipment for undergraduate teaching labs. Vanable said the fund fulfilled a serious need for undergraduates.

“We have really excellent rates of engagement for students working closely, one-on-one with faculty, really bringing what I would describe as almost a liberal arts experience but with some of the most impressive scientists in the world,” Vanable said in an interview with The Daily Orange.

To provide more undergraduate students — particularly those outside of STEM fields — with opportunities to conduct their own research, the central administration partnered with the Student Association on its undergraduate research stipend program.

SA started the program, which provides undergraduate students who are accepted with a $1,000 stipend to support summer research at SU, in 2015. SA was only able to support seven students out of the 150 that applied during the first year, but a $10,000 contribution from the Office of the Provost and a $5,000 contribution from the Office of Research will help support a total of 25 students during the summer of 2016.

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SA President Aysha Seedat said the program has been “wildly successful” for participants and has taught students that research can be just as valuable as an internship.

Both Seedat and Usman, the undergraduate LIGO researcher, said there still needs to be more funding and support provided for undergraduate researchers. Usman acknowledged the SA program, but said $1,000 was not enough.

“There’s more support for graduate students, and I understand why it’s there, but I think that … for a university that has far more undergrads, there needs to be just as much support for them,” Seedat said.

Leveraging success

Although Syverud has led the university for only two years, major developments have occurred under him, including the discovery of gravitational waves and earning a top tier research ranking on the industry-standard Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

These successes, along with his new hires and partnerships, have bolstered his appearance in the public eye, but officials have said they could not have been achieved without years of research investment that occurred long before he arrived. Syverud said he has plans to build on these successes, though, in his pursuit of research excellence.

On the recent Carnegie ranking, Syverud said: “We’re certainly going to use it to help recruit and retain the best students, faculty and staff here, and it’s something that will be widely recognized as a badge of honor for the university, but we’ve got to keep moving up. Our competitors are going to be competing as well, so we have to keep getting better.”

Published on April 24, 2016 at 10:41 pm

Contact Delaney: dovanwey@syr.edu