By Autumn Shelton, West Virginia Press Association
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Fred King, vice president of research at West Virginia University, spoke before members of the media during the West Virginia Press Association’s annual Legislative Lookahead on Friday, where he discussed the importance of research funding for the university, and said not to panic about a federal funding freeze.
According to King, who is also a professor in the C. Eugene Bennett Department of Chemistry within the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, said that when one talks about West Virginia University, they are speaking about an R1 Land Grant University.
King explained that land grant universities came about following the Civil War, and were designed to help the residents of a state learn about agriculture and mechanics in order to help grow the economy.
“That’s still a very important part of what we at West Virginia University do today,” King said, adding that WVU has an R1 designation from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.
“R1 means you are at the highest level of research productivity,” King continued. “That’s determined, really, by research expenditures and the production of research doctrines.”
WVU has over 300 academic programs and about 5,900 graduate students, King noted.
“Each year, more than 25% of our graduates are graduate students – who are receiving masters or PhD degrees,” King said. “In terms of research productivity, in the most recent year we had $115 million in federal research support.”
The federal grants received by WVU are competitive grants that must be applied for, King continued.
“I think an important part of that, though, is that (federal grants) employ 3,000 FTE people in the Morgantown region,” King said. “These are students, these are postdoctoral fellows, these are technicians, these are the people who, day-to-day, run the research enterprise of the institution.”
In addition to actual research, another important part of having an R1 designation, according to King, is research publication citations.
“Citations are where other researchers name your work as part of what they looked at when they were formulating their own ideas and writing their own papers,” King explained. “So, it’s one thing to have something published, but really it’s the citations that tell you if the work is having an impact.”
Land grant universities have three important missions: teaching, service and research, King continued.
“These things blend together,” King said. “You can’t have any one of these without the other two.”
King explained that WVU graduate students often go on to lead the state in various roles, but in order for that to happen, members of the faculty must be knowledgeable in their field.
“At a research university, the faculty are continuously engaged in their discipline,” King noted. “They are bringing the latest and greatest ideas from the field into the classroom. They know what’s going on in industry. They know what’s important. They know what problems need to be solved, and they share that with the students.”
King said that graduates know about the importance of service and contribution to their local communities, which is a major part of graduating from a land-grant university.
One of those students, Matt Williams, learned about the magnitude of breast cancer disease as an undergrad student while studying how to use breast cancer markers in blood cells, King said.
“Based upon that, he committed himself to a career in cancer research,” King added. “And, to this day, he is pursuing his education moving along that track so that he can better help people who have breast cancer.”
King also named faculty members who are instrumental in research and education at WVU.
Professor Randy Nelson, a leading expert in fundamental neuroscience, was recruited to work at WVU six years ago.
“Randy came, not because it was about the pay, the prestige, it was about the opportunity to serve students – to work very closely with students and to help them become the next generation of neuroscientists,” King stated.
Additionally, WVU faculty includes Maura McLaughlin, who won the prestigious Shaw Prize along with her husband Duncan Lorimer, for the discovery of fast radio bursts, King continued.
“She was one of our first people to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences from West Virginia,” King said. “Maura is an individual who is world-renowned for her work in astrophysics. She has two major accomplishments there: fast radio burst discovery as well as the discovery of low frequency gravitational waves using pulsars.”
Although Maura and her husband are heavily recruited by other universities, the couple remains in West Virginia for their students, King said.
“They came here over 20 years ago and they wanted to do something different,” King added. “We had the Green Bank telescope, they could make use of that, but they wanted to work with the students.”
McLaughlin also started the Pulsar Science Collaboratory while at WVU, which helps K-12 students learn about and search for new pulsars.
“They’ve discovered a couple already,” King said.
King continued that programs, such as astrophysics, energy research, healthcare, robotics, neuroscience, cybersecurity and forensic science, have been conducting research at WVU for years, if not decades.
“We are the number one forensic science program in the country,” King said. “People come from everywhere trying to get into WVU’s forensic science program. We have the Ph.D. program in forensic science. And, so for us, it’s an area of pride.”
In order to ensure that the future of WVU includes the R1 designation, King said that continued research funding is needed.
In addition to the $115 million in federal funding, WVU must provide funding as well.
“Oftentimes, we have to provide cost share to match the federal funds,” King said. “This can be support for students usually, support for laboratory equipment, getting someone’s idea up and going before they can get federal funding.”
According to King, additional funding can come from local nonprofits, foundations, businesses and through state contracts.
Other funding sources include the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation, NASA, the U.S. Department of Education, and the USDA.
“All of our eggs are not in one basket,” King said. “They are distributed, and it really reflects the ability of the university to have a global view in its research enterprise.”
In response to a question about a federal funding freeze from HD Media reporter Mike Tony, King noted that it is important to not panic.
“To date, what we have seen is that, yes, there are a few programs that may have involved DEI that we have had to look at in terms of likely loss of those federal funds, but that’s a small portion of what we do,” King said. “Again, think about it, what we focus on are science, engineering and healthcare. These are goods that are of value to everyone. I do not anticipate that, at the end of the day, the federal government is not going to do anything that hurts these enterprises, because that’s in one one’s best interest.”
“From my perspective, it’s an uncertain time,” King concluded. “I don’t have a crystal ball, I can’t make predictions, but in general I believe things are going to be okay.”
Watch the WVPA Lookahead presentations
King’s presentation from the West Virginia Press Association Legislative Lookahead can be viewed below:
