Most Recent NRUF Report

[LadyMango]

In light of the recent thread on UTA and Trauth stepping down I thought I'd share how our university is in comparison to our peers.

One update is that recently Alkek joined the ARL. But it doesn't really matter because we already had that category covered via Phi Kappa Phi (?).

As it stands now, both UTSA and TXST are the only R2. All others are R1. I can't find any info on State's progress, but UTSA should be R1 the next round of Carnegie Classification (Dec 2021).

If we cant get to R1 we have no hope of ever hitting NRUF in a timely fashion.

Last I heard UTEP sort of 'gave up' on NRUF. Choosing instead to focus on being El Paso's commuter university. Just a rumor, but power to them for that.

 

[LadyMango]

I really only consider UNT as a good benchmark. The reality is the UT schools have more resources than we have. And until we are reincorporated as UT San Marcos I dont think its a fair comparison.

However, because I hate them, I want to point out that UTSA's research and faculty quality shot up over the last year. If UTEP really is just commited to El Pasos undergraduate population and chooses to not move forward there is no doubt the next NRUF school is going to be UTSA.

If we can't hire high quality folks to get some high quality grants we are going to be left in the dust by even UNT.

Building up reasearch and graduating more pHds seems the way to go. They are part and parcel. After that its a matter of raising freshman matriculation standards and that'll be it.

But im not in academia. Id love to hear an academics take on this report.

 

[codestar]

I really only consider UNT as a good benchmark. The reality is the UT schools have more resources than we have. And until we are reincorporated as UT San Marcos I dont think its a fair comparison.

However, because I hate them, I want to point out that UTSA's research and faculty quality shot up over the last year. If UTEP really is just commited to El Pasos undergraduate population and chooses to not move forward there is no doubt the next NRUF school is going to be UTSA.

If we can't hire high quality folks to get some high quality grants we are going to be left in the dust by even UNT.

Building up reasearch and graduating more pHds seems the way to go. They are part and parcel. After that its a matter of raising freshman matriculation standards and that'll be it.

But im not in academia. Id love to hear an academics take on this report.

I am one of the PhD students we are trying to graduate to get up those NRUF numbers. I can only talk about my experiences in the CS department. I think we should see our PhD graduation numbers increase atleast 5-10 per year from the CS department alone. Last year we graduated our very first PhD since the program was established in 2017. I was part of the 2nd "Cohort". I believe we have something like 25-40 PhD students now. It's kind of hard to keep track. We are admitting about 10 a year but there is nearly a 50% attrition rate in PhD programs. It's also my understanding that the quality of the PhD students being admitted is going up.

I'm fairly certain the quality and quantity of research from the department has improved dramatically with the program. Professors are no longer relying on master students who are out the door before maybe even publishing a single paper, or undergrads who they need to train for a 1-2 and basically teach everything they would know for their degree to be helpful.

I can only imagine it is helpful for funding as well. My advisor was funded with a large NSF grant recently which funds my research in part. We are working on some more. It's tough sledding trying to partner with industry on research projects for the university, but I think the individual success of our students will improve that aspect.

 

[LadyMango]

As predicted UTSA is the most recent addition into the hall of Carnegie Highest Research Doctoral institutions in the State of Texas (colloquially called R1). This makes Texas State the only public R2 (high research) in the state. All other emerging research unis are R1 and all other non emerging research unis are considered Masters colleges (also called regional colleges).

Tbf, out of the current list of emerging research schools, TXST was technically the last one to enter ( meaning we are the "youngest" public research school in TX). So it does make sense we are behind unfortunatly. However Carnegie doesnt reclassify every year, which means we will stay R2 for awhile yet.

Regardless. In Texas what really matters is the NRUF status. We are only 100 mil away from the 400 m endowment threshold. Our freshman classes remain huge, which means a tweak in admissions standards will elevate "freshman quality" pretty easily. Alkek just joined the Association of Research Libraries. So we are trucking along I guess.