Finding Research Funding

 

John Walkup. Emeritus
Texas Tech University
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Faculty Commons Staff

Acquiring research funding is one of the most challenging tasks we face as faculty members.  And when you’re untenured, struggling to establish your research credentials and trying to master classroom teaching, it can make you wonder if you’re in the right profession!

I vividly recall my early efforts to obtain research funding.  My Ph.D. advisor had stressed the need to publish in order to establish a reputation.  My department chairman told me to go visit program managers at the funding agencies to let them know I existed and to learn what areas they were currently funding.

With Lots Of Prayer

With lots of prayer, I made those first trips to Washington, D.C.  Some of the program managers were helpful and encouraging.  A few made condescending comments, implying that they only funded the top researchers at elite universities, and that it would be an uphill battle to build a research program in my field at a university without a well established research reputation.  Those early trips, the resulting proposals my colleagues and I wrote, the follow-up phone calls, and the constant waiting all stretched my dependence on the Lord.

After two tries I was awarded an NSF research initiation grant. I had a good MS student who was willing to develop some of my research ideas while contributing his own and spending long hours on the computer. I also became involved with two colleagues whose experimental abilities complemented my own analytical bent and assisted us in developing the experimental lab we needed for our optical systems research.

Through this process I learned a lot about the need to trust God daily while not giving up.  I also learned the truth of the cliché “timing is everything.” Three years after receiving my first grant, one of my colleagues left the university, so I took over supervision of his MS student. 

I submitted an NSF education grant proposal to develop a set of optics experiments for engineering undergraduates.  I also heard that the Air Force research directorate had just hired a program manager who wanted to develop a program in my specialty.  He liked one of our ideas and asked if I could submit a proposal to him within a month.  Naturally I said yes!  My colleague and I found a way to get that proposal submitted. 

God’s Timing Was Perfect

 God’s timing was perfect, and we received both the NSF and Air Force grants.  That summer my first Ph.D. student arrived, one of the best students I was ever privileged to supervise.  We were able to publish eight refereed journal papers based on his Ph.D. research.  Those early grants and the graduate students who worked on them played key roles in my obtaining tenure and a promotion to associate professor.

During my career my colleagues and I had many opportunities to experience God’s faithfulness in providing research funding and some outstanding graduate students. Along the way, I was also able to collaborate closely with several outstanding Christian colleagues. These experiences convinced me that if we desire to put Christ first, He will indeed provide our needs—including those associated with the need to find funding for our research.

I shouldn’t conclude without a word about what we do when the funding doesn’t come in. My current ministry experiences with professors reminds me that finding research funding can be very challenging, and clearly follows cycles.  I know that over the years I definitely had more proposals rejected than accepted.  This can be our lot as academics, whether one is talking research proposals or refereed journal papers. We learn that revising a research proposal or a journal article is really the norm and not cause for despair.  If we, as followers of Christ, have confidence that God brought us to where we are, I believe our best response is still one of praying, trusting Him and moving forward until (or unless) He shows me His Plan B.

 
©  2009 John Walkup

Sending Our Students Out Into The Academy

John Walkup
Electrical Engineering (Emeritus)
Texas Tech University

Where to send our Ph.D. students when they leave the “academic nest” is a challenge.

Recommending that they accept a job at university A, B, or C is a matter for prayer, wise counsel from fellow believers, plus a fair amount of due diligence both by us and our students.

I vividly recall my own job search while finishing my Ph.D. at Stanford. I started by striking out with most of the West Coast universities I wrote to! This was after asking the Lord to show my wife and me where He wanted us to serve.

Wasting My Life

Three weeks later, I responded to a hand-written note deposited in my mailbox one afternoon by the department chairman at Texas Tech University. The rest, as they say, is history.

Before taking the position, one of my Stanford professors asked me if Tech was one of the top 20 EE departments in the nation. When I told him that I thought it had potential, he commented that working at such an unknown institution would be wasting my life.

In the ensuing years I discovered that God really did know what was best. My students and I were able to produce high quality research by working closely with a team of professors, several of which were fellow believers.  Some of my students went on to academic positions at universities more prestigious than my own.

I worked at a university where I could enjoy both a distinguished career and some balance in my life. I had time to be with my family and to have a ministry on campus and in my church.  Several times I turned down offers of full professorships at more prestigious universities because either it would have been bad timing for one of our children or I knew that realistically I would not have been able to take my team of researchers with me.

Pressures On The Academic Ladder

Over the years I have had many opportunities to observe the differences in the pressure levels at various places on the academic ladder. I experienced this in my own career, but it is even more apparent now I work with professors at universities in the San Francisco Bay area as a faculty representative with CLM.

Frankly, at the top 10 to 20 universities, the pressure to produce considerable quantities of top quality research (and, in many fields, the extramural funding required to finance that research) can be incredible. Some of these pressures can make one’s years in graduate school look like child’s play.

I share these things because I firmly believe that there are some distorted theories circulating out there as to where we should be sending our Ph.D. graduates.  Many times in my career I saw that if I was willing to put Christ first and really seek Him, the “other things” in life were taken care of, just as the Bible says.   Like all of God’s other promises, that’s one we can “take to the bank”!

My suggested summer reading list:

1. Schaefer, Henry F. “Science and Christianity: Conflict or Coherence” [The Apollos Trust]

2. C.P. Snow, “The Masters”  [House of Stratus] — One of his best; relates to ego clashes and politics in the English university.

3. John Piper, “Don’t Waste Your Life” [Crossway Books]

 
©    2007  John Walkup  Used by permission of Faculty Commons

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